abstract pattern of gears

Using Innovation Sprint™ to Drive Activation

Jamie Myers, Radius Insights, Radius Global Market Research 2021/10/jamie-myers-bio.jpg

by Jamie Myers

Executive Director

Innovation is the lifeblood for businesses in all industries and requires constant attention and cultivation to drive future success. Our Innovation Sprint™ solution was designed to be applicable to all business situations by combining a proven process with the flexibility to modify the phases in ways that accommodate industry nuances.

Refining product and service offerings with Innovation Sprint.

Based on our experience with innovation in the Financial Services space we’ve identified several areas where the needs of our financial services clients in creating new products, services, and messaging are consistent with the realities of other categories like CPG and Technology:

  • Understanding through the jobs-to-be-done lens. Financial services insights teams must understand target customers’ needs and the jobs-to-be-done that financial products and services could fulfill.
  • Leveraging consumer needs. Teams can benefit from leveraging consumer needs and jobs to generate new product, offering, or messaging ideas, and then use consumer feedback to prioritize top ideas based on appeal, uniqueness, and credibility.
  • Developing customer feedback loops. Putting these new ideas in front of consumers for feedback adds value by identifying potential issues as well as strengths to highlight before going to market.
  • Testing final concepts. A final, rigorous quantitative test of a few optimized offers or messages can give teams confidence in their selection of a go-to-market offer.

 

Unique considerations for financial services insights.

Simultaneously, we’ve identified several unique considerations that have to be accounted for helping Financial Services insights teams successfully execute agile innovation research:

  • Which stakeholders should be involved? Often, Financial Services offerings and messaging have unique and strict legal or technical guidelines to adhere to. Internal experts on these facets should be included in steps like ideation and concept refinement to ensure consumer feedback does not take concepts “out of bounds”.
  • Who is the target audience? Financial companies often market not just to consumers, but to business audiences like financial advisors, institutional investors, equity traders, etc. These niche audiences can be harder and more time consuming to reach at scale, and that should be considered when designing the “sprint”.
  • What is the best way to gain foundational insight? Often, Financial firms are innovating in very niche or nuanced categories, and target customers may not be informed enough about that category to provide deep foundational insights. In these instances, expert interviews can often be helpful.

 

Contactless and cashless payment through mobile banking

Financial Services companies often need to move quickly to bring new services or communications to market and effectively compete with a variety of competitors who are constantly innovating. An agile, qual-quant approach like Innovation Sprint™ allows insights teams to support their stakeholders with quick, reliable consumer-driven guidance.”

 

Accelerate time-to-market.

Financial Services companies often need to move quickly to bring new services or communications to market and effectively compete with a variety of competitors who are constantly innovating. An agile, qual-quant approach like Innovation Sprint allows insights teams to support their stakeholders with quick, reliable consumer-driven guidance.

Depending on where your team is in their innovation or communications process, the focus may be more on early-stage ideation or late-stage refinement, and only a few steps might be needed. Our Financial Services clients have found value in using parts of the Innovation Sprint™ approach to plug in where insights are needed most.

Read our recent post on the jobs-to-be-done strategy.

Ready to learn more about Innovation Sprint and how it can support your needs?

Contact Us