Need
Fidelity International manages £862 billion in assets for 2.84 million worldwide clients. It has long recognised innovation as crucial to its competitive edge. However, historically, the company has faced five significant challenges in its ideation process:
- Ineffective idea capture: Ideas rarely progressed beyond Post-it notes at company away days.
- Overwhelming volume: When a SharePoint-based system went viral, it became unmanageable.
- Lack of prioritization: Too many ideas entered the funnel, but only a trickle of benefits emerged.
- Implementation gap: There was a disconnect between generating ideas and turning them into reality.
- Regulatory pressures: Increasingly complex legislation created a need for innovative RegTech solutions.
Fidelity needed a strategic solution to streamline idea generation, prioritise high-impact concepts, and effectively implement innovations.
Solution
To address these challenges, Fidelity International took a multi-faceted approach by:
- Partnering with Wazoku – creators of the leading intelligent innovation platform – to implement ‘Idea Spotlight’ and provide a structured approach to ideation.
- Focusing efforts on 20 ‘Challenges’ – hot topic areas with real business impact.
- Collaborating with Magnetic – experts in designing and innovating for organisational change – to adopt the RapidStart™ tool for capturing and incubating ideas.
- Implementing a ‘test and learn’ innovation model with an emphasis on evidence-based decision-making.
- Developing ‘ClearSpace’, a platform for insightful discussions on compliance and regulatory matters. Conducting extensive research, including interviews, experiments, and pop-up events, to refine and validate ideas.
- Adapting the Wazoku platform to host the ‘ClearSpace’ solution and create a self-sustaining innovation ecosystem.
Value
The implementation of this innovation strategy delivered significant benefits:
- High engagement – 90% of employees registered on the ideation platform.
- Cultural shift towards company-wide innovation responsibility.
- Significantly improved ability to turn ideas into production realities.
- Enhanced knowledge sharing and experimentation across the organisation.
- Streamlined processes for assessing and developing promising ideas, e.g. RegTech.
- Technology is now seen as an essential, embedded part of the business.
- Transformation of early doubters into innovation champions.
- Creation of a self-sustaining solution (ClearSpace) for addressing business issues.
- Shift from siloed innovation to mainstream global discussion.
- Readiness to embrace complex regulatory environments and adopt innovative solutions.
This case study is evidence that a structured approach to ideation and innovation can transform an organization’s culture and its ability to innovate effectively.
