For financial services providers to thrive in this new era, they will need to invest time in truly understanding their diverse customer base, unlocking value for all individuals in the varying segments, and translating that value into economic opportunities.

The financial services industry is rapidly transitioning all its customer segments into the digital era, therefore inclusive design thinking is becoming increasingly important.

These challenges, which often result in high operational costs, have had a negative impact on the mines’ profitability and financial sustainability in recent years. Amidst this era of disruption, emerging technologies offer enormous potential in solving some of the business challenges that the African mining sector faces. Despite the enormous potential that digital technologies offer, the rate of adoption across the mining sector has been slow.

Our Thinking

Banking Nexus

    The financial sector is embracing digitalization, emphasising the importance of inclusive design. Amid economic challenges, banks vie for customer trust. To thrive, they must understand their diverse customers, create value, and seize economic opportunities. This is a chance to engage customers through inclusive digital platforms, rebuilding trust, and enhancing the banking experience for all.
Download | Beyond Banking (POV)

Our Experience

Developing Value Propositions for an Excluded Market

  • Developing Value Propositions for an Excluded Market in the context of the delivery, the COOi Team brought expertise, methods and tools that enhanced the mission of developing a compelling customer value proposition. We provided the relevant experience and ability to adapt to changing needs, focus and ability to present unbiased points of view.
  • Our capabilities demonstrated with this engagement:
  • Problem exploration stages – understand, explore, synthesis, ideation, and implementation
  • Executed primary and secondary market research and analysis for the proposed excluded market to be addressed
  • Concept developed from user research of both market and interviews with potentials customers

Developing a COVID-19 Application with IDC

  • Developing a COVID-19 Application with IDC Developing of contact tracing app, in response to COVID-19 pandemic IDC was in need of a contact tracing application to support its beneficiaries; mines, hospitals, manufacturing plants.
  • Our capabilities demonstrated with this engagement:
  • Analysis and design of the solution by; defining the COVID-19 spread problem statement, generating technology solution concepts, mapping the user journey maps and designing the processes for the solution design
  • Developing the prototype and mobileapplication on Android for the contact tracing solution
  • Testing phase of the built solution; developing test data, developing test cases, executing systems testing and user acceptance testing on various versions of Android and iOS operating systems
  • Finalising all system documentation from Analysis, Design, Build and Test phase

Siyakhula Financial Services Design Challenge

    Old Mutual is a Pan-African financial services provider that operates across 14 countries. Their Mass and Foundation Cluster (MFC) business unit provides accessible financial services to the lower income market. In the spirit of driving further value four clients, MFC annually hosts ‘Siyakhula’, a movement that encourages and challenges their employees to solve pressing business challenges together. Siyakhula has been a successful driver of innovation for MFC for 20 years. It brings together minds across a variety of disciplines and backgrounds to collaborate and put forward ideas to help build their business strategy. COOi was tasked with facilitating the various finalists from moving their idea into a prototype.
  • Development of methodology; idea to concept to prototype
  • Developing templates, noddy guides and supporting documents to facilitate the methodology
  • Coaching team using design thinking to bring their idea to life
  • Internal communications to drive engagement and get teams going
  • Developing adjudication process for the challenge

Developing Value Propositions for an Excluded Market

    The project was set out to deliver a value proposition for an excluded market, the COOi Team employed in depth customer research both desktop and ‘boot on the ground’ applying their highly-tuned inclusive design thinking expertise, methods and tools. Leveraging our relevant experience and agility towards changing needs, focus and ability to craft unbiased viewpoints. Our team's profound understanding of the unique dynamics of the excluded market enabled us to swiftly navigate evolving landscapes, ensuring that the value proposition resonated authentically with the target audience's specific pain points and aspirations.
  • Problem exploration stages – understand, explore, synthesis, ideation, and implementation
  • Executed primary and secondary market research and analysis for the proposed excluded market to be addressed
  • Concept developed from user research of both market and interviews with potentials customers
  • Prototyping: Creating a prototype to test and validate the concepts from the above mentioned research