Dealing with Darwin in a mature market : Innovating the customer for a sustainable competitive advantage (a case study of Swedish banking sector)

Abstract: Background: The banking industry is today evolving in a mature market, with a strong competition. Banks’ situation is forcing them to constantly innovate in order to keep their customers and to stay attractive for prospects. This environment is particularly true in Sweden. Purpose: All long this research the authors have explored the way Swedish banks are innovating today. Comparing their practices to customers’ opinions on how they would like their banks to implement innovations, the authors mainly focused on innovation strategies for banks in order to satisfy their customers. Method: First of all the authors have made a literature review in order to explore previous researches conducted on innovation strategies and customers satisfaction. This has firstly been used in order to make hypotheses, then in order to build the interviews guides for banks as well as the quantitative questionnaire for customers. Then, a comparison has been made between customers’ opinions and banks’ practices, all of this combined with the theoretical part in order to draw conclusions on the topic. Results and conclusions: Results of this research have shown a difference of point of view from both parts. This difference is not very strong, but could be at the origin of innovation success for Swedish banks understanding it