Event: Avida Finans Innovation Day Workshop

What happens when you gather 40 business leaders together in Sweden to run an innovation workshop? Well first you enjoy some nice fika and then you get to work. Next, you do something that can at times be a bit uncomfortable but more on that in a moment.

First a little about Avida Finans. Since 1983 they have specialized in providing both simple and modern financial solutions for consumers and businesses. They have done this well and have satisfied customers across Sweden, Norway, and Finland. Still, in the modern landscape of financial services one must continue to innovate. To achieve this Avida wanted to unlock the innovation power from within the team and perhaps most importantly give their leaders a stronger sense of purpose.

To do this we started by helping the group understand the value of having a more customer-driven approach. From here you can really unlock those “ah-ha” moments that can drive that next big innovation breakthrough.

At the same time, it is also vital to first test your assumptions before you even think about building. We did that through with the previously mentioned uncomfortable thing of having many real-time customer conversations. With that in mind, we took this workshop outside and to the streets. Thankfully the weather in Stockholm was ideal that day, which is a luxury this close to winter! So with the nice sun on our faces and some guidance from our facilitators on how to engage strangers, we were off. The Avida team met with real users, talked about real problems, and came back with lots of new takes on their previous assumptions.

We then helped them organize these insights into more tactical next steps. We all felt a bit inspired seeing a large established company like Avida operate more like a startup. Thanks for letting us be a small part of that and we are excited to see what they do next.

Are you looking to unlock the innovation from within? Regardless if your team is big or small let’s connect and see what we can discover together through a workshop like this.