Organizing and managing innovation at ActivoBank

ActivoBank, a small Portuguese retail bank with digital focus, has been operating in the Portuguese market with its current structure for five years. As the model proves to be successful and allows the company to grow at a generous pace, some questions arise on the most adequate innovation strategy for the company, one of the bank’s strongest competitive advantages. After hitting its breakeven point earlier than expected, in 2014, the bank is now at a critical point to check-up on the company’s structure and overall health status. It has a client base of around eighty thousand people (and growing). The present case aims at tracking the history of the company, questioning the relevance of its strong innovation culture strategy and providing an overview on the Portuguese retail banking industry. The reader will be in place of a top management decision-maker from inside ActivoBank, the Head of the Innovation Office. Its goals are to analyze the situation critically and propose with strong arguments possible answers to the upcoming challenges. Should the bank maintain its centralized innovation model, or shift to a different one more suited to its scalability and upcoming challenges? Effectively, is there a more suited model regarding the future of the company?