Beyond If: Jacobs’ Commitment to Innovation

In 2019, Jacobs initiated an enterprise-wide program to promote a culture of innovation and inclusion on a global scale. To encapsulate our innovation culture, we launched Beyond If.

Beyond If is Jacobs program for instilling and sustaining our innovation culture. We seek to inspire innovative ideas, practice the discipline of innovation and promote innovation outcomes. We don’t just ask ‘What If?’ or ‘How Might We?’, we act to turn ideas into reality and drive value through innovation.

Beyond If showcases the best of who we are as innovators, creators and problem solvers

We know that innovation doesn’t happen by corporate mandate. Instead, we empower people at every level of the organization to have the courage to approach a problem differently and work together to create outcomes that deliver value for our clients and society at large.

"As we continue to evolve into the company like no other, solving our clients' most difficult challenges, we are strengthening our innovation culture," says Jacobs Senior Vice President, Technology & Innovation Heather Wishart-Smith. “Our culture is what helps our employees at every level to have an innovation mindset and have the courage and feel empowered to reframe the problem, challenge the status quo and try something new.”

We lead with innovation and follow with technology when appropriate

While we invest in the assessment and development of new technologies, both internally and through our partner ecosystem, we recognize that some of the most impactful and enduring innovation requires no new technology. Instead, value can be found in new ways of working, process changes, new methodologies/approaches to solving problems, or a repurposing of products and services.

“By leveraging our deep domain expertise and adopting design thinking, lean startup and agile approaches to innovation,” said Kate Willison, Jacobs Global Innovation Lead, “we seek to develop innovative solutions that result in enduring outcomes for our clients.”

When we implement new technology, it is our innovation culture that enables us to identify and use emerging technology more quickly and more effectively. As part of the Beyond If effort, we honed our innovation focus on a variety of client challenges and are actively exploring five technology areas: applied geospatial science, cybersecurity, automated design, Internet of Things and predictive data analytics. These technology areas are at the center of our Beyond If program to fuel more complete, higher-value solutions for the benefit of our clients and society at large.

At Jacobs, we are truly challenging today and reinventing tomorrow as we take on the world’s toughest challenges. Innovation is not just what we do, it's who we are.