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Overview
One of Africa’s largest banking groups asked us to design a large-scale innovation effort across the 20 most critical burning platforms in the business. We designed a “HotHouse” innovation programme that combined design thinking with agile and Lean Startup methodologies.
The Challenge
After a careful review of the innovation portfolio across the business it was quickly discovered that many of the efforts were not customer-centric and actually resulted in a traditional product push approach. The main challenge was thus to design an innovation methodology driven by the voice of the customer and encouraged by co-creation as a strategic innovation mindset.
Our Approach
The main component of the methodology was a week-long design sprint that was preceded by immersive ethnographic research into the specific customer segment that was being addressed. The design sprint then went from insights into ideation and up to the prototyping stage which involved a full day of co-creation with customers. The final element was a pitch deck that was presented to the business. In successful cases, the business decided to fund the project and thereafter the proof of concept stage was initiated. After a six month pilot phase the business decided to either integrate this new concept into its current portfolio or spin it off as a new venture.
Key Insight
Many large financial institutions still work with an investment model for new product development that requires untested assumptions about the potential users of any new offering and thus leads to a “product push” approach before being able to start an innovation journey. In this case the innovation team was able to turn this way of thinking on its head and funding was only unlocked based on evidence of external insights to validate the initial viability of the new solutions.
The Outcome
Some of the innovation efforts resulted in better product experiences, but a few breakthrough innovations and new ventures were also launched as part of this process. Due to declining leadership support, many of the new ventures had to find new homes in the business and this was more or less successful. One of the other, more long-term benefits was a change in staff mindset and organisational culture as employees are now able to solve problems in a more impactful way based on the training in design thinking that they have received.
Overview
Africa’s largest engineering advisory firm wanted to embrace human-centered design as a problem-solving mindset and competitive differentiator. They wanted to ensure that large infrastructure projects were always designed with the needs of local communities at the centre of the planning process.
The Challenge
The design discipline has always been embraced by engineers, so the specific challenge in this case was to get buy-in by showing the nuanced differences between the human-centred design toolkit and the type of design work that is normally done in the course of engineering projects.
Our Approach
Based on a prior, extensive investment to create a design thinking mindset in the business, we set out to conduct a comprehensive design maturity audit that sought to map out the wide range of practices that had been informed by this new way of thinking and working. We also looked at the way this approach has shaped the impact of traditional engineering projects and how this might be used to create a new way of working that we framed as creative intelligence.
Key Insight
Engineers are hard-wired to go straight into solution mode and want to solve a problem as quickly as possible. By supplementing and strengthening the engineering toolkit with human-centred design, engineers are taught to pause and consider…Are we asking the right question and solving for the actual problem? Is our proposed solution taking people’s needs into account, while being technically sound?
The Outcome
The business decided to embark on an ambitious growth path in terms of both equipping staff with new creative intelligence capabilities and also to build this mindset into all large projects that are being scoped out. The company has also been able to win some awards based on this new approach which gives them more confidence to start deploying it at scale.
Overview
In order to provide an alternative to global management consulting companies operating on the African continent, a group of senior professionals has embarked on a journey to create a homegrown, pan-African strategic advisory business.
The Challenge
In order to assist the leadership team with this very ambitious task, we needed to understand the future market drivers in the professional services space as well as the emerging client needs that this new venture could rely on.
Our Approach
After an extensive engagement process with subject matter experts, we were able to map out four future market scenarios for the professional services space both globally and on the African continent. We then engaged with the organisation’s leadership team and key client stakeholders to understand where we could see local applications of these trends. We also designed a high impact workshop to embed the learning into the client’s organisation.
Key Insight
For a long time, the big three management consultancies McKinsey, Bain and Boston Consulting group dominated the market by providing strategic advice from their ‘one-stop shops’. Clients are increasingly aware that no one company has all the answers or the right mix of talent to suit their specific needs. It’s for this reason that clients are starting to “cherry-pick” talent from across different companies and creating their own project teams. Some first-mover companies are also actively choosing to partner and co-create new service offerings with competitors and non-competitors alike.
The Outcome
We are still working with the leadership of this organisation to prioritise the rollout of strategic initiatives based on their desired future market positioning.
Overview
A large government-backed philanthropy organisation in the Middle East had an ambitious idea of creating a global hub of research excellence by attracting top talent from the best universities across the world to their emerging world-class facilities. In order to support this ambition they needed to understand how to best create a compelling narrative that would make it attractive for academic talent to relocate.
