SAL offers mainly two types of services: technology scouting and landscaping.

With technology scouting we help large companies find external innovations to solve their strategic challenges. We identify, assess, and connect clients with emerging technologies, materials, processes, or partners — often beyond their existing sector. With landscaping, focused upon technology or market, or a combination of the two, we clarify trends, assess scientific viability, look at IP trends, and map market opportunities. This real-time information and insight feeds directly into the client’s strategic decision-making.

For more details, check Our Services > Overview

We also offer Ideation & IP Support – generating stimulus for internal ideation sessions, helping to create pipelines of new concepts and opportunities for IP generation, Market Validation & Due Diligence – assessing technologies/start-ups and their fit with client priorities ahead of commercial engagement – and Voice of Customer, often as part of a landscaping exercise.

Our services can all be deployed at various stages of your innovation journey. For example, the landscaping services can provide the focus for subsequent scouting activities or be used to provide additional market intelligence once targets have been identified.

All our services are highly customisable. Therefore, to discuss exactly what you are looking for, or to explore if you aren’t yet sure, we would love to talk to you. Contact us at john@strategicallies.co.uk

Technology scouting is the process of searching for new or emerging technologies outside an organisation. Strategic Allies Ltd (SAL) specialises in identifying non-obvious solutions by leveraging our smart and connected network and our 20 years of cross-industry experience.

Strategic Allies Ltd (SAL) uses a targeted, confidential approach that includes deep research, expert interviews, and outreach to innovators, start-ups, and researchers worldwide. To find the right people to talk to, we use our global network – approximately 1,500 smart and connected people equally dispersed around the world, with each one acting as a node to manage searches for solutions and opportunities in their personal network. Importantly, unlike AI-only searches or pre-built databases, our network helps us uncover relevant solutions that are not publicly visible.

Over the past 20 years, SAL has worked across most sectors, including, but not limited to, food & beverage, packaging, chemicals, pharma, materials, consumer goods, energy, and industrial manufacturing. Our cross-sector approach often leads to breakthrough solutions. For more information, visit our Market Served page.

Unlike firms that rely on pre-built databases or platforms, SAL custom-builds every search from scratch. We focus on quality over quantity, identifying only the most relevant and feasible solutions for your specific needs. We do this by engaging directly with companies and individuals to fully assess solutions and opportunities from a technical and commercial point of view. We believe that people do deals, not computers. We believe it’s people from diverse backgrounds combining vision, experience, and enthusiasm that do innovation deals. Not computers matching organisations.

Landscape projects typically take 2–6 months, depending on the depth and breadth of the brief. SAL provides regular progress updates throughout the project, giving clients the opportunity to stay aligned on the direction of the search — and to gain valuable insights into the innovation landscape along the way

We also offer rapid landscapes focused on answering a very specific question that can be done in approx. 4 weeks. For more details, visit our Landscaping Services page.

Most scouting projects take about 3 months, depending on the complexity and scope. Strategic Allies Ltd (SAL) provides regular progress updates and only presents qualified, vetted opportunities. The innovation searches used to take 6 months, but we now offer a mid-project break where we can either pause – so our client has the time to explore the opportunities presented in-depth before continuing for another 3 months – or stop the search.

Strategic Allies Ltd (SAL) tailors deliverables to client preference. Common formats include:

• Technology Landscaping: PowerPoint or Word reports with trend analysis, IP mapping, and opportunity identification. Each document is fully referenced, providing information sources. Additionally, the information is presented by the project manager responsible for the search, whereafter time is allowed for the client to deliberate and pose additional questions if appropriate.
• Scouting Projects: Two-page Word briefs on each opportunity, including a summary of relevance, direct discussion insights, and supporting documents. These are collated in an extensive Excel tracker with status updates and shared securely via SharePoint.
• We can also use workshops at our clients’ request to deliver results.

Our clients are usually R&D, innovation, marketing or sustainability leaders from multinationals or fast-growing scale-ups who are looking for novel technologies or external partners to solve technical challenges.

