Strategic planning for a new M-Pesa payment product

In 2007, Vodafone conceived one of the most prominent fintech products – M-Pesa in Kenya – now with 50 million clients across 7 African markets. In 2019, as it sought to launch a new payment product, the global M-Pesa team at Vodafone reached out to Digital Disruptions to support its long-term product strategy and potential partnerships in several key markets.

Approach & Outcome

Typically, firms plan their strategy based on existing capabilities or constraints; they may not always consider how or when the environment may change. Digital Disruptions began with advocating a design-led approach to envision what the landscape could look like several years out and key variables, both internal to the organization and outside, and then “worked backwards” from the vision. We also presented key trends and knowledge of payments.

We then facilitated a two-day workshop between multiple regional and local M-Pesa teams.  We aligned on the new product’s “North Star”, crafted a plausible long-term business model, identified core capabilities and assets that would be important to sustain it over the coming years, and a developed shorter-term product roadmap. The workshop generated alignment not only to the local country teams, but also critical decisions that senior executives at Vodafone and Vodacom were seeking to address.