We help FMCG innovation leaders make sharper choices, improve innovation performance and turn promising opportunities into commercially strong propositions.
Mangrove is an innovation consultancy built on a simple belief: most businesses don't need more ideas. They need to make better choices about which ideas to back, develop them properly and create the conditions for them to succeed.
of new products ultimately fail in market.
MIT Professional Education
Most businesses don't struggle to generate innovation activity, the greater challenge is converting this activity into commercial success.
That means being clearer about where to play, making tougher choices about what deserves investment, developing propositions that can stand up commercially and having an innovation model that helps the strongest opportunities progress.
That's where we tend to work.
We help innovation leaders work out what's getting in the way, focus effort on the things that will make the biggest difference and ultimately get more value from their ideas, investment, innovation models and pipelines.
Innovation has changed a lot over the years. First came the age of ideas, with a focus on creativity, brainstorming and generating more concepts. Then came the age of process, as businesses introduced stage gates, governance and more rigorous ways of managing innovation.
More recently, the focus has shifted to the age of speed - faster testing, MVPs and, helped increasingly by the use of AI to accelerate different parts of the innovation process. All of those things have helped. But they don't answer the question senior leaders increasingly care about today:
"What are we actually getting back from our innovation investment?"
We think the next challenge for innovation is performance
A more commercial and accountable approach, more like the approach taken in other parts of business. Better choices about where to put time and money. Fewer projects being progressed simply because they are already in the system or personal pet favourites. Stronger propositions. Better decisions. And greater focus on what happens in market, not just getting something to launch.
We call this Performance Innovation
It isn't about taking the creativity out of innovation but it is about making sure creativity has the best possible chance of creating value.
Usually, the problem isn't where you think it is.
A slow process may actually be a strategy problem. A weak pipeline may be an existing portfolio problem. Poor decisions may come from using the wrong measures of success.
The important thing is to understand what is actually holding performance back, rather than fixing the most visible symptom.
Often because resource is being spread across too many things.
Projects live too long. Weak opportunities continue to absorb time and money - often meaning stronger opportunities do not always get the backing they deserve.
It's about being more deliberate about where you put your resource, not just cutting costs.
The biggest opportunity on paper is not always the right opportunity for your business.
The strongest opportunities tend to combine a real consumer need, a credible role for the brand, commercial potential and a realistic chance of winning.
The difficult bit is making the choices - and key to success is a strong corporate strategy to help guide a decision.
Sometimes the opportunity is good, but the proposition is not strong enough.
It might lack a compelling consumer reason to choose it, a clear role for the brand or the commercial fundamentals needed to make it work at scale.
A proposition has to survive the realities of the market, not just test well.
Innovation
Innovation Performance & ROI
Get more out of your Innovation Engine
When innovation isn't delivering enough commercial return, adding more projects rarely fixes the problem.
We help leaders look at the whole innovation engine - from strategy and portfolio choices through to process, governance, capability and ways of working.
It isn't about ripping everything up and starting again. Our job is to work out where performance is really being lost and what small interventions will make the biggest difference.
Innovation
Innovation Opportunities
Find the opportunities worth backing
Not every opportunity deserves investment. Good innovation strategy isn't just about finding opportunities, it's also about having the confidence to say 'no'.
We help teams identify and prioritise the most promising areas for future innovation by integrating consumer needs & trends, brand alignment, commercial potential, the competitive context and future growth potential.
Our job is to give teams a clearer view of where innovation can genuinely create value - and where it probably won't.
Innovation
Propositions & Commercialisation
Turn opportunity into something people will buy
A promising opportunity is only valuable if you can turn it into a proposition that works in the real world.
We help teams develop clear, creative and commercially grounded propositions that can be tested, sold in, launched, and ultimately, nurtured to scale in market.
That means taking a 360 degree approach to designing propositions, bringing the commercial and creative execution questions in early; is it genuinely different? Is the prize big enough? Can we make it work? Will customers support it? What will it take to succeed in market? Too often, these questions come too late.
This enables teams to make informed decisions earlier and proceed with greater confidence.
Innovation is where Mangrove started and remains our centre of gravity
For more than 25 years, we've worked with senior teams on innovation, brand and growth challenges - often where the question is important, messy and doesn't fit neatly into one box.
We have worked across innovation strategy, operating models, portfolios, opportunity identification, proposition development and commercialisation.
We have also built businesses ourselves
That matters to us. There is a difference between giving advice and being accountable for the commercial consequences of a decision.
1
Senior people do the work
We're a small, experienced team. Our projects are led and delivered by senior practitioners.
2
Commercial and innovation expertise in one place
Innovation can be exciting. It also has to pay its way. We bring together the art and science of innovation - creative thinking, consumer understanding and fresh ideas, alongside the strategic, commercial and operational discipline needed to make them work.
3
Operators, not just advisers
We've built businesses ourselves. That makes us more interested in whether something will actually succeed not just whether it looks cool on a slide.
4
Candour over comfort
Sometimes the most useful thing an outside partner can do is ask the difficult questions, challenge assumptions and try to get to those choices quickly.
Often, that means being clear about what not to do - stopping work that is unlikely to create enough value, saving significant time and money, and freeing people to focus on the things that matter most.
5
Collaborative and pragmatic
We don't arrive with a fixed answer or a heavyweight process.
We work with the people who know the business, focus on the things that matter and leave teams with something they can actually use.
In-market failure rates for innovation have sat between 80% and 95% for three decades, largely untouched by the money and resource businesses have thrown at the discipline. In our experience, the problem is rarely the ideas. It’s almost always the system managing them.
Innovation failure rates have sat between 80% and 95% for three decades, largely untouched by the money and resource thrown at the discipline. For innovation to survive the existential threat it currently faces, it must front up to the performance challenge.
When competitors attack, planning a coherent response in the heat of the moment is always harder than it looks. Drawing on three very different competitive challenges from recent client work, Justin Wright explores the strategic choices available – and why the best time to plan your response is before the threat arrives.
Thinking ‘outside the box’ is overrated. In our experience, there is always a box in which you need to operate – and being consciously constrained can be a powerful positive for innovation teams. Justin Wright makes the case for restricted innovation.
If your innovation engine isn't delivering the performance you need, or you're trying to work out where the next meaningful growth opportunities will come from, we'd be happy to chat further.
