What Does An Innovation Analyst Do?

WHAT DOES AN INNOVATION ANALYST DO?

Published: Sep 05, 2025 - The Innovation Analyst evaluates processes to improve efficiency, productivity, and performance while guiding cross-functional teams through design thinking methods. This role identifies and prototypes innovative solutions, manages project execution, and facilitates design challenges to enhance member and employee experiences. The analyst also ensures alignment across channels, integrates emerging trends, and supports performance tracking and ROI measurement.

A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Innovation Analyst

1. Innovation Analyst Duties

Relationship Management: Act as the primary liaison between the audit practice, the acceleration center team and IT
Resource Strategy: Support the development of the resource strategy
Vendor Evaluation: Identify and evaluate third party vendors that could be leveraged as a flexible workforce
Training Development: Support the development of training content
Content Organization: Inventory and organize all existing research content that has been created to date
Research Analysis: Perform primary and secondary research
Content Management: Inventory and organize all existing thought leadership content that has been created to date
Topic Identification: Solicit and identify thought leadership topics
Thought Leadership: Contribute to thought leadership development
Event Coordination: Identify and coordinate events and distribution channels
PMO Support: Support PMO requests and updates
Document Management: Maintain document repository and tracking systems

2. Strategy and Portfolio Innovation Analyst Responsibilities

Strategy Support: Support strategy, business development and corporate initiatives, including collaborating with business lines across regional and functional areas
Project Execution: Identify, prioritize and assist in executing activities required to support strategies, priorities and special initiative projects
Initiative Evaluation: Support the prioritization of corporate strategic initiatives and evaluate investment opportunities for their strategic and financial value
Leadership Communication: Communicate and generate support for recommendations among business leaders across the organization
Financial Analysis: Compile and analyze financial information and develop integrated revenue and expense analyses, projections, reports and presentations
Trend Analysis: Identify trends and developments in competitive environments and present findings to management
Market Research: Conduct industry, market, competitive and stakeholder intelligence research and analyses
Strategic Planning: Work with leadership on the management of overall business strategy and long-range planning activities
Compliance Adherence: Read and follow the code of conduct and follow all physical and digital security practices

3. Innovation Analyst Job Summary

Process Improvement: Measure and analyze processes and procedures and offer solutions to increase efficiency, productivity and performance
Team Leadership: Provide direction and guidance to other team members on assigned projects and daily work activities
Experience Research: Research existing member experience practices in terms of people, processes and technology
Design Thinking: Use design thinking practices and methods to document customer journeys, empathy maps and stakeholder maps
Team Facilitation: Serve as a facilitator of teams for assigned design challenges
Opportunity Design: Identify opportunity spaces to design and build differentiated outcomes for members and employees
Project Management: Actively manage progress of assigned projects to ensure execution of expected results and recommend corrective actions
Cross-Functional Leadership: Lead cross-functional teams to build and execute business plans, develop relationships that bridge organizational boundaries and include individuals at multiple levels
Innovation Management: Assist in pilot process to bring innovations to market, build prototypes, test concepts, measure results, gather feedback and adjust course
Trend Analysis: Maintain knowledge of current and emerging trends, assess the impact and collaborate with management to incorporate these insights into current and future solutions
Channel Consistency: Orchestrate and work with business units to ensure consistency across all member interaction channels
Performance Framework: Assist in creating a performance and insights framework to identify opportunities and quantify return on investment

4. Innovation Analyst Accountabilities

Market Analysis: Analyze the renewable energy market, stay abreast of market changes, anticipate market trends and identify new technologies that might best combine with capabilities, positioning the company as a leader in the North American energy market and globally
Relationship Management: Build and manage a network of relationships with the business units to understand their goals and needs
Business Translation: Act as a business translator, convert the information collected into real innovation opportunities and be able to create value for the growth
Proposal Development: Design and develop project proposals highlighting the required effort and the expected benefit
Project Execution: Manage the execution of the approved projects, gather related data, information and feedback from the business units and facilitate the path to the handover phase
Implementation Support: Support large-scale implementation in the business of innovation project results and the monitoring of the generated value
Technical Analysis: Perform economic, market and technical analyses
Proposal Response: Prepare and submit RFP and RFI responses
Innovation Management: Manage the gathering and selection process of all inputs by internal and external resources on possible innovations along the whole value chain

5. Innovation Analyst Job Description

Technology Evaluation: Evaluate the technology platform to identify critical gaps and areas of improvement, leveraging existing technology
Technology Scouting: Represent the company as the primary point of contact for technology scouting to universities, startups, government agencies and corporations
Technology Research: Research new technologies and build a database of cutting-edge technologies in the materials production industry
Acquisition Diligence: Conduct diligence on new technology and equipment acquisitions
Techno-Economic Analysis: Perform techno-economic analysis to support new research approaches
Report Preparation: Prepare presentations and reports for both internal and external reporting, including government grants and client feasibility studies
Product Evaluation: Find and participate in the evaluation of new technology, new products and new materials and their impact on the business
Generalist Support: Support ad-hoc projects as the primary technology generalist at the company