The Challenge
Overcoming reputational barriers is as much an art as it is a science, so we needed to understand both the emotional and factual perception drivers of critical stakeholders around the world in order to create a narrative that would resonate with them on various levels. On the other hand it was also important to involve local audiences so that they understand the rationale behind attracting foreign talent to their country and would not be alienated in the process.
Our Approach
After an extensive phase of desk research as well as subject matter expert interviews, we were able to identify the most important potential institutional partners as well as the key decision-makers within them across the targeted countries. We then devised a type of co-creation approach and set up various engagement sessions that sought to unpack their sentiments towards our client’s undertaking. From these insights across the various geographies we were able to devise targeted engagement frameworks based on certain decision-maker archetypes.
Key Insight
Our initial focus was on the respective individual researcher and his/her ambitions. It quickly emerged that the personal and/or family situation was of equal importance and we also had to focus on many “softer aspects” of the war for talent. Another insight was that we needed to zoom in on the respective career stage and consider only temporary placements and not put pressure on long-term tenure.
The Outcome
The initial engagement model has led to the relocation of various world-class research groups and excellent academics to our client’s facility in the Middle East. This has produced a lot of positive public attention and created various breakthroughs in important research areas which makes it easier to create a talent pipeline. This venture has also become an important part of the government’s post-oil growth strategy.
Overview
Based on comprehensive research into future skill requirements, many organisations are embracing more creative capabilities in order to future-proof their workforce. As a more people-centric approach to innovation – also known as human-centred design (HCD) becomes more entrenched in organisations across the African continent, we have been asked to create some of these capabilities for in-house teams.
The Challenge
Many corporate training deployments of design thinking skills are still focused on a very template-driven model of learning instead of encouraging the development of new problem-solving mindsets. Another key feature of current creative skills training programmes is the very playful nature of engagement that is often not a rooted in solving actual organisational problems and can thus become less meaningful or impactful as a result. Our client – a large insurance company – was wary of these challenges and also had a highly skilled workforce that needed to be engaged in adequate ways to buy into the process.
Our Approach
Based on a deep dive into the future challenges of the business we created a bespoke training approach for various parts of the organisation that made use of a design thinking mindset to address some of the concrete challenges they were facing. We engaged with teams over a six-month period in order for them to start embedding some of the new practices into their everyday workflows with an opportunity for coaching from our side. We were also able to create a commercial incentive structure with some of the teams receiving funding from the business to run some of their projects as new innovation ventures.
Key Insight
It quickly became apparent that certain parts of the business resonated more with the design thinking mindset e.g. the actuarial department that has always been fascinated with understanding human behaviour. After the initial pilot sessions we were then able to create impactful cross-functional teams that could literally operate as small intrapreneurial start-ups. This process helped the organisation to uncover entrepreneurial talent and provide more meaningful career paths to retain this valuable talent pool that might otherwise have left the organisation.
The Outcome
Our engagement managed to create a lot of excitement around new and creative ways of thinking and working and this capability has become part of the onboarding and training programmes across the organisation. The company still runs dedicated innovation challenges that encourage employees to make use of the design thinking toolkit to enable the cultural change required. There are also certain pockets of excellence in the business that have fully embedded this capability in their teams and workflows.
Overview
Large-scale strategic growth programmes that normally involved some type of stage gate model have previously dominated the innovation practices of large organisations, but we have recently seen the emergence of a more entrepreneurial approach to new product development. We have used this model of innovation quite successfully in order to open up adjacent and new markets spaces for the largest mobile network operator on the African continent.
The Challenge
Mobile network operators face various serious challenges to their current business models such as declining voice and data revenues or the potential disappearance of the SIM card as free public WiFi becomes more widespread. Their major advantage is that they are in people’s pockets all day, which allows them to create new customer relationships around alternative products and services.
Our Approach
Our client had decided on a very ambitious growth target for its new venture design process, so we were quite rigorous in the initial ideation phase so that only significant new opportunities were pursued. We ultimately decided on five new ventures in the areas of banking, insurance, media, healthcare and education. All these ventures were organised as special-purpose vehicles and separate legal entities with operational funding from the parent organisation but with dedicated entrepreneurial teams. We also decided to forego some of our professional fees in return for equity in these new businesses which created a very balanced partnership. The majority of new ventures were operated between 12 and 18 months before a decision was made to either incorporate them back into the parent company or spin them off as separate entities into the marketplace.
