Advisory, Research, Education + Strategy

Brian helps business leaders and disruptors develop the insights and courage needed to thrive in an era of digital Darwinism.

Brian Solis is a veteran adviser to global brands, technology vendors, startups and boards. His research-based work has helped companies build cultures of innovation, lead digital transformation initiatives, design market-leading customer experiences, and cultivate new markets. Whether it’s B2B, B2C or B2B2C or retail, industrial, tech, automotive, travel, beauty, fashion, CPG, QSR, financial, pharma, health, you name it, Brian has navigated the difficulties you’re facing today. He’s here to help you. It’s honestly what inspires his work.

His experienced, but also personable and inspirational, approach helps executives, stakeholders founders and directors:

Create alignment across teams
Accelerate short-and-long term innovation and transformation roadmaps
Identify gaps in strategy and execution
Inspire teams and workforces to unite behind innovation and transformation
Research markets and areas of opportunity

Outside expert perspectives can help validate or direct existing ideas and programs. They can also shed light on critical areas missing from current strategies and roadmaps. Brian is completely plugged into key trends, market players and best practices to help you fast-track toward your goals.

Brian works with companies of all sizes and areas of focus to advise executives and stakeholders on the following advisory programs:

State and direction of CX strategies
Digital transformation and innovation ideas and programs
New areas of research
Business and operational models
Partnerships and acquisitions
Customer and market trends
Go-to-market programs
Assessment of the state and future of disruptive technologies
Digital best-practices

These programs can be customized for each engagement whether that’s based on an hourly, credit or project basis.

Internal-Facing Research: Markets evolve, customer expectations and preferences shift, and competitors transform while new competitors come out of the blue. Brian can help lead customized market research studies that make the case for change or validate existing ideas. His research process and output visualize and communicate compelling opportunities to inspire executive leadership to blaze new trails. He partners with stakeholders to understand goals, identify challenges and opportunities and present key findings that align the team in a unified direction.

External-Facing Research: Brian also conducts custom research and develops original, co-branded thought leadership content. These press worthy artifacts aim to capture the state and future of relevant trends and productively influence market direction. They’re most often published as studies, papers, infographics, and presentations and have been proven to provide value to readers and their ecosystems, earn press attention and establish unique competitive advantages.

Sometimes expert engagement can help facilitate different perspectives and conversations that can breathe new life into your efforts. For example, is your CX, Brand, Innovation, Digital Transformation or Culture/EX program on the right path? As Brian has learned in his work over the years, oftentimes, companies get so caught up in existing norms and mindsets that their strategies and roadmaps become iterative rather than externally innovative. This limits their effectiveness and ultimately, the potential returns of these investments. To help, Brian can conduct rapid audits of current initiatives, interview stakeholders, and explore outside market trends. He then assembles his findings and presents them to stakeholders and executives to create alignment and help unify plans to move forward strategically.

Brian is a highly rated keynote speaker at conferences and festivals around the world. But sometimes, his ideas and experiences need to reach people who rarely have the time to attend events. If key executives, stakeholders and partners can’t make it to Brian’s events, Brian will bring the message to them. He has customized and delivered presentations for a variety of internal-facing and also partner-focused events to shed light on new trends and inspire teams to think differently about their perspectives and work. These presentations can be delivered as keynotes, more pragmatic workshops and also roundtables and Q&A’s.

Brian Solis documented the industry’s first Digital Transformation and Innovation maturity models that captured the paths organizations take to evolve and also how they evolve. In the cases where a model or assessment score doesn’t fix all of your problems, Brian effectively partners with innovation and/or digital transformation stakeholders to assess the state of the state. In doing so, he uncovers the unique dynamics of the team, the challenges with existing models, technologies, personnel and roadmaps, and offers paths forward to organize and accelerate change and progress.

Silicon Valley is still the flashpoint of innovation and the ecosystems that produced some of the world’s most disruptive companies. The spirit of entrepreneurialism, imagination and the unique ability to turn possibilities into reality is still alive and well here.

Brian is based in Silicon Valley, so he’s guilty by association, but he also has helped cultivate the “Silicon Valleys” around the world including, Los Angeles, Seattle, Austin, New York, London, Paris and more. If your organization or your clients are looking to embark on an innovation tour, whether that’s in Silicon Valley or in innovation hot spots around the world, Brian can deliver an inspiring, customized presentation and/or help facilitate meetings or presentations by innovators and change agents.

Brian is one of the founding fathers of social media marketing having authored the “Social Media Manifesto” in the mid 2000s. He also co-developed the original seven stages of social business evolution to migrate the pillars of “social” across any organization. In his work, he’s helped social business leaders assess the effectiveness of existing social media efforts, whether it’s for marketing, sales, customer service, influence or employee advocacy and engagement. Brian also led the creation of social media education/training, governance and Centers of Excellence models to manage the scale of social media strategies in key facets of organizations.