6. Innovation Analyst Details and Accountabilities

Project Management: Support project management and funding management for Innovance
Program Support: Report to and work closely with the innovation manager to meet the program goals, objectives and growth plan
Partner Collaboration: Work collaboratively with internal and regional partners, including research and development, human factors, Virginia Tech, Fralin Biomedical Research Institute, University of Virginia and others
Portfolio Review: Engage with the R&D team to review project portfolios and facilitate the translation of research projects to commercializable invention development projects
Invention Facilitation: Facilitate collaboration with R&D for invention development projects heading towards clinical testing and trials
Marketing Outreach: Lead marketing and communications outreach for the department
Event Participation: Participate in events to promote CCI and invention development opportunities
Innovation Guidance: Direct, motivate and counsel innovators

7. Innovation Analyst Tasks

Strategic Execution: Work with product management and senior leadership to evolve high-level strategic vision into actionable tactics that provide ClaimSearch customers with top-tier compliance solutions
Agile Management: Work closely with development teams and other team members to create stories, refine sprint backlog and grooming, prioritization and definition efforts
Roadmap Contribution: Contribute daily towards the evolution of the product roadmap
Data Analytics: Leverage data and analytics to make decisions on the priority of the stories in the product backlog
ROI Analysis: Perform ROI analysis, revenue generation analysis, customer sentiment analysis, gathering of customer feedback, user behavior log analysis and review of known software bugs
Compliance Research: Proactively research and understand the latest compliance trends impacting customers
Issue Resolution: Proactively identify and resolve issues that may impair the organization’s ability to meet its strategic, financial and technical goals
Customer Support: Constantly communicate and assist customers during the day to not only solve existing problems but also understand where there might be future opportunities to help further
Operational Support: Work closely with associates to ensure day-to-day operational tasks are completed

8. Innovation Analyst Roles

Innovation Strategy: Contribute to the overall innovation strategy for opportunity identification
Workshop Facilitation: Run internal workshops and hackathons to identify opportunities
Client Engagement: Attend meetings and workshops with clients to support idea identification work
Process Design: Lead and contribute to the design of the idea assessment process
Idea Management: Manage ideas through the idea assessment process, work with senior stakeholders
PMO Implementation: Implement a light-touch project management office for the innovation team, help manage risk and ensure successful project delivery
Lawyer Support: Support network of lawyers with innovation responsibilities
Process Management: Manage the implemented PMO processes
Benefit Tracking: Ensure benefits are tracked and managed successfully
Management Reporting: Create reporting required for management updates
Relationship Building: Develop strong working relationships with other teams within the organization, both lawyers and business services
Service Promotion: Promote the services of the innovation team
Project Support: Support other innovation projects and work, including managing smaller innovation projects and workstreams within the innovation project

9. Technology and Innovation Analyst Responsibilities and Key Tasks

Digital Solutions: Research, ideate, develop and deploy digital solutions for users from various departments, including operations, human resources, supply chain, finance and environmental health safety
Business Partnership: Interact with business partners to understand their capabilities, partner with them to learn and develop digital solutions, and perform hands-on coding and deployment of POC or use cases
Software Learning: Be guided on the software development process and the best practices
Knowledge Sharing: Learn and share the digital journey and digital products showcased to the audience from internal or external sources, including customers, suppliers, government agencies and schools
Asset Management: Manage the assets in the lab and the configuration settings
Product Analysis: Conduct qualitative and quantitative analysis on product performance, competitive position, product innovation and product development
Product Enhancement: Assist in identifying required product modifications and enhancements
Industry Monitoring: Assist in monitoring and tracking industry demands and competitor enhancements
Technical Assessment: Interview technical teams and assess tax relief eligibility prior to producing a strong, comprehensive narrative in a report for submission to the HM
Client Engagement: Travel across London to meet with passionate CEOs and contribute to their growth and development through the benefit uncovered that goes straight back to them
Skill Development: Develop a set of skills and competencies to grow within the business

10. Innovation Business Analyst Roles and Responsibilities

Partner Liaison: Serve as a point of contact between the organization and its partners
Proposal Management: Draft and review proposals, negotiate deals, scout technologies, analyze trends, draft reports, review business platforms and processes, and support management reporting
Solution Identification: Identify emerging solutions that serve the public safety domain
Business Support: Support business development, project management and account management
Tech-Business Alignment: Act as a link between emerging technology topics and business objectives
Innovation Pipeline: Support the transition of ideas through to delivery through the innovation pipeline process
Ideation Support: Initiate ideation processes and support the evaluation and implementation of ideas in line with the innovation and digital strategy
Design Thinking: Spearhead design thinking sessions or innovation sessions based on identified problems to be solved
Opportunity Tracking: Identify strategic opportunities, both short-term and long-term, and track adoption across the relevant departments
Analytical Solutions: Develop analytical solutions to enable efficiencies within existing processes and fraud prevention strategies
Data Quality: Conduct data quality analyses to ensure accuracy
Fraud Strategy: Develop effective fraud and credit strategies to mitigate fraud losses
Risk Balance: Ensure an appropriate balance between risk and customer experience