Smallfry Strategic Industrial Design

A strategy led design innovation consultancy based in Coventry in the heart of the West Midlands. Operating globally, we offer research, innovation strategy, marketing, industrial design, engineering, and 50 years of experience to deliver market leading products and services across the consumer, industrial, FMCG and medical sectors.

Our methods are informed by a deep understanding of the needs, desires, and drivers of people. The customers, consumers, patients, or those who make their organisations work. Our aim is to really make a difference to people’s lives.

To put people’s needs at the forefront of the design process.

We transform the seed of a good idea into a great product or service.

Design doesn’t distinguish between the digital and three-dimensional space and neither do we. Whether you need straightforward industrial design, service development through to full strategy support or perhaps even a whole new way of thinking, we can work with you. If you are looking for a complete product development solution, our conception-to-commercialisation service is perfect. It will help you identify and exploit market opportunities whilst accessing design, manufacturing, and marketing expertise.

As a team we focus on developing meaningful innovation strategies. We love to create original product propositions and ideas that cast aside the plain, bland and mediocrity.

Ideas that add real value to your business and drive consistent and sustainable growth. We do this by balancing the creative, commercial, and technical aspects of product development to produce a well-rounded outcome that is unique to the YOU, the client.

We blend analytical and creative thinking to successfully solve any brief or problem, helping you exploit market opportunities, drive sales, and transform your business from its current self to its future self. We do our research. We watch and listen.

We dig deep to understand the drivers that will engage an emotional connection and gather detailed customer insights so we can focus on giving people what they want. We first explore the problem, assess the potential, and then craft the design and strategy to make it commercially real.

With any new development process (NPD), it is essential to understand the market context, define the competitor landscape, and build a clear understanding of the industry. Human centred design tools are utilised in conjunction with strategic thinking and constant validation to make absolutely sure the end user is at the heart of the solution. The aim is to always produce meaningful, worthwhile outcomes that translate into successful products and services.

Successful innovation that delivers impact requires vision and a clear strategy. There is no guidebook or roadmap to follow, and chances are, it will get uncomfortable, challenging, and easy to lose your way.

This is where coaching and guidance can help.

At Smallfry we specialise in working with management teams who wish to move beyond incremental development and achieve transformational change – bridging strategy, innovation, customer experience and employee engagement to deliver tangible outcomes. Our innovation process rapidly identifies which ideas should be developed, helping formulate a strategy for realisation and enables organisations foster a culture of innovation for significant future growth.

By using a collaborative approach, we help develop a pipeline of ideas which are which are strategically aligned to your business and vision for future success.

Our systemic and repeatable process guarantees:

– Team alignment and buy-in to strategic business objectives

– Consistent and transparent idea evaluation with quantified creativity

– Building new sustainable growth plans exploiting fresh perspectives

– Instil enthusiasm and passion while encouraging entrepreneurial behaviour

– Maximise return on innovation outcomes

Smallfry takes pride in having a diverse, user-focused innovation team of industrial and product designers, mechanical engineers and software engineers, technicians, strategists, human centred designers, marketeers and problem solvers, with each individual bringing something different and unique to the group, whilst all being creative, pragmatic, focused and driven to achieve the best for our customers desires.

We take an idea, or conceive a new one, explore its potential and then make it commercially real – whether that is a new product or service, a new strategy, or a whole new way of thinking.

We’ve used this approach for almost 50 years, with numerous success stories proving its value, including:

– Created a transformational product range which delivered £500m in incremental sales

– Smashed first year sales target of 800k by achieving 6m units sold within 12 months

– Grew a static category 600% without any PR or marketing support – purely by in-store impulse impact.