Key Insight
As we had structured these ventures as separate organisations outside of the control of the parent company, it was much easier to respond to various challenges in an agile way. The fact that we also did not have to compete for investment against very established parts of the business made it easier for us to prove our business case to investment committees after sufficient time had been given for the company to mature. Most of these new venture design experiments also generated various learnings e.g. testing new strategic alliances that could benefit the parent organisation in numerous ways that they would not have had otherwise.
The Outcome
The new ventures in banking and insurance received the most traction initially as the African continent provides multiple opportunities to serve the underbanked and underinsured market. The media business was quickly absorbed back into the parent organisation as there was a good fit with the ambitions around the app store value proposition. The healthcare venture was successful initially in terms of a telemedicine offering to underserved groups in society but could ultimately not compete in a highly regulated market environment. The education business was absorbed as strategic initiatives into the parent organisation’s foundation and is currently being evaluated more according to philanthropy impact metrics.
Overview
The large number of underbanked and underinsured people across the African continent continues to be a major focus for global donor organisations. We have been involved in various projects to unpack the attitudinal and behavioural drivers of this phenomenon – sometimes also in partnership with traditional banks or government agencies.
The Challenge
Given the nearly ubiquitous, largely unquestioned nature of banking and insurance services across Europe and the U.S., it is quite fascinating to understand the attitudes of people who don’t see any need for these institutions in their lives. Our enquiries normally start from a point of mapping the financial flows and planning behaviour of people who have found alternative ways of managing their money — ways that are mostly invisible to the traditional banking industry.
Our Approach
Given the large body of previous work in this area we would normally start with desk research and selected subject matter expert interviews before conducting deep dive ethnographic research. Another tool that has been very helpful is that of financial diaries where we encourage people to keep track of various financial touchpoints during a typical day/week/month. We also find co-creation sessions with consumers in their natural environment to be very helpful in terms of the packaging and messaging of financial service offerings to try and ensure that they resonate with the group in question. This will then normally lead to some product or service prototypes e.g. financial literacy campaigns that can be tested and rolled out with various stakeholders or partners in the ecosystem.
Key Insight
Apart from various cultural or religious reservations towards banking (e.g. high interest rates), there is an inherent tension in making the financial lives of underserved banking customers (e.g. in the so-called informal economy) more visible as many of them fear that the often untrustworthy state will intervene too much in their lives. Another interesting tension is between the attempts of banks vs. insurers that are trying to incentivise different types of behaviour: On the one hand lending products for consumption versus long-term financial planning and savings behaviour on the other hand. There is also another tension between the traditional financial system and the practices of underbanked populations on the African continent: Most people are managing their finances in groups (e.g. families, savings groups) and most banks can only lend to individuals based on their identity document and individualised credit scoring.
The Outcome
In our experience it has been successful to start with financial literacy programs through trusted intermediaries (e.g. savings group leaders, church groups) in order to improve the understanding of financial behaviours. Another good entry point is through the mechanism of insurance as it guards against the risks of everyday life (e.g. theft, fire, sickness) and as such builds more basic trust in the financial system through the rather familiar mutual mechanism. Another big area of attention should be around messaging and customer experience as the current banking touchpoints are quite exclusively designed.
Overview
One of Africa’s largest IT companies needed to reconsider its current brand territory due to competitive pressures and disruptive market forces. There was also an opportunity to embrace opportunities to redefine the category in an emerging “no code” world.
The Challenge
Current leadership assumptions around conventional approaches to brand positioning in the technology space made it difficult to get beyond jargon to find a more meaningful value proposition that resonated with stakeholders like staff, partners and clients.
Our Approach
We started by engaging with a wide range of subject matter experts in order to understand the future drivers of the category. We then immersed ourselves in the business at various levels to understand the cultural foundations, mindsets and resulting behaviours that the organisation relied on. We then also conducted various ethnographic deep dives into key client organisations to understand the main relationship drivers and emerging needs. Through various interactive design sprint sessions these inputs culminated into an updated brand blueprint that was then shared with various creative service providers who fleshed out the elements at key touch points.
Key Insight
In many organisations there is a disconnect between business and brand strategy as both are developed with different skillsets, toolkits and mental models by people who are either analytical or creative. Resolving this tension from the outset by creating an interdisciplinary collaboration format like a “Hothouse” model insures more impactful “cross-pollination” between perspectives and also allows brand builders to involve other critical stakeholders (e.g. employees, customers) to co-create the brand platform which helps to generate positive momentum.
The Outcome
The organisation has adopted a new name and visual identity. It also created updated customer and employee value propositions on the back of the new brand strategy. This is now being rolled out through various activation elements with key stakeholders.
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