This research paper begins and ends with a sincere and pragmatic question – how might consulting firms more effectively integrate their design and innovation units within their broader workforce? This researcher embarked upon this course of research in order to generate a series of recommendations that might relieve some of the tensions around workforce integration. These tensions, described to this researcher by those within the design and innovation units and by consultants within the primary line of business of a firm, led the researcher to ultimately believe that the challenge around workforce integration might be best understood through the divergent value-chains that the consulting firm and its design and innovation unit espoused. Grounded in a literature review and interviews with participants from both consulting firms and their recently acquired design and innovations units, this paper would provide the basis for a set of recommendations that might ultimately better align a consulting firm’s value-chain with that of its design and innovation unit. This in turn would underpin the goal of this research paper, to provide a way forward for consulting firms to better integrate their recently acquired design and innovation workforces.