The report, titled Bridging the Research-Innovation Gap, describes eleven factors that determine executives’ effectiveness in leading their companies from the mountains of customer information they collect to innovation pay dirt. It provides ways for managers at all levels to diagnose innovation challenges and implement solutions.

The report comes in the midst of an economic crisis that has raised public skepticism of many company executives. U.S. taxpayers are on the hook for trillions of dollars in bailouts to companies that, among other faults, have failed to innovate products customers want. GM’s former CEO, Rick Wagoner, was ousted by an Obama administration calling for more accountability.

Whyze Group president, Jason M. Sherman, says, “This report gives U.S. managers, investors and employees the tools to recognize barriers to innovation in organizations and respond accordingly.”

Sherman adds, “It’s in our collective interest to assure that everyone who depends on the continued prosperity of the United States participate in making us more innovative and competitive. This report is a primer for those who will make that happen.”

‘Bridging the Research-Innovation Gap’ is the culmination of eight years of analysis of Fortune 500 companies. Whyze Group audited hundreds of strategy documents and conducted thousands of interviews with executives, employees and customers. The report integrates data from the U.S. Commerce Department and observations from thought leaders at top business schools.

The report includes an analysis of how management teams waste billions of dollars on market research each year. Companies use only half of the customer information they acquire. Some customer information is misapplied.

As a result, there is little association between how much companies spend on research and their relative financial performance. Company performance is influenced more by how effectively managers apply what they learn.

‘Bridging the Research-Innovation Gap’ identifies eleven factors that determine how effectively managers apply what they learn. One example is the degree to which executives carve out fiefdoms to the detriment of their organizations. In some companies, managers try to manipulate information for their own personal gain. In others, executives openly share information and work in ways that are more aligned with the interests of customers, employees and shareholders.

Other factors that determine how companies apply what they learn are management teams’ abilities to
-   Correctly identify their own blind spots
-   Stimulate innovation among employees
-   Identify and champion the most promising ideas

The report describes seven additional factors that determine companies’ abilities to bridge the research-innovation gap. Descriptions of each factor are followed by strategies executives can use to make their companies more innovative.

About Whyze Group:
Whyze Group, founded in 2001, is a leading research and innovation management consulting firm that works with executives at Fortune 1000 companies. The company provides management belief audits, customer research, innovation planning, executive facilitation and training.

Contact:
Please direct inquiries to Jason M. Sherman, (440) 785-0547 or email, jason (at) whyzegroup (dot) com.
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“We’re honored to have worked as a catalyst for innovation with these two great organizations,” explains Whyze Group’s president, Jason M. Sherman. Whyze Group deployed nearly its full complement of customer experience research and innovation design services over the course of the eighteen month timeframe.  The financial services division asked Whyze Group to repeat its success with them after Whyze Group’s initial nine month engagement with the property and casualty side of the business.

Whyze Group facilitates management teams’ discoveries and innovations of new customer experiences. Whyze Group applies a reliable and powerful approach, integrating deep customer experience insight, strategic innovation frameworks and executive alignment workshops to guide managers toward innovation breakthroughs. Clients include Rubbermaid, Zales, Nationwide Insurance, Grainger, ING, Humana, Dominion Power, Key Bank and nGenera.

The objective of the sessions is to engage customers more productively in new product innovation efforts and standardize product innovation process that can be applied across Rubbermaid companies.

“We’re proud to be recognized by Publicis and Rubbermaid as a valued partner in developing innovation processes that are reliable and successful,” says Jason M. Sherman, president of Whyze Group.

Whyze Group facilitates management teams’ discoveries and innovations of new customer experiences. Whyze Group applies a reliable and powerful approach, integrating deep customer experience insight, strategic innovation frameworks and executive alignment workshops to guide managers toward innovation breakthroughs. Clients include Rubbermaid, Zales, Nationwide Insurance, Grainger, ING, Humana, Dominion Power, Key Bank and nGenera.

