From Heritage to Digital Challenger: Transforming Bankwest

Today, Australians need more from their bank. They want a bank that’s working to enable them to manage their money so they can focus on balancing family, career, and life. Competing on rates and fees alone isn’t enough. So, Bankwest set a bold ambition to transform from heritage bank to Australia’s favourite digital bank for mature, digital-first customers. To meet this ambition, Bankwest sought to harness the expertise of its heritage and supercharge that with the customer focus of a digital challenger. Challenge: How does Bankwest bring customers into its core, to transform an entire organisation for the future?

Together over 11 months, we transformed Bankwest —putting customers at the core of strategic decision making. This meant: New website and app. Using rapid prototyping & customer testing, we defined a vision, value proposition and roadmap for Bankwest’s new app and website — designed to make money simple. New strategic design capability. Accelerated teams with a new capability and cadence to de-risk important ideas through customer testing — and a new playbook to scale this capability. New ways to stay focused. Co-created value territories based on what Bankwest’s customers need to focus the organisation’s efforts.

For customers Hundreds of hours of qualitative testing highlighted the unique needs of Bankwest’s customers. The newly launched website and app aims to address these head on —reducing the mental load of managing money. For employees Anchoring to customers provided focus for teams throughout the transformation, aligning leaders and teams on a shared vision and the ambition to better serve customers. For Bankwest Strategic design helped Bankwest transform key channels in under a year — launching a completely new app, website, brand and more. It continues to be a critical enabler to unlocking its competitive advantage and meeting growth ambitions.

Bankwest used strategic design to unlock their digital challenger ambitions — proving a critical organisation-wide tool into the future. Specific outputs created together include: •Customer testing playbook: A field-guide to testing at Bankwest, detailing principles, test types, the process, common questions, skills required and practical tips •Modules & plays: Cheat sheets for specific activities (e.g. sprint planning, insights synthesis, research plans) •App & website prototypes: Brings to life the future vision and immediate priorities •Three horizon roadmaps: Breaks down how the vision will be delivered over time •Strategic narrative: Articulates the app & website value propositions, and how these deliver on the strategic goals of the bank •Value territory canvases: Detail the specific needs of the target customer and opportunities to meet those needs Impact has been seen broadly for customers, teams, and for Bankwest overall. “I get overwhelmed [thinking about money]…there's so much to think about…having it laid out here [in the App prototype] makes me feel calm.” — Customer “I’ve never finished a project with such buy in. Whenever we finished a sprint, everyone always seemed to be pulling in the same direction” – Design team member https://campaignbrief.com/bankwest-unveils-new-app-and-website-in-major-brand-cx-overhaul-via-ey-future-friendly-akqa/ https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bankwest_todays-the-day-were-very-excited-to-have-activity-7300024276324167683-DNUa/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAB2Vd0BGOc28uGLl77jMKL8knOWvzuCxgo