Innovating Forward

At LMI, we believe innovation is critical to success. We spend a generous portion of our resources to ensure we are poised to deliver relevant, timely solutions for our clients’ current and future problems.

Chief Technology Officer

Our group effort to bring innovative offerings to our customers is led by our Chief Technology Officer, who oversees our dynamic R&D program, the LMI Research Institute (LRI). All market segments have benefited from the unique solutions that have come from this think-tank approach to consulting. Innovation at LMI differs from our competitors because we use a higher percentage of our profit to fund R&D efforts. Through our portfolio, we have doubled our year-over-year ROI.

IdeaLab

Launched in 2016, IdeaLab is central to fostering employee innovation. In alignment with LMI’s future trajectory, we relaunched IdeaLab in 2019 with a focus on identifying repeatable offerings for clients. Employees use the IdeaLab portal to submit their ideas. Each month an evaluation committee made up primarily of LMI research fellows chooses an innovator of the month. We recognize this individual in the Blueprint, LMI’s weekly internal newsletter, and award a prize of their choice—anything from an iPad to a Sonos soundbar to other cool gadgets. The real prize, though, is the opportunity to present their idea to LMI’s senior leaders for potential R&D funding. This grassroots approach to ideation encourages our consultants to engage in LMI’s innovation culture while ensuring our clients benefit from novel solutions to their toughest challenges.

“We have to be looking to the future, going out in front of where the customer is right now and thinking about what they are going to need next.”

– Sharon Hays, PhD,
Chief Technology Officer

Forge™ and Beacon™

LMI introduced an IT powerhouse in 2020. As our technology accelerator, Forge™ builds robust solutions to enable offerings. The first product of Forge—Beacon—is a platform to manage and deliver repeatable data and analytic solutions via a single application.

LMI Partnerships

In FY20, LMI teamed up with and invested in Immuta, providing automated data governance solutions to secure exclusivity for our DoD customers, and in The Climate Service, developing climate risk analytics software platforms. We have leveraged both in contracts to help our clients benefit from the latest technology and our subject matter expertise.