We are an ideas-first business consultancy. We believe in nurturing innovation by placing a premium on research and analysis combined with an expert-led perspective.
Our work encompasses customer segmentation, market analysis, internal and external communications, product development, and tackling many other challenges—all designed to keep you competitive and focused on long-term growth.
We work in three different ways, drawing upon an experienced network of experts who apply analysis and creative thinking to the challenges you face. We can instigate the process, work in tandem with other agencies and suppliers, and mentor your long-term programme of change, guiding and reviewing its ongoing success.
We stimulate you to think about your business with a fresh perspective. By providing presentations, speeches, reports, commentary and events, we help you to create and engage with the internal and external debates necessary to stimulate change.
Our research delivers insights by being objective, balanced and open-ended. Our analysis is designed to uncover new needs--not just what audiences already want or know. We specialise in providing research with customers, stakeholders and future markets that reveal your opportunities. We are careful to ensure a healthy balance of customer and expert-led opinion.
Strategy that delivers change in the short term is also focused on delivering innovation in the longer term. Bringing together key insights, we lead the process of delivering a strategy that is responsive to the wider market, directed towards your opportunities, and which can be internally executed. This includes prioritised recommendations, programme plans, business cases, and the means to engage all of your priority audiences with new thinking.
Our clients come to us from the public, private and not-for-profit sectors in markets such as finance, manufacturing, health, knowledge management and publishing. We also provide research and strategy support to leading design, technology and marketing agencies.
“Martyn Perks of Thinking Apart not only asked the right questions but also helped us formulate some of the answers. His profound understanding of how design connects with wider strategic issues was invaluable.”
Gilane Tawadros, Chief Executive, Design and Copyright Society (DACS)
“Martyn must be one of the longest serving designers of the digital age, having led the launch and subsequent development of the spiked website since 2000. What he brings is imagination, balance and a much-needed perspective on ensuring that our content is able to speak for itself. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend him and his company Thinking Apart to anyone looking for sensible yet inventive advice and editorial design.”
Brendan O'Neill, editor, spiked
“Truly impressive insight and analysis. Martyn took our brief and elevated it to the next level -- helping us answer not just the questions that we asked, but the questions that we should have asked. We ended up thinking about our economic challenges in a very new way, as opportunities for innovation, development, and growth.”
Mitch Sava, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA)
“Martyn’s talk was very interesting, informative, lively and thought-provoking. Feedback throughout the business has been very positive. The Networking Committee who organise the events were very pleased with a turn out of 60 people. The issues he raised about how to create a better informed environment internally struck a chord with many. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend him to anyone grappling with the challenges of dealing with digital communications.”
Federica Squadrilli Carr, Web Manager, Barclays Global Investors
“Martyn delivered a marvellous combination of creative flair, clever design and penetrating analysis of all our communication needs. Professional at all times, Martyn met all our deadlines whilst at the same time carefully guiding us through the range of decisions we needed to make, presenting us with clear options and imaginative recommendations for the overhaul of our web site: www.debatingmatters.com. We are delighted with the results, as are our own sponsors and varied audiences. We very much look forward to working with Martyn on an ongoing basis and have no hesitation in recommending his services.”
Tony Gilland, Director, Debating Matters
“Over past 6 years, I have worked with Martyn on several clients and his approach towards design wins my recommendation. Martyn is a strategic thinker and often eager to resolve the fundamentals of the problem rather than superficial issues. According to me this is a key to business change and I often don’t see this in many professionals. His ability to talk effectively to people at various level especially to the CEO/board level helps him push big ideas with ease. Martyn is committed to using research to uncover new insights and ideas that help clients move forward, even re-think what they currently do. His tireless work creating engaging multi-disciplinary design is truly inspiring and I would love to work with him again in future."
Malay Nagda, Senior Usability Consultant/ Lead UE Practice (EMEA) at Mphasis
“Martyn is excellent at producing business strategies; he gains a clients trust by impressing them around his understanding of their business issues, his expertise and his insights. He is someone I would recommend.”
Edward Lloyd-Williams, Creative Director, cScape
"Martyn gave a characteristically thought-provoking presentation on the implications of design orthodoxies for public services at the IoI Social Policy Forum. His insightful take on the focus on behaviour and lifestyle in the health arena, was an important correction to the enthusiastic endorsement of the prevention orthodoxy. Given the threat to public spending and public services following the election, his was an important intervention in a timely discussion. We'll be inviting him again!
Dave Clements, Convenor, Social Policy Forum at Institute of Ideas
“Martyn Perks' article contributions to Netimperative have always been of the highest standard, attracting high volumes of traffic and provoking discussion amongst our readers. In other words, just what we are looking for in a columnist. As a writer, he's not afraid to go against the grain of popular opinion to confront readers with uncomfortable truths in the technology industry. Martyn's Netimperative articles earlier on in the year on web analytics, design and social media were impressive enough for us to take him onboard as a regular columnist, part of an elite 'Digital Thought Leaders' team.”
Robin Langford, Editor, Netimperative
"Many thanks for yesterday, it was great lecture which prompted more debate and discussion amongst the students (& staff) than anything previously, it was exciting to see them continuing their conversations around the points raised back into the design studios for the rest of the day. The feedback they gave was that they found it a stimulating and provocative talk which allowed them to question what they thought the role of a designer/design should or could be."
Colum Leith, Programme Leader, BA Hons Graphic Design, University of the West of England
Martyn Perks is the founder of Thinking Apart. Originally trained as a designer, he has 15 years of experience in understanding business problems. He is an expert in applying strategy, technology and marketing solutions for numerous start-ups, large-scale organisations and many small niche businesses.
Chairing debate Blue-skies thinking is dead: long live blue-skies thinking? Battle of Ideas, 31 October London