I was the Lead Service Designer responsible for hands‑on discovery with SMEs, facilitating stakeholder workshops, developing and evaluating propositions, and turning emergent ideas into visual stimulus and testable prototypes.
We began by deeply understanding barriers SMEs face when they want to decarbonise: knowledge gaps, limited internal capacity, perceived cost / ROI uncertainty, difficulty mapping actions to financing, and fragmentation in supplier landscapes.
Once key barriers were synthesised, we produced concise insight boards used in ideation workshops, helping stakeholders internalise research quickly and ground brainstorming in evidence.
We then developed a suite of concept stimuli (e.g. climate business simulator, leasing pathways, green rewards, decarbonisation guarantee) to probe desirability, mental models and required enablers with SMEs and internal experts.
Testing revealed SMEs typically know less than they believe about decarbonisation pathways and need structured hand‑holding: curated ideas, vetted supplier connections, indicative economics and accessible, staged finance.
The result was a service concept: a decarbonisation marketplace matching businesses to recommended actions and accredited suppliers, bundled with tailored financing routes—positioning the bank as an orchestrator accelerating climate action.
Bridging research and proposition: uncovering SME barriers then shaping bank‑enabled service concepts, validated through iterative stimulus.
- Workshop facilitation
- Contextual enquiry
- Proposition development
- Visualisation & prototyping
- Mapping workshops
- User research & synthesis
From our interviews with SMEs that want to reduce their emissions, we learned that many still need to see a clear, financial benefit. This could take the form of brand equity/kudos or discounts of more favourable terms on commercial loans.
Research insight poster used to anchor stakeholder ideation sessions.
A collection of sketches I made to test out different high-level ideas.
Assumption mapping to surface risk & validate business viability dimensions.
Rough journey sketch communicating friction points & orchestration opportunities.
We used ads in customer testing to explore the kinds of messages that resonate with SMEs.
Value Created
Created an evidence‑based portfolio of SME decarbonisation service concepts (simulator, marketplace, finance pathways) aligned to real barriers— enabling prioritised investment discussions and clearer next‑step experiments
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