ERM

Turning leading expertise into powerful digital products

ERM had spent decades building one of the world’s deepest pools of sustainability expertise: more than 5,500 people across 40 countries, solving complex problems for some of the world’s biggest organisations.

Energy Extend
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REAL PROGRESS
3 digital products launched in the first year
real revenue
More than $1m generated by ESG Fusion in its first six months
Built to last
A repeatable model and capability for finding, validating and developing new products

ERM had spent decades building one of the world’s deepest pools of sustainability expertise: more than 5,500 people across 40 countries, solving complex problems for some of the world’s biggest organisations.

The market was moving quickly. Margins were tightening and new competitors were beginning to turn parts of traditional consulting work into scalable digital offers. ERM had an opportunity to use its expertise in the same way, but it needed to know where to place its bets.

We joined forces with ERM’s brilliant innovation task force to create a faster, more evidence-led way to find those opportunities and turn the strongest ones into successful products.

Finding the ideas worth backing

Good ideas existed right across ERM. That was part of the challenge.

Without a consistent way to compare them, investment could easily follow the idea with the most enthusiastic supporter rather than the strongest commercial potential.

Together, we established ERM’s first Innovation Incubator. It brought customer insight from across the business into one place, added external market evidence and evaluated every opportunity consistently.

That mattered because it gave the team a shared, objective way to decide what should move forward, what needed more work and what should stop before significant time and money were committed.

Creating something genuinely new

The aim wasn’t to put existing consulting services into a cheaper digital wrapper. The products had to create new value for customers, extend the reach of ERM’s expertise and open up new sources of revenue.

The Incubator created a practical route from early opportunity through validation and into development. We could test the customer need, strengthen the commercial case and give the most promising ideas the support they needed to become real products.

In its first cycle, three products made it through to launch: ESG Fusion, Emissions AI and Mine Assure. While the commercial validation of a regulatory intelligence platform led to the acquisition of Libryo – a growing startup with an established product.

Building the capability to keep building

Following the first successful end-to-end launch, we actively designed ourselves out of the work, leaving the capable ERM team to continue to run things.  The business had a consistent way to find opportunities, test them and make better decisions about where digital investment should go.

Innovation was becoming less of an occasional side-initiative and more of a repeatable capability, giving ERM a practical way to keep turning its expertise into new products, new value and new revenue.

“Active Matter became like a Sherpa for our vision. We knew the destination and they were a true partner in helping us get there - navigating many complexities and bringing a process and expertise that created real working products, not just more strategy content. They have been the perfect partner for this initiative.”
Samir Menon, Global Managing Partner - Innovation Incubator — ERM

Next case

Catalysing customer-centric growth with a global insurer

The Workshop
Assay Studios
141 Newhall Street
Birmingham B3 1SF

Collaborate with us

Progress happens when great minds meet. We’re building a network of specialists who bring experience, energy and imagination to every stage of the work. If you could kindly fill out all the fields below, we’ll be in touch when there’s a project that feels like the right fit.

We’d love to hear about your experience and what you do best, what kind of projects you’re drawn to, or how you like to collaborate.

Thank you!

Someone will be in touch soon.

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