The Technology Futures team at Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) identified a set of disruptive technologies and themes set to shape the future of finance and banking. Also, they needed to understand consumer readiness and barriers to adoption.
We began by deep diving into RBS’s tech themes and exploring the human problems they have the potential to solve. For example, what problem or need does ‘platformization’ really address? How do these emerging technologies tap into wider cultural shifts and social challenges?
Building on our initial analysis and hypotheses, we selected five Illume Guides to explore this more in-depth, each of them aligning to one of the five strategic themes. For example: for the theme ‘Culture & Work 2.0’ we engaged with a freelance creative that spent years optimizing their remote working systems. Guides took part in interviews and trend-spotting activities which aimed to understand how the themes are currently playing out in their lives, and where they expect this to go in the future.
The second stage of the process was to validate the Culture + Trend insights with a mass audience, namely RBS customers and SMEs. We did this via a quantitative survey which focused on understanding consumer readiness to engage with the strategic themes.
The final stage of the project was to activate the insights. Alongside a comprehensive research report, we invited RBS stakeholders to attend a workshop. There, they could watch videos, explore an interactive timeline, and experience each strategic theme through a series of hands-on activities.
The project resulted in a set of key opportunities for RBS across the five strategic themes; all were grounded in emerging cultural expectations and mass-consumer realities.
Since completion, RBS have presented key insights at their Future of Banking conference; 300 people across Comms & Marketing posted personal commitments around what they intend to do differently with the deeper understanding of trends from a consumer perspective.
RBS is currently using this work to prioritize innovation and focus resources where it will make the biggest difference to consumers and SMEs. Also, they are continuing to quantitatively track the trends; furthermore, recently repeated the survey, to determine how attitudes and behaviors are evolving.
Trends & Digital Insight Lead at Royal Bank of Scotland
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As researchers we not only want to understand which trends are shaping and manifesting around the world, but also HOW this happens. Combining a macro analysis and a qualitative exploration with our leading-edge consumer network. Validated by a quantification with 15.000 consumers in 16 markets, this reports offers a unique and actionable view on the post-2020 consumer.
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