CASE STUDY
Major Payments Provider
Bridging global innovation gaps through digital transformation
Challenge
A major payments technology company had over many years developed a network of 10 innovation centers around the world. Each innovation center was designed and launched by leaders in different geographies and with differing capabilities, operating models and approaches to serving company account teams and their clients.
While some cross-pollination of ideas and frameworks was taking place, there was no standardized agreement on what might be necessary to drive greater value.
The company recognized that a more consistent operating model was needed, and in 2018 the company decided to move all the innovation centers under a single global leader. This new leader was tasked with driving synergies between the innovation center leaders and establishing a new, universally accepted operating model.
Solutions
The company engaged Prophet to bring the innovation leaders together to rapidly build trust among them and encourage knowledge sharing. From there they could work toward consensus on a go-forward operating model and action plan for putting it into practice.
To start the alignment process, Prophet’s team led the innovation leaders in activities that provided insight into their own preferences and motivations within the innovation process, allowing each leader to meet each other on equal footing. The subsequent knowledge-sharing activities were designed to quickly establish commonality and shared interests. The first two activities were so effective that aligning on the go-forward operating model, key areas for standardization and the action plan was remarkably straightforward.
Results
The team quickly aligned on priorities, an action plan and expectations moving forward. The head of global innovation and design at the company said:
“Designing and delivering this kind of iconic event for a team of highly independent and experienced innovation leaders (who regularly run these kinds of events themselves for our global clients) required a firm who could confidently bring deep, demonstrated subject matter expertise in innovation, digital product development and event facilitation. I trusted the Prophet team to rapidly get us to breakthrough team dynamics and an actionable plan, and they totally delivered.”