Our team members have worked closely with thousands of small businesses, helping them to grow. We have learned the goals and key processes of numerous industries, their challenges, budgets and what they need to be successful.

But what makes us unique is that our roots are in consulting from within Fortune 500 companies, so we also understand how big business operates, the challenges of dispersed teams, multi-layer approval requirements and the disciplines of the system development life cycle, TQM, LEAN, project management and others. In targeting the SMB market you are trying to be nimble because you know that every day other SMBs are launching or changing direction to provide lower priced products and services that nibble away at your market share. But yet your internal processes often stifle innovation. We get it, and we can help.

Our business innovation strategy consulting for our corporate clients includes the following steps:

• Goal Setting – identification of the problem we are trying to solve.
• Data Gathering – key market statistics, interviews and observations including current customers, target customers and employees.
• Persona Development – profiles of target personas for whom we are trying to solve the problem.
• Idea Generation – facilitated brainstorming of how we might solve the specific problems of the target personas, as it relates to the overall problem established during goal setting.
• Solution Prototyping – facilitated development of process steps (in the case of a services solution), use case storyboards (in the case of a software application), or design mock ups (in the case of a physical product).
• Solution Validation – here we “take it to the streets”, so to speak.  Prototypes are reviewed by interview participants for feedback.
• Solution Iteration and Selection – Feedback is incorporated into solution iterations and re-validated until the target personas give it a thumbs up.

• Does my software application meet the needs of my target customers?
• Is my product or service competitive in terms of price and features?
• I want to launch a new business unit but what would be a good market niche?
• Are there additional features I should add to my product or service to deliver better value?
• How are customers really using my product or service?  How well are we meeting their needs?
• Is my development team really thinking outside the box or are they constrained by thinking ahead to implementation?
• Why am I losing market share?

Diane Moura, BCom., MBA
Executive Partner

Diane is a passionate executive business consultant with 30 years of business and financial management experience from Corporate America to Small Business in the U.S., Canada, England, Australia and Latin America. She has expertise in marketing, corporate planning, product management, CRM, sales, operations, customer service, credit and collections. A thought leader with the versatility to set a compelling organizational vision and align with performers at all levels to guide execution, she moves easily from high level strategy to operational details. She is an expert facilitator able to bridge the communication gap between diverse groups to ensure clarity and consensus and has personally facilitated over 100 workshops. She has a proven track record in financial and cultural turnarounds and has successfully led sales teams to close high 8 figure deals. She has managed teams up to 300 people and budgets to $20 million. Diane speaks English, French and Portuguese.