The Swift Chair 'Market-driven Innovation'

“Access to meaningful academic research can support a real business need”

Mark Waller, Head of Human Resources, SWIFT

“Developing original research in line with SWIFT’s strategy”

Prof. Marion Debruyne, SWIFT Chairholder, Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School

The SWIFT in-company programme “Leading for high performance”, organised in collaboration with Vlerick, has been running since 2003. Having built a relationship that has evolved into a trusted partnership, SWIFT has now decided to endow a Chair, involving a large-scale five-year research project on the subject of market-driven innovation.

Where did the idea for the SWIFT Chair come from?

Mark Waller: “We’ve partnered with Vlerick since 2003 so it was a natural progression to take the partnership to the next level and go beyond just customised leadership development. For us, research was a way of partnering that would benefit both SWIFT and VlerickThat’s how the idea for the Chair developed. Various research topics were considered, and we eventually chose a topic that is highly relevant to our strategic direction.”

What is the new strategic direction?

Mark Waller: “SWIFT has embarked upon a new era. We want to build upon the strength of our technology and our messaging infrastructure to become more customer-centric and market-driven. In September, we re-organised the company to get close to our customers and to be better aligned with our commercial activities and established a Product Group and a Market Group, which together are tasked with developing innovative products driven by market demands.”

How will the Chair support this strategy?

Mark Waller: “Access to meaningful academic research can support a real business need that will inform, guide and support our thinking in terms of market-driven product innovation. It will also help our market management and product group in terms of how they function and how we are organised as a company. It’s just as important to look at the skills we have in our new organisation, how we communicate and how we align these capabilities to address these challenges. That is what is exciting for us.”

Prof. Marion Debruyne: “The overarching framework of the Chair that we proposed to SWIFT contains all those elements. Market-driven innovation starts with being more market-oriented and customer-centric. When you listen to your customers and adapt your products, innovation plays a key role. Lastly, you need to match customer value opportunities to the company’s resources and capabilities. From a business school’s point of view, embarking on a partnership is not just about disseminating knowledge, but also about furthering knowledge by gaining new insights. The idea is to develop original research that is in line with SWIFT’s strategy. Obviously that starts with knowing what is already there. Part of the challenge for me is to recognise the patterns and phenomena within the research that we’ll conduct and to be able to link that with management theory and literature.”

What benefits does the Chair hold for SWIFT and Vlerick?

Mark Waller: “Having access to research is the main benefit. Apart from that I believe it could also influence the way we function as an organisation, how we share knowledge, how we understand our market needs and translate them into product offerings. There will be an opportunity to share the research with management groups within other organisations. SWIFT is a relatively small organisation, but the impact that we have far exceeds our size. The constituency of the SWIFT community is much bigger than the company itself. Being a co-operative, we can extend that research within our community, which wouldn’t be possible if we were a purely commercial company.”

Prof. Marion Debruyne: “You can look at this partnership from three different perspectives. First of all, research insights gained will help SWIFT in its decision-making. They can also share those insights with their community. Thirdly, they can obtain recognition and visibility on a certain topic that is of strategic importance to them. Ways of achieving that recognition might include a conference, a book or a case study to be used in education and training. Other insights might only be of interest to SWIFT.”

Gottfried Leibbrandt, Head of Markets, SWIFT

“Our partnership with Vlerick will help us understand how cooperatives like SWIFT can become truly market and customer oriented and come up with appealing value propositions.”

Brian Haughan, Head of Products, SWIFT

“Strategic insights based on leading academic research are key to becoming more innovative in developing products that are much simpler for our customers to use.”