We also work with University Technology Transfer Offices often to refine commercialisation strategy and/or gauge the potential market opportunities.

Clients come to Strategic Allies Ltd (SAL) because:

• We provide expertise and resources not available in-house.
• We operate flexibly — clients only pay when they need us.
• We access opportunities outside their existing network or sector.
• We run searches confidentially, keeping competitors unaware of their strategic needs.

SAL’s head office is located at Rothamsted Enterprises in Harpenden, just north of London, UK, but our employees and global scouting network are internationally dispersed, giving us a truly global reach.

SAL’s network includes consultants, scouts, tech transfer agents, researchers, inventors, start-up networks, incubators, and senior technology leaders worldwide. Each acts as a “node” in our global network, helping us identify opportunities and connect clients to the right partners.

We work on a transparent fee-for-service model. Our fees cover the entire search or landscaping process, from scoping through to vetted deliverables.

Every SAL client has a dedicated Project Manager, supported by the wider SAL team to ensure diversity of thought and robust delivery.

At the start of the search, SAL needs to scope out what the client needs and define this into a search specification. This usually takes one meeting, and SAL delivers a search spec a few days later. After that is approved, it is our aim to minimise the time that the client needs to be involved, particularly in the early stages of a search. This is because we know their involvement will have to increase later in the process, as only they can make the final decisions. Procedurally, SAL normally arranges meetings every two weeks with the client to ensure everything is going to plan, discuss new opportunities, agree actions, and gain feedback so that any alterations in direction can be actioned.

Strategic Allies Ltd (SAL) is always happy to sign clients’ NDAs, as we understand that most innovation searches can be stakeholder-sensitive.

You can email us at john@strategicallies.co.uk or sophie@strategicallies.co.uk, or message John Allies or Sophie Graves directly on LinkedIn. We’re always happy to have an informal chat to see how we can help.

At Strategic Allies Ltd (SAL), we believe relationships are most important, whether we are talking about relationships with our clients or with the sources of our research. Each new search for a client gets a specific Project Manager, but the whole SAL team works on, and is personally involved in each search, ensuring diversity of approach. Customisation allows the client to get exactly the service they desire and feel as though the SAL team is their team.

Open Innovation is the practice of collaborating with external partners to accelerate internal R&D and innovation. SAL helps companies find and connect with the right innovators, start-ups, and researchers who can offer relevant solutions.

Absolutely. Strategic Allies Ltd (SAL) frequently scouts for sustainable materials, carbon reduction technologies, circular economy innovations, and bio-based alternatives to help clients meet their ESG and net-zero targets.

Yes. At Strategic Allies Ltd (SAL), we specialise in helping organisations find suppliers, manufacturers, and technology partners worldwide. Through a combination of in-house research and our extensive global network, we identify, assess, and validate the most suitable companies — often outside a client’s usual market or area of expertise.

Our partner scouting service is designed to uncover opportunities that address specific commercial or technical challenges. Depending on client needs, this can include:

• Technology suppliers – such as materials or equipment innovators
• Ingredient providers – supporting new product development
• Contract manufacturers – delivering scalable production capabilities

For example, SAL has recently supported:

• A global electronics client seeking materials and coatings to enhance thermal ramp rates in consumer devices (case study here).
• An established FTSE100 company looking for beverage development and manufacturing partners to launch new RTD functional shots (case study here).

By leveraging our research capabilities and international network, we help clients shortlist and connect with qualified partners who can deliver practical, scalable solutions — whether that’s a specialist ingredient supplier, a contract manufacturer, or a breakthrough technology provider.

To learn more about how we can help your organisation find the right suppliers or manufacturing partners, please get in touch with SAL. You can email us at john@strategicallies.co.uk or sophie@strategicallies.co.uk, or message John Allies or Sophie Graves directly on LinkedIn. We’re always happy to have an informal chat to see how we can help.