Challenge: A century-old engineering association with a revenue model built on dues and events, facing rapid industry disruption it had no commercial vehicle to address
Outcome: Sequence conceived and designed the Industry Technology Consortia (ITC); ITC revenue grew 10x
The Situation
But by the time SAE engaged Sequence Consulting, the industries it served were undergoing some of the most rapid and consequential technological change in their histories. Electrification, autonomy, connectivity, cybersecurity, and advanced manufacturing were reshaping automotive. New entrants — technology companies, startups, software-first organizations — were entering spaces that had previously been the exclusive domain of traditional OEMs and suppliers. In aerospace, digital systems and new platform architectures were creating similar disruption.
Rapid technological change was creating what Sequence’s analysis described as “whitespaces” — areas where the industry had not yet aligned on critical issues. Quality. Safety. Standards. Cybersecurity. Counterfeit avoidance. These were not competitive battlegrounds where companies fought for advantage. They were pre-competitive challenges where misalignment hurt everyone — and where reaching shared solutions required bringing competitors into the same room.
The problem was that almost no trusted space for that kind of collaboration existed.
Trade associations focused on policy. Consultants worked for proprietary advantage. Academia pursued basic research. None of them could do what the moment required: convene competitors in a closed, trusted environment to work through shared technical challenges before the competitive phase began.
SAE could. It had the credibility, the neutrality, the industry relationships, and the technical expertise. What it didn’t have was a commercial vehicle designed to do it.
That’s what Sequence was brought in to create.
What We Found
Three findings drove the strategy:
SAE’s most valuable asset was not its content — it was its neutrality. Most associations think of their value in terms of what they produce: standards, publications, education, events. Sequence’s analysis pointed to something different. SAE’s deepest competitive advantage was its unique ability to convene competitors around shared technical challenges without any party at the table having a commercial stake in the outcome. In industries racing to solve shared problems — cybersecurity vulnerabilities, counterfeit components, autonomous vehicle safety standards — that neutrality was extraordinarily valuable. Companies that would never collaborate directly would work together under SAE’s roof. This asset was not being monetized.
Technology disruption was creating a structural market gap that SAE was uniquely positioned to fill. The whitespaces created by rapid technological change — the areas where industries needed pre-competitive consensus and had nowhere to get it — were growing faster than traditional SAE programming could address. The opportunity was not incremental. It required a fundamentally different kind of organization: one focused on industry-level problems rather than individual engineers, structured for closed collaboration rather than open publication, and built to operate as a B2B enterprise rather than an individual membership model.
SAE’s existing model had structural limits that wouldn’t allow it to serve this opportunity. As a 501(c)(3), SAE faced constraints on the kinds of commercial and competitive-intelligence activities that industry consortia required. Serving for-profit players in the industry — as a full commercial partner, not just a standards body — required a different legal and organizational structure. The opportunity required a new entity, not an extension of the existing one.
The central insight Sequence brought: SAE had a genuine right to win in pre-competitive industry collaboration — an advantage no trade association, consultant, or academic institution could replicate. But capturing that opportunity required building a new kind of organization from scratch, purpose-built for the B2B market the disruption had created.
The Approach
Sequence conceived the Industry Technology Consortia — ITC — and designed its strategy, positioning, organizational model, and go-to-market approach from the ground up.
ITC was structured as an affiliate of SAE International: legally and operationally distinct from the parent organization, able to serve for-profit players in the industry in ways a 501(c)(3) could not, but leveraging the full weight of SAE’s brand, credibility, intellectual property, industry leadership, and global reach.
The Way to Play Sequence designed for ITC was precise: create advantage for the industry where technology is creating new spaces, by convening and curating industry resources — people, IP, tools, capital — and leveraging SAE’s credibility and leadership in these spaces to produce pre-competitive responses.
This wasn’t a vague mission statement. It was a specific competitive positioning built around three things ITC could offer that no other organization could:
Trusted neutral ground. ITC provided closed, safe spaces where competitors, technical experts, and government representatives could collaborate and confer on issues of mutual advantage — without fear that participation would benefit a competitor or compromise proprietary information. The legal structure, governance design, and operational protocols were built specifically to make that trust possible.
