A stronger brand by using design thinking

Client

Sparebanken Møre is the leading financial house in Møre og Romsdal and has 28 offices in 24 of the municipalities in the county. Over many years, the bank has built up a large competence environment in Møre og Romsdal related to the retail and corporate markets, as well as the stock, interest rate and foreign exchange markets.

Ambition

Sparebanken Møre wanted to develop something that would help entrepreneurs in the early stages. They had an idea about a grant programme, but did not have sufficient understanding of the needs of entrepreneurs in the region. They want to use this opportunity to learn about design thinking, creating something in a practical "case". In addition, they wanted experience how they, in an early phase in the development process, could collaborate with external people from the industry.

Context

To achieve growth in the region, committed individuals that dare to take the leap as innovators and entrepreneurs are needed. Such an investment can be both risky and challenging. As a local bank, Sparebank Møre has pledged to support development of the local community in northwestern Norway. This involves financing, but also support to local initiatives so that they are given a safety net and security when they take the risk. Because of this, Sparebanken Møre wanted to create a concept which, at the same time as contributing financially, also gave something more to the entrepreneurs. What this was supposed to be was not defined from the beginning of the project.

Approach 

In design thinking, one wants to identify users and their needs. In the development process, we chose to invite influential internal employees in the bank and external enthusiasts in the local community, to learn more about their needs through developing together. When recruiting externally, including people who had knowledge of the target group either because they were entrepreneurs themselves, or because they had worked closely with entrepreneurs, was prioritised. In this way, we had recruited a group that had expert knowledge of the topic and could start directly to identify needs and develop from these. The internal employees were also essential to ensure the concept was implemented.

The result of the first workshop was a draft for the competence programme NÆRINGSTEFT (Figure 1). The programme included an entrepreneurial grant to be one, but it is organised as a competence programme where you build an entrepreneur’s competence, motivation and business idea during half a year. Many entrepreneurial projects participate in regular activities in the competence programme, and at the end a winner is chosen who receives a large grant from Sparebanken Møre.

From the beginning, a mindset was put in place for the continuous development of the programme. NÆRINGSTEFT is therefore, in line with design thinking, redesigned every year based on the entrepreneurs' experiences and needs that were revealed in the previous year's edition. Different participants are invited to new development conversations and workshops and in this way the bank has a dynamic development process where the programme becomes more and more adapted to the entrepreneurs' needs for each year.

Result

In the development of NÆRINGSTEFT, Sparebanken Møre has taken design thinking as a development process far. The programme itself is designed as an active development programme where influential are invited to provide input and develop all or part of the process. The partners are Converto, Kvale, Pir, Vest, Visma, NTNU, ProtoMore, Vindel, ÅKP, and they are all central throughout the process.

The competence program is constantly evolving. Annual development and evaluation workshops are held, in addition to a number of other activities to develop the programme. In 2019, the program looked as illustrated in Figure 2.

Implementing an attitude towards continuous development was particularly important in 2020, while physical meetings were not possible. NÆRINGSTEFT 2020 was initiated as usual in the autumn of 2020, but was then launched for the first time as a fully digital competence journey. It will be exciting to see what lessons have been learned, as well as what digital tools could be useful in the future, when arranging physical seminars is yet again a possibility.

In a few years, NÆRINGSTEFT has evolved into one of the strongest programmes that Sparebanken Møre has. It is experienced as a generous and genuine gift from the bank to the local entrepreneurs. This applies both to the entrepreneurs who win and receive the grant, but also to a majority of the participants of the various knowledge exchange and development seminars that are held before the winner is chosen. By using of design thinking as a method, Sparebanken Møre has succeeded in developing a new brand; Næringsteft. They have also strengthened their reputation among entrepreneurs in the Northwest by being innovative and creative. At the same time, the sponsorship contributes to an important part of the social contribution that a local bank has as its purpose.

One of the major successes with the project is that the bank follows up the development of the project through its own design thinking workshops and the use of the methodology internally. This means that the work has not only led to a new service and brand, but it has also led to changes in the innovation culture at Sparebanken Møre.

Linda Grimstad, project manager at Sparebanken Møre, has said the following about our influence on the project:

Thank you to our client Sparebanken Møre for an exciting project, and the trust for further collaboration!

Read other client stories here.