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Business Development: ​​
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Revitalising Advantages at one of Norway's largest pension and financial providers 

Project Type: Business Development, Business Strategy, Service Design & UX Design

Organisation: Storebrand, Private Markets & Digital Innovation
 

My Role: Service Designer:  leading the design-process together with six members from Storebrand, including Business Designers and Innovation specialists 
 

Timeline: January – September 2020

Storebrand is one of Norway’s largest pension and financial service providers. The project, “Revitalising Advantages,” aimed to explore how Storebrand could activate a customer group of 400,000 people with pension agreements, creating long-term, relevant relationships through benefits, advantages, and services based on real customer needs.
 

The challenge was twofold:

  • How to co-create with customers to understand their needs in the private financial market

  • How to embed a structured innovation process that balanced customer desirability with business viability and technical feasibility

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Result​

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We created a tailored test-and-learn process for the team of Business Designers and Financial Advisors, enabling them to apply Service Design tools and thinking to rapidly test ideas from their backlog and explore new concepts for activating Storebrand’s large customer base.

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This approach addressed a key challenge: constant inflow of new ideas that needed quick validation to learn about customer needs while testing elements for potential new services and business models.

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Additionally, I was the first consultant that worked with Storebrand from Knowit Experience Oslo, which helped open the door to further collaboration between the two, including new visual identity, which you can read more about here. 

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Process

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The project followed a double diamond approach during the first two quarters:

 

 

Discover & Define
 

  • Reviewed existing insights and identified knowledge gaps

  • Conducted customer interviews, workshops, and observations to understand needs and behaviours

  • Mapped opportunities for creating value beyond traditional pension services
     

Develop & Deliver
 

  • Formulated hypotheses and tested them through rapid prototyping and digital user testing (via Teston) due to Covid-19 restrictions

  • Created low-fidelity prototypes in Figma and Sketch, tested via Teams, InVision, and Teston

  • Ran digital idea workshops in Miro to co-create with customers and internal teams

     

Throughout, we maintained a holistic view of desirability, feasibility, and viability, presenting findings regularly to stakeholders, including department leaders and the executive director for Private Markets.

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My Role

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I was responsible for leading the design process and embedding Service Design practices within a team of six business developers and financial advisors. My role included:

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  • Teaching Service Design methodology and tools to enrich the team’s approach to innovation

  • Visualising the process and findings for clarity and alignment

  • Gathering and analysing insights from a large user group

  • Structuring and synthesising data into actionable insights

  • Creating and testing hypotheses through prototypes and experiments

  • Facilitating digital workshops with customers and internal teams

  • Supporting strategic roadmaps for each project phase

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This role required balancing strategic business considerations with customer-centred design, while adapting to remote collaboration during Covid-19.

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Key Learnings
 

  • Data structuring and analysis: I learned to manage large volumes of qualitative and quantitative data while maintaining a clear link to business goals.
     

  • Holistic decision-making: Constantly evaluated desirability, viability, and feasibility to ensure sustainable solutions.
     

  • Financial services expertise: Gained deep understanding of pensions and how to integrate Service Design into this domain.
     

  • Cross-disciplinary collaboration: Learned how to position Service Design within a team of business experts and financial advisors.
     

  • Strategic alignment: Developed strategies that bridged business development and Service Design, ensuring innovation aligned with Storebrand’s objectives.
     

  • Design + Lean synergy: Experienced the interplay between Design Thinking and Lean methodology, especially in planning for MVP development.
     

  • Stakeholder engagement: Built confidence in articulating and justifying the value of Service Design to senior leaders.
     

  • Remote facilitation: Mastered digital collaboration tools (Miro, Teams) for workshops and prototyping with Storebrand’s customers during Covid-19.
     

  • Rapid prototyping: Created and tested low-fidelity prototypes using Figma, Sketch, and InVision, adapting to digital-only testing environments.

Epilogue
 

Covid-19 disrupted traditional co-creation methods, but the team adapted quickly. We shifted to fully digital collaboration, using Teams, Miro, and remote testing platforms to keep momentum.
 

The project concluded in autumn 2020 with a delivered test-and-learn framework and a visual roadmap for ongoing innovation. This framework empowered Storebrand’s team to continue validating ideas, learning from customers, and iterating concepts, ensuring that future services remain relevant, customer-centric, and strategically aligned.

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