The ability to convene the right resources. Pre-competitive collaboration fails not because companies don’t want to participate, but because someone has to organize it, manage it, fund it, and keep it on track. ITC provided the infrastructure — legal structure, financial systems, administrative and operational support, technical expertise — that turned good intentions into functioning consortia.
SAE’s enterprise assets as a competitive moat. No startup or new entrant could replicate what ITC launched with: SAE’s century of industry credibility, its intellectual property portfolio, its established relationships across automotive, aerospace, and commercial vehicle industries, its global reach, and its volunteer base of senior technical leaders. These were not things ITC had to build. They were the foundation it was built on.
The lines of business ITC launched included cooperative research programs, cybersecurity initiatives, counterfeit avoidance programs, avionics collaboration, and auditor authentication — each addressing a specific whitespace where industry needed pre-competitive consensus and had no existing home for it. The model was explicitly designed to expand: the core markets were automotive, aerospace, and commercial, with an explicit eye toward other industries where SAE’s capabilities could transfer.
The Result
ITC revenue grew 10x.
That number reflects not just financial performance but organizational transformation. Sequence didn’t help SAE grow an existing revenue line. It designed a new business — a new legal entity, a new organizational model, a new go-to-market strategy, a new value proposition — that opened a market SAE had never served and created a revenue stream that hadn’t existed before.
The growth also validated the strategic thesis. The whitespaces Sequence identified were real. The demand for trusted pre-competitive collaboration was real. And SAE’s right to win in that space — built on credibility and neutrality that no competitor could replicate — was real.
“Working with Sequence, our organization grew tenfold, we entered entirely new industries, and we expanded our industry consortia fivefold — all within three years.”
— David Schutt, PhD, CEO, SAE International
“Sequence Consulting is that one-in-a-million consulting group.”
— Andrew Smart, Chief Membership and Marketing Officer, SAE International
What This Means for Your Association
The instinct in most associations is to optimize what already exists — grow membership, improve events, cut costs, add programs. Sequence consistently finds that when an association has reached a structural ceiling, optimization isn’t the answer. The answer is a genuinely different way to create and capture value.
For SAE, that meant recognizing something most associations miss: the most powerful asset they had wasn’t what they produced. It was what they uniquely could do. SAE could convene competitors in trusted, closed spaces. No one else could. The question Sequence brought was whether SAE had a commercial model built around that capability — and the answer was no. Building ITC was the answer.
The transferable principle is this: almost every mature association has assets it undervalues because those assets aren’t generating revenue today. Standards bodies have neutrality and technical credibility. Professional societies have access to elite practitioners. Trade associations have relationships across an entire industry. The question isn’t what you’re already monetizing. It’s what you uniquely can do that no one else in your industry can — and whether you’ve built a business model designed to capture value from it.
A few questions worth asking about your own association:
What does your organization uniquely make possible that no trade association, consultant, or academic institution can replicate? This is your right to win — and it may be underleveraged.
Are there market needs in your industry — problems your members’ industries face that require neutral convening, trusted collaboration, or shared infrastructure — that no one is currently serving well? These are your whitespaces.
Does your current organizational and legal structure allow you to serve those needs commercially? Or does growth require a new vehicle — an affiliate, a subsidiary, a new model — that your current structure can’t accommodate?
For SAE, the answers to those questions pointed clearly to an opportunity that was large, defensible, and completely unserved. The associations that find their version of ITC are the ones willing to look honestly at what they uniquely make possible — and bold enough to build something new around it.
About Sequence Consulting Sequence Consulting works exclusively with professional and trade associations to grow membership, strengthen revenue, and clarify strategy. Founded in 2001 by Chris Vaughan, PhD and Lisa Vaughan, Sequence brings the rigor of Big Strategy consulting to mission-driven organizations. Trusted by 12 of the top 20 U.S. associations.
