Ithala SOC

Our work with a major South African bank demonstrates how a global brand can achieve local relevance and drive market-leading performance. We were tasked with adapting their brand and digital strategy to resonate with diverse customers in Zimbabwe and Kenya, proving that local insight is a powerful driver of global success.

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The Challenge

A major South African insurance and banking company sought to adapt its global brand to effectively serve diverse African markets, starting with Zimbabwe and Kenya. The core challenge was to create a localised customer experience that could solve relevant problems across the continent in a timely and agile manner, with a strong user-experience focus at its core.

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Our Approach

Our methodology was a holistic, human-centred process designed to understand the entire business ecosystem from the ground up.

• Holistic Understanding: We began with an in-depth analysis of the business, conducting workshops with key representatives to understand their strategy, product offerings, systems, and internal and external customer pain points. We also performed a comprehensive research exercise to understand the customer’s mental models, environment, and interactions with the client’s offerings.
• Co-design & Testing: With a clear understanding of the challenges, we ideated and designed concepts that addressed both customer and business needs. We developed a prototype of the solution and conducted rigorous testing with customers to ensure the core concepts resonated with their expectations and were culturally appropriate.

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The Impact

Our work led to a significant shift in the client’s digital strategy and a measurable improvement in performance.

• True Customer Obsession: An executive stakeholder praised our team for leading a "customer-centric approach" that transformed their digital strategy to one that drives "true customer obsession."
• High-Bar Outcomes: The stakeholder noted that our ability to "blend with our employees and their ability to teach while delivering high bar outcomes" was instrumental in their team achieving an annual rating of 4/5, a result that many had considered impossible.

Our work proved that a localised, human-centred approach is key to achieving high-bar outcomes and strengthening brand loyalty in diverse and challenging African markets.

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We partnered with a major South African bank to tackle a fundamental internal challenge: transforming a process-driven culture into one rooted in empathy. Our work shows how a shift in mindset can lead to a more intuitive and customer-centric experience, resulting in a more effective and successful organisation.

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The Challenge

We were tasked with guiding the same South African insurance and banking company's key business stakeholders to rethink and engineer new customer journeys. The primary challenge was to break their existing mindset as bank employees, who were limited by internal processes, and get them to empathize with the customer's perspective.

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Our Approach

Our methodology focused on immersive and collaborative techniques to drive a fundamental cultural and mindset shift.

• Mindset Transformation: We guided business stakeholders through a process of empathy by presenting them with designs and artifacts that were different from what they were used to seeing. Through engaging scenarios and activities, we encouraged them to reimagine the customer experience and truly immerse themselves in the customer's thoughts and feelings.
• Co-design, Test & Prioritize: The stakeholders actively participated in exploring the key elements that would create an optimal target journey. Prototypes were developed and tested before implementation, establishing a crucial baseline for product releases over the next 18 months.

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The Impact

This project received significant internal recognition and demonstrated the power of our human-centred approach to organisational change.

• Beyond Excellence Award: For successfully leading this transformation and helping the client's team to rethink its approach to customer experience, we received a prestigious "Beyond Excellence Award!" from the client.

Our role was to facilitate a profound cultural change by putting the human element at the centre of the design process, which resulted in a more empathetic, customer-centric, and ultimately more effective organisation.

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