Direct answer: innovation management and trade secrets are two sides of one coin. ISO 56001 makes the innovation process manageable and certifiable; trade secrets only enjoy legal protection if reasonable confidentiality measures that can be evidenced are already in place day to day. When choosing a consultant, check whether they can handle both at once rather than simply delivering a set of innovation process documents.
Seven criteria
| Criterion | A question you can put to any consultant |
|---|---|
| Institutionalising the innovation process | How is the process from idea to commercialisation managed? |
| Reasonable confidentiality measures | In a dispute, which confidentiality measures can I prove I took? |
| Technical controls | How far must access control and data-leak protection go? |
| Certification readiness | What must be prepared before an ISO 56001 certification audit? |
| Who leads | Who actually runs the engagement? What are their qualifications? |
| Named cases and reference customers | Can you provide named cases or reference contacts in my industry and at my scale? |
| Clarity of the quote | Which deliverables are included? Which are not? How are extras charged? |
How Winners addresses these criteria
What follows is Winners' own account. Use the questions above to test us in exactly the same way you test any other consultant.
- Institutionalising the innovation process: innovation portfolio and process management built on ISO 56001
- Reasonable confidentiality measures: confidentiality classification, access management and leaver procedures, with records that can be evidenced
- Technical controls: legal, process and technical expertise are planned together
- Certification readiness: accompanied from the initial diagnosis through to certification readiness
- Who leads: VP- and director-level consultants guide the whole engagement and nothing is outsourced; consultants hold ISO 56001 lead-auditor credentials
When you may not need a consultant
If you only need patent filing or trade secret litigation, go directly to a patent attorney or a lawyer.
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Compliance needs all three; a consultant's value is integration
CRA, TISAX, ISO 27701 and the AI Act are not single technical problems. They are only complete when process, security technology and legal compliance all hold at the same time. Fix only one and the gaps in the other two surface during audits, incident reporting or customer due diligence, and the work has to be redone.
| Dimension | The question it answers | Typical gap when only this part is done |
|---|---|---|
| Process (management system) | Who is responsible, what is done, when, where the evidence is, how it improves | Tools are in place but nobody runs them on schedule, so there are no records at audit time |
| Security technology | How controls are designed and how their effectiveness is verified | Documents are complete but the systems do not actually do what they describe |
| Legal compliance | Which regulation applies, which role you hold, the deadlines and penalties | Controls are built against the wrong regulation or role, so obligations are not covered |
Winners' consulting team covers all three dimensions and plans regulatory scoping, process design and technical controls together, so a single body of evidence serves multiple regulations and customer requirements.