Cleveland, OH, October 28, 2005–Whyze Group, the leading customer experience research and innovation firm in the U.S., has opened an office in Cleveland, Ohio. The firm serves clients throughout North America.  It will continue to maintain a correspondence office in Atlanta.

Whyze Group president, Jason M. Sherman, cites several reasons for choosing Cleveland as a new location for the firm.  He says that high quality of life, low costs, proximity to top universities and easy airline access to clients nationally figured into the decision.

“Cleveland is an undiscovered gem for most people in this country”, Sherman explains. “Cleveland offers everything that most larger metro areas offer, but without the hassles or the costs. There are four-season recreational opportunities, a vibrant multi-cultural community, a world-class orchestra and some of the nation’s finest hospitals all right here.”

Sherman also embraces Northeastern Ohioans, who he describes as hard-working, earnest and embodying Midwest sensibilities. 

Whyze Group facilitates management teams’ discoveries and innovations of new customer experiences. Whyze Group applies a reliable and powerful approach, integrating deep customer experience insight, strategic innovation frameworks and executive alignment workshops to guide managers toward innovation breakthroughs. Clients include Rubbermaid, Zales, Nationwide Insurance, Grainger, ING, Humana, Dominion Power, Key Bank and nGenera.

Atlanta, GA, December 10, 2004—Jason M. Sherman will share his perspectives on why half of all CRM systems fail to meet company objectives at a meeting of the Association of Information Technology Professionals on January 20 in Atlanta.

Sherman is president of Whyze Group, a customer experience research and design firm in Atlanta.  He has worked closely with CRM consultants and sees some potential blindspots among CRM providers and clients.  

“Customer relationship management has come to mean technology to most companies, but it’s really about fostering authentic relationships between buyers and sellers,” Sherman explains.  In his view, CRM technology is an enabler of the policies and practices companies follow to manage customer relationships.  Without continually assessing and updating these policies to assure that customers’ needs are met, some CRM systems do little more than streamline the delivery of mediocre customer experiences. 

Whyze Group facilitates management teams’ discoveries and innovations of new customer experiences. Whyze Group applies a reliable and powerful approach, integrating deep customer experience insight, strategic innovation frameworks and executive alignment workshops to guide managers toward innovation breakthroughs. Clients include Rubbermaid, Zales, Nationwide Insurance, Grainger, ING, Humana, Dominion Power, Key Bank and nGenera.

Atlanta, GA, June 10, 2004—Whyze Group will host two Emory University undergraduate students in Whyze Group’s summer internship program.  Cameron Pimm, a business major and Alexandra Capell, a journalism major, will spend this summer honing their business skills and gaining valuable experience.

“It’s personally rewarding to give these two gifted students a leg up in practical experience and in broadening their skills,” explains Jason M. Sherman, president of Whyze Group.

Mr. Sherman’s college career included two internships in New York.  He is proud to be in a position to give something back to the community and in particular to assure that young professionals who have talent and ambition are given opportunities to begin productive careers.

Whyze Group facilitates management teams’ discoveries and innovations of new customer experiences. Whyze Group applies a reliable and powerful approach, integrating deep customer experience insight, strategic innovation frameworks and executive alignment workshops to guide managers toward innovation breakthroughs. Clients include Rubbermaid, Zales, Nationwide Insurance, Grainger, ING, Humana, Dominion Power, Key Bank and nGenera.

Atlanta, GA, August 3, 2003—Whyze Group will present a workshop entitled, “Influencing Organizational Change with Market Intelligence” at the American Marketing Association’s national conference in Chicago on October 27-30, 2003. This workshop is part of a series produced by Whyze Group about how effective change agents use customer intelligence in innovation.

The workshop is designed to increase marketers’ effectiveness in addressing the challenges that change agents face in large company innovation efforts.

“Marketers have traditionally received high marks for creativity among CEOs, but not done as well in getting their organizations to commercialize innovations that matter to customers,” according to Jason M. Sherman, Whyze Group’s president.

