From Research to Innovation, How to Create Value for an IT Consulting and Engineering Service Firm through its Internal Research Activities

IT consulting and engineering firms generally develop strategic knowledge for their clients based on their own competences in various business methods and processes. Knowledge and competences can be improved through collaborative research projects and further leveraged for their own strategic development. The aim of this paper is to build and experiment an organizational management tool within a consulting firm. The tool allows the creation of value and differentiation levers on the competitive market of research and innovation consultancy and illustrates how to benefit from internal research activities that can be viewed as intangible resources. In light of competence-based theory this work shows how strategic knowledge developed on an emerging field such as e-health can be rearranged into strategic processes in order to inspire a proactive strategic vision within a consulting firm.