ING uses an open innovation approach.

Due to their agile strategy by changing and keeping up

with what the customers want, ING looks to external as well as internal sources for ideas. Who
best to tell you what want other than the people who know what they want? ING empower
people and businesses to realise their own vision for a better future. ING has stated that, “We
know people don’t need banks, they need banking.” How do they know this? They have
employed the strategy of open innovation so they are able to promise to make banking
frictionless, removing barriers to progress and giving people the confidence in their ability to
make decisions and to move forward.  Open innovation promotes an information age mindset
toward innovation that runs counter to the secrecy and silo mentality of traditional corporate
research labs. To create a superior customer experience, ING has four strategic priorities: using
advanced data capabilities to understand customers better and meet their changing needs;
innovating faster; thinking beyond traditional banking to develop new services and business
models; and earning the primary relationship. This is exactly what open innovation is all about
and ING has managed to demonstrate it very well.

As a digital bank, ING has had no choice but to employ technological innovation. Technological
innovation takes place when technology is used. This means that not the customers but also the
employees are heavily involved with technology. Tech is simply at the core of ING. They provide
continous development, cool projects, latest technologies, devOps, IT festivals & hangouts and
Agile to their employees so that can empower the customers.

Innovation at ING isn’t about the latest gadgets or gizmos, but rather creating a differentiating
experience for customers.  ING has a variety of ways of turning great ideas into products and
services that customers really need. These include in-house innovations using the bank’s €25
million Innovation Fund, investing in and partnering with financial technology (fintech)
companies via ING Ventures, as well as developing their own unique innovation method –
PACE, which has trained more than 10,000 employees. ING has Innovative Labs in four cities
around the world (Amsterdam, Brussels, London and Singapore) where they build and validate
new businesses by combining their knowledge and network with the knowledge and skills of
others. To increase the speed and impact of our performance, they have consolidated all our
innovation activities into one business area called ING Neo, reporting directly to the chief
executive officer. ING Neo innovates for both customers and ING itself. It is focused
opportunities to solve problems and client needs in a number of areas. These are the value
spaces this hopes to disrupt. ING Ventures is the venture capital arm of ING making minority
investments in early-stage companies that have a strategic relevance to ING. It targets
disruptive technologies that have the potential to impact ING’s business and ensure customers
and clients get access to best-in-class services. Based in Amsterdam but shadowing ING’s
geographic footprint of 41 countries, ING Ventures is a €300 million fund that not only drives
innovation within ING, but also helps entrepreneurs with hands-on support, know-how, scaling
expertise and access to our distribution network. ING provides hands-on investor targeting
growth stage ventures.

 ING Labs uses ING’s knowledge and network to bring products and businesses to
market. The bank is always looking for new ways to do things faster, better, cheaper.
ING knows that it has to move out of our comfort zone, even beyond banking, so that it
can better serve the needs of customers with solutions that addresses their challenges.
They discover, experiment, and validate in a structured innovation process that includes
governance and funding for the ventures in our innovation funnel. At ING Labs in
London and Brussels (formerly Fintech Village) they partner scale-ups that match ING’s
innovation objectives and help them to further develop their value propositions.
Operating as incubators for the initiatives, ING Labs in Amsterdam and Singapore seek
to create minimal viable businesses. Once ready to scale, initiatives either spin out as
standalone companies supported by ING or they continue to develop within the bank.
ING believes that they first have to understand customers’ needs then translate them
into impactful solutions. In order to this, they discover, validate, launch and scale. ING
has created its recipe for success. This is how ING outlines it: Support from dedicated
professionals like PACE coaches, service designers, UX/UI and Growth support team
 ING’s structured innovation process (PACE)
 Committed business sponsors
 Clear direction from our value spaces teams
 Trainings and workshops
  Access to key skills and knowledge about products, methods, and regulations
 Engaging work environment and fully equipped facilities

PACE is an innovative strategy that ING bank has used for many years. Like it is name suggest
through PACE ING keeps up to PACE With the changes in the business world. PACE combines
design thinking, lean startup and Agile scrum. ING ensure that it creates only what the
customer needs then bring it to the market as quickly as possible. PACE consists of five phases.
These are discovery, problem fit (experimentation and validation), solution fit, market fit and
scaling. It is easy to jump back and forth in the process if needs be in order to get it right
product. PACE puts people, process and organization into place to deliver what the customer
needs with the best use of limited resources.

Based on my research, I see that ING employs a lot of the strategies that were highlighted in
class. They have used many innovative strategies to remain on of the leading banks in the
world. I have seen open, product, process, marketing and organization and technological
innovation being employed quite successfully. At ING innovation labs are also set up around the
world. Moving to agile IT has led disruptive innovation at banking giant ING as it rolls out
bizdevops throughout its business. Adopting agile changed development cycles from the old
multi-month waterfall projects to an iterative continuous delivery approach in which teams
were able to release new code into production almost instantly. IT led the disruptive innovation
of banking giant, ING. I also find that ING does a lot of incremental innovation. The introduction
these changes over time are important so as not to shock persons with too much to learn or get
familiar with all at once. If it is too much it might turn off customers and the bank might lose
business. Adopting agile changed development cycles from the old multi-month waterfall
projects to an iterative continuous delivery approach in which teams were able to release new
code into production almost instantly. (Caravan, 2019). 
ING (2019). The ongoing digitalisation of trade finance.
https://www.ingwb.com/en/insights/innovation/orange-blog/the-ongoing-digitalisation-of-
trade-finance

Innovation at ING. https://www.ing.com/About-us/Innovation/Innovation-at-ING.htm

ING Ventures. https://www.ing.com/About-us/Innovation/ING-Ventures.htm