objective

Sparebanken Møre wanted to develop something that would help entrepreneurs in the early stages. They had an idea about a grant programme, but did not have sufficient understanding of the needs of entrepreneurs in the region. They want to use this opportunity to learn about design thinking, creating something in a practical "case". In addition, they wanted experience how they, in an early phase in the development process, could collaborate with external people from the industry.

TYPE OF PROCESS

• Design thinking

APPROACH

We chose to invite influential internal employees in the bank and external enthusiasts in the local community, to learn more about their needs through developing together. The result of the first workshop was a draft for the competence programme NÆRINGSTEFT. The programme included an entrepreneurial grant, but it is organised as a competence programme where you build an entrepreneur’s competence, motivation and business idea during half a year.

From the beginning, a mindset was put in place for the continuous development of the programme. NÆRINGSTEFT is therefore, in line with design thinking, redesigned every year based on the entrepreneurs' experiences and needs that were revealed in the previous year's edition. Different participants are invited to new development conversations and workshops and in this way the bank has a dynamic development process where the programme becomes more and more adapted to the entrepreneurs' needs for each year.

Impact

• The competence programme “NÆRINGSTEFT”

• Anchoring towards the local businesses

• One of the major successes of the project is that the bank follows up the development of the project through its own design thinking workshops and the use of the methodology internally. This means that the work has not only led to a new service and brand, but it has also led to changes in the innovation culture at Sparebanken Møre.