Project Overview
This project explores the role of the financial services user in the medium-term future (2025), with a focus on how digital and integrated ecosystems will impact daily life through technology enablers in the age of digital transformation and hyper-connectivity. Considering technological advances and the ubiquity of artificial intelligence and machine learning, we identified exponential trends that will most likely influence ways in which people might live and consume products and services in the near future.
Tools
Framing, Domain description: Describing the domain by characterizing its preTrend Horizon Wheel: An interactive wheel comprised of key factors arranged in chronological order (i.e., circles surrounding the key issue across time horizons – sooner-to-later). This method was applied to construct scenario compilations, by aligning the nearest happening (the inner circle) to the early-stage development of possible future trends (outer circle).
Workshop: The main purpose of this workshop was to identify issues, thoughts, aspirations, wishes, worries, implications when contemplating the evolving relationship between the physical and virtual world as it transforms the process of work and consumption. A leading design firm in China, who provided access to a millennial cohort within the organization, was invited to participate in the workshop. Participants were divided into four groups to consider how they will identify themselves in 2025.
Harman Fan: The Harman Fan contains possible future states of the financial services industry. They have been organized in chronological order from sooner to later in the evolution process. By clicking on each of the states, a description can be obtained.
Decision Making Canvas: Chronologically segregates relevant information from key factors in a format that shows the needs or tasks of real and digital self in both user and business perspective.
Outputs
Scenarios (Theatre Analogy): A visualization process to develop different scenarios or future scenes by connecting different key factors to teleport the stakeholders and users into the possible futures.
Project Insights and Outcomes
Market data concerning consumer trends does not always display accurate information about true consumer needs, habits, and behaviors—or their emerging and unarticulated needs. This means that futures thinking must generate a deeper understanding of factors such as arising consumer pains and employment opportunities they are likely to seek in a given context and futures time horizon.
Most products fail not because of their technology, but due to insufficient consumer insight. In other words, launching a product (or portfolio of products) based solely on its technology will most likely result in poorly thought-out value propositions that do not fully consider and address consumer needs—and will most likely not consider the broader consumer and competitive landscape.
Jörn Bühring 