Studying the impact of innovation on business and society

Advisory, Research, Education + Strategy

Brian Solis is a leading digital analyst and thought leader who studies innovation, disruption and digital Darwinism.
He humanizes trends in a variety of business scenarios to help executives make decisions about the state and future of markets, go to market strategies and identify areas of opportunity.

Work with Brian or Request Briefing

Brian invests in his partner’s success. He isn’t someone who just comes and goes based on a timeline or final output of a project. Instead, he strives to build (and earn) long-term relationships based on value. His references have worked with him for years. He genuinely cares about your success and ties his to it as well.

Brian studies the evolution and future of markets and the people who define them to help your team and organization excel. His goal is to help you earn trust and support within the organization. Ultimately, his work will help you get ahead of disruption and your competition. With growth comes ROI.

One of the biggest challenges in transformation and innovation is bringing disparate groups together to work as a unified front. Brian takes the time to understand the unique perspectives of all stakeholders to create alignment, understanding and to develop a common, collaborative purpose moving forward.

Change isn’t easy. Every day when change agents and leaders seek to pave new paths forward, they’re often met with skepticism, fear and sometimes, sabotage. Don’t worry. You have someone in your corner. Brian is an ally and is there to help you surface important insights, direction and the expert advisory and direction necessary to move forward, together.


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

Advisory and Strategy Programs

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.

 

Custom Market Research

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.

Audits, Gap and Opportunity Analyses

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.

Internal + Partner Presentations

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.

Executive and Stakeholder Workshops

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.

Innovation | Digital Transformation

Digital Transformation and Innovation Roadmaps

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.

Innovation Tours

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.

Innovation Summit

In the cases where adding value to an existing innovation tour isn’t enough, Brian can organize a dedicated summit, intimate or elaborate, that features curated speakers, workshops and experiences that accelerate organization goals and priorities.

Social Business Strategy

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.

Client Experience

  • AAA
  • AB Inbev
  • Absolut Company
  • Accenture
  • Adobe
  • ARAMARK
  • Audi
  • Bank of America
  • Bank of the West
  • Bayer
  • BMW
  • Bristol-Myers Squibb
  • Coach
  • Chick-fil-A
  • Cisco
  • Dupont
  • Electronic Arts
  • Enterprise Holdings (Alamo, Enterprise, National)
  • Estee Lauder
  • Farmers
  • FedEx
  • Fidelity
  • Ford
  • GE
  • General Mills
  • GM
  • Google
  • Hard Rock
  • Herman Miller
  • HP
  • IBM
  • Independent Film Channel
  • JP Morgan Chase
  • Intel
  • Kohls
  • Lexus
  • LinkedIn
  • L’Oréal
  • Masco
  • MasterCard
  • Microsoft
  • Nespresso
  • NASCAR
  • New York Federal Reserve Bank
  • Novozymes
  • Oprah Winfrey
  • Oracle
  • Pernod Ricard
  • Plantronics
  • Sabre
  • Salesforce
  • Samsung
  • SAS
  • Sephora
  • Stella Artois
  • Swarovski
  • Telstra
  • Toyota
  • United Nations
  • Visa
  • Walmart
  • Weather Channel
  • Wells Fargo