The Client

Keeping an Eye Toward the Future

This multinational financial services company equips businesses and consumers with the latest innovation in the payments space. It keeps an eye on future trends to develop products and services that reshape the digital economy so everyone can make their financial dreams into reality. And it does this by making safety and security an integral part of all its innovations. 

The Situation

Developing the Right Go-To-Market Approach 

Technology has forever changed the way we move funds today. Businesses and consumers alike have more options to pay and get paid. Large financial institutions have taken notice and have taken the lead in ushering in the digital economy. 

It's why this multinational financial services company decided to move forward with the launch of its two latest products in new markets — fulfilling its mission to provide the world access to the financial tools they need.

The first product is a buy now pay later (BNPL) solution that will provide the global unbanked or underbanked with alternative lending solutions that are safer and cost-effective. In contrast, the second product is aimed at helping streamline the checkout process with a click to pay solution. 

But before the company could launch these products, it first needed to research the market landscapes it was attempting to enter. For the BNPL service, it would need to understand current BNPL players in Singapore, Malaysia, UAE, KSA, Egypt, Pakistan, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Ghana. For the click to pay product, the company would need to do the same for the South Asia market region. 

Because they wanted to complete the two studies within three months — interviewing an average of 80 people composed of alternative lending companies and online retailers — the company realized it would need outside help. Specifically, an expert with prior Big Four experience executing similar projects and familiarity with the identified markets. 

The Solution

Selecting a Seasoned Big Four Management Consultant 

To make sure it was positioning its product launches for success, the company needed to find an expert with Big four experience and knowledge of its target markets. 

After connecting with their dedicated account executive (AE), the company recognized the  ease of finding and onboarding talent, and the quality and depth of the Graphite network. 

Before moving forward with the platform, the company needed to get buy-in from the internal team. Once that was accomplished, the company moved forward with the AE to establish the scope of work and the project description. The AE then used these criteria to invite four candidates out of 390 experts with relevant sector and functional skills to the project. 

Using Graphite's in-app meeting rooms, the company connected with each expert — digging into their background and previous experience. After careful review, they moved forward with an expert with seven years of management experience working at Big Four accounting firms. 

Results

Setting Up the Go-to-Market Blueprint

The company kicked off the engagement by introducing the expert to the team of researchers they would be managing. Upon meeting the team, the expert built the timeline, processes, and criteria for selecting which lending companies and merchants they would be inviting to participate in the interview for the two studies. 

Once the timeline and processes were established, the expert then worked with the team to develop the questions they would need to answer for both products. For the BNPL product, knowing who the players were in the assigned markets was essential. Equally as important was understanding their current pain points as it relates to disbursement, along with testing their knowledge of virtual cards and the probability of adoption. 

In contrast, the click to pay study revolved around understanding merchants' current online checkout solutions, integration capabilities with new service offerings, and online cart abandonment rates. 

With the framework of the interview questions completed, the research team could start identifying individuals to interview. Over 6,070+ interviews were conducted across the two studies — more than the projected 80 interviews that were established at the start of the project. 

After the interview phase was complete, the expert moved into cleaning and analyzing the data. They then pulled all the findings into two PowerPoint presentations that would be shared with the leadership and product teams.  

Graphite was involved throughout the engagement. It worked with both the expert and the firm to get a pulse on their satisfaction rating and to ensure the project was moving forward as planned.

The expert enjoyed working with the company, expressing that it was one of the best engagements in their independent careers. The company was equally pleased, finding the process of sourcing, onboarding, and paying the expert via the platform easy and convenient.