Harbor Research provides growth strategy consulting and venture development advisory services to leading manufacturers, service providers and technology developers to discover, design and develop Smart Systems and Internet of Things growth opportunities.
“Harbor Research coined the term “Smart Systems” to describe the emergence of a new generation of complex adaptive systems that are trying to break away from traditional computing and telecom paradigms. As the cyber-physical world continues to dovetail with IoT, machine learning and artificial intelligence, Smart Systems will enable unimagined capabilities for both the B2B and B2C worlds.”
– Glen Allmendinger, Founder & President, Harbor Research
SMART SYSTEMS ARE RESHAPING MARKETS & INDUSTRIES
Smart Systems are disrupting a wide range of domains driving new growth opportunities and creating a foundation for reinventing solutions, companies, markets and industries. Where will your organization gain the most from new innovations and business models?
Explore how Smart Systems are impacting specific domains:
HOW WE HELP CLIENTS
EXPLOIT EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES
What unrealized innovation opportunities are available to leverage with our customers?
VALIDATE GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES
Which value elements in which segments will give us a sustainable advantage?
DESIGN GO-TO-MARKET ECOSYSTEMS
Which partners, alliances and relationships will drive competitive differentiation?
DESIGN NEW SYSTEMS & SOLUTIONS
How can we create new and novel customer experiences and business models?
DEVELOP NEW GROWTH VENTURES
How can we move beyond our traditional culture to drive innovation and growth?
SELECTED CLIENTS
HARBOR’S THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
THE BENEFITS OF WORKING WITH US
EXPERTISE
We have a unique perspective on the core technologies, market opportunities, business characteristics and organizational challenges honed by over thirty years consulting and analyzing the Smart Systems and IoT arena.
FLEXIBILITY
Our agile teams tailor projects to your specific needs and we carefully align our team members with the deepest domain expertise to fit your project, emphasizing senior staff involvement and transparency.
COMMUNITY
Our vast community brings together diverse expertise, including design, strategy, technology development, human sciences and more to help our clients push the boundaries of collaboration and build key partnerships.
VALUE
Harbor’s consulting work is designed to minimize the scale, complexity and cost of projects and—far more importantly—to reduce the time to implement meaningful actions and drive execution.
SMART SYSTEMS DESIGN CORE PRINCIPLES
Catalytic combinations of technologies drive differentiation
Core technologies are reinforcing and accelerating one another multiplying their impact. Organizations can deliberately organize creative combinations of innovation to drive new value.
Think about opportunities as systems, not products
Innovators like Thomas Edison and Steve Jobs understood product innovation as well as also the business systems that created entire industries. Organizations need to look beyond their products and imagine entirely new experiences and marketplaces.
Strange bedfellows enable creativity and innovation
Organizations need to reach beyond their comfort zone to include diverse new viewpoints – what we like to call “strange bedfellows” – the users, customers and partners that bring new perspectives to drive creativity.
The era of flying solo is over – it’s all about ecosystems now
We’re witnessing the end of “command-and-control” partnering strategies. New Smart Systems solutions are setting the stage for visionary companies to step into the role of “system orchestrators” to facilitate open collaboration.
Creative contention drives business design
The technology architecture to realize new customer experiences and the business architecture that supports it must be mutually supportive. The relationship between these dimensions drives contention but is fertile ground for innovation.
We all need to think and act differently
Organizations have many rules and policies that are often disconnected – a triumph of technique over value. Companies need to resist Byzantine processes that allow good ideas to fade too quickly.
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