The workshop will show how successful change agents merge customer intelligence with change management initiatives to advance the case for innovation in their companies.  Frameworks for integrating strategic intelligence, financial analysis, business process redesign and change management will be presented with case studies describing the results achieved when these frameworks are applied.

Workshop attendees will be mid-and senior level marketers and researchers in the U.S.  Workshops led by Whyze Group received among the highest marks at recent AMA conferences.

The conference will be held at the McDonalds Corporate Campus in Oakbrook.  Prospective attendees should go to marketingpower.com to register.

Whyze Group facilitates management teams’ discoveries and innovations of new customer experiences. Whyze Group applies a reliable and powerful approach, integrating deep customer experience insight, strategic innovation frameworks and executive alignment workshops to guide managers toward innovation breakthroughs. Clients include Rubbermaid, Zales, Nationwide Insurance, Grainger, ING, Humana, Dominion Power, Key Bank and nGenera.

Atlanta, GA, March 10, 2003—Wayne Farms, LLC, one of the nation’s largest poultry producers, recently completed a collaboration with Whyze Group and Customer Innovations to strengthen its business-to-business relationships. Wayne Farms was looking for ways to add value and differentiate its offering among partners.  Wayne Farms partners include Campbell’s, Nestle and other national restaurant, retail, and food service accounts.

The collaboration resulted in a plan to implement several significant changes to Wayne Farm’s business-to-business partnering processes.  Whyze Group modeled some of the recommended changes from Malcolm Baldrige winners that integrate closely with their partners.

Wayne Farms is a billion dollar producer of fresh and further processed poultry and protein products.   Customer Innovations, LLC is an Atlanta-based customer experience consultancy and a Whyze Group partner firm.

Whyze Group facilitates management teams’ discoveries and innovations of new customer experiences. Whyze Group applies a reliable and powerful approach, integrating deep customer experience insight, strategic innovation frameworks and executive alignment workshops to guide managers toward innovation breakthroughs. Clients include Rubbermaid, Zales, Nationwide Insurance, Grainger, ING, Humana, Dominion Power, Key Bank and nGenera.

Atlanta, GA, March 2, 2003—Whyze Group president, Jason M. Sherman, will deliver a half-day workshop titled “Marketing Research Foundations of Strategy and Innovation” at the American Marketing Association workshop in May. The workshop will be held at La Mansion Del Rio, San Antonio, Texas.

The American Marketing Association asked Whyze Group to present the workshop after learning of the company’s pioneering work in the field of organizational intelligence and innovation.   Whyze Group helps Fortune 500 management teams use marketing research and other market inputs to innovate new products and customer experiences. 

Whyze Group facilitates management teams’ discoveries and innovations of new customer experiences. Whyze Group applies a reliable and powerful approach, integrating deep customer experience insight, strategic innovation frameworks and executive alignment workshops to guide managers toward innovation breakthroughs. Clients include Rubbermaid, Zales, Nationwide Insurance, Grainger, ING, Humana, Dominion Power, Key Bank and nGenera.

Atlanta, GA, August 5, 2002—Whyze Group recently wrapped up a six-month effort to attract and retain more independent financial advisors at Securities America, an Omaha-based American Express company.Securities America sells various investment instruments through a network in independent financial advisors located throughout the United States.

Whyze Group’s partner on the project was Customer Innovations, a customer experience management consultancy based in Atlanta.  Whyze Group’s role included performing a broker experience management audit with company managers and filling critical gaps in management’s understanding of key issues among its independent broker channels.  

This set the table for a focused set of initiatives that the company is implementing.  These include improvements to broker recruitment, contracting, account migration, trade execution and on-going maintenance processes.   

Whyze Group facilitates management teams’ discoveries and innovations of new customer experiences. Whyze Group applies a reliable and powerful approach, integrating deep customer experience insight, strategic innovation frameworks and executive alignment workshops to guide managers toward innovation breakthroughs. Clients include Rubbermaid, Zales, Nationwide Insurance, Grainger, ING, Humana, Dominion Power, Key Bank and nGenera.