Moving towards a new service development (NSD) framework for sustainable financial service offerings for the second economy

In South Africa the second economy continues to be marginalised in certain areas. Thismarginalisation exacerbates disparities in wealth. These ills have to be reduced for South Africato prosper. A key driver for poverty reduction is ensuring all folds of society contribute toeconomic activity and are included within financial systems. A fundamental step in the processis for organisations to provision financial service offerings for the second economy. Whilst thishas occurred, the majority of offerings have failed or have been met with limited success. Thereis a requirement to understand the customer and their needs hence providing a framework withwhich an organisation can create sustainable offerings for the second economy. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve experts in financial serviceorganisations. These persons had various roles from product managers to managing directors.The respondents hailed from research and non-governmental organisations. Using content andthematic analysis the researcher analysed data from the interviews. This data was used totransform a de jure new service development (NSD) framework created from the literature to ade facto NSD framework. This framework encompasses critical success factors and criteriarequired for sustainable offer development in South Africa. The research highlighted financial services organisations are not performing the basicprocesses and those performed, are performed ineptly. There is a dire need for a mind shiftchange, currently hindered by industry arrogance, to effect new process, to effect radicalinnovation, to effect new business models, to create sustainable service offerings for the secondeconomy. Finally its evident a tool such as the de facto NSD framework, or similar, is essentialin organisations to start perpetuating this change and supporting leaders in this drive. Copyright © 2008, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria Please cite as follows: Ragoobeer, P 2008, Moving towards a new service development (NSD) framework for sustainable financial service offerings for the second economy, MBA dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-03172010-141726/ > G10/113/ag