Volans Insight: researching, consulting and portfolio building

Volans Insight is our research and consulting arm.  It focuses on:

  1. Market research related to global market gaps, linked to 10 social and environmental divides.
  2. Advisory services for businesses and entrepreneurial ventures developing innovative solutions to address these gaps — and for public sector agencies working to encourage market evolution.
  3. Portfolio building with venture funds and other financial institutions, where we help build investment portfolios offering triple bottom line and blended value dividends.

Underpinning these areas of work is our Skoll Foundation-funded work on ‘Pathways to Scale’, based on a 5-stage (OPENS) model of change. What follows is a series of scene-setting briefs, laying out our ambitions for the next round of work.

FEATURED DIVIDE

DEMOGRAPHY

The world is heading to a predicted population of 9 billion by 2050, with 95% of the growth expected in developing countries. Demography — together with the study and management of the related trends — is key both to the social and environmental challenges we face in the coming decades and to development and scaling of market-based solutions. Market Gap 1 includes an extract from The Power of Unreasonable People on the nature and scale of the relevant market gap; an initial cluster of examples; and a short list of questions that we plan to address in future work. We invite comments and feedback for each market gap.

more details >>

PATHWAYS TO SCALE

Relying on market research when building an innovative new business can be a bit like driving while looking in the rear-view mirror. So said the late Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop International. But market research can be done in a number of different ways — including with an eye on the future.

That is our plan at Volans.

more details >>

CLIENT SERVICES

Volans works with an expanding spectrum of clients from the public, private and citizen sectors. These relationships include: venture capital firms, social and environmental enterprises, multinational corporations, large consulting firms, philanthropic foundations, and NGOs.

more details >>