Making Successful Financial Products: Planning Nirvana

Editor's Note: Written in September 2016 about the failure modes of financial product management. In 2026, every one of these dynamics is playing out in AI product development across financial services and beyond. We have republished it unchanged.

Yenni Leighton M.Sc. The Signal Before the Headline | Market & Competitive Intelligence | Europe & Africa | Founder @TheImpetus September 9, 2016

Financial services face a challenge familiar to many businesses: how do you balance resourcing and maintain existing products to keep the client happy today, with resourcing new products to thrill the client tomorrow? It’s a difficult challenge often made more difficult by multiple external factors, such as regulations, government action, market volatility, disruptions in the local or global economy and of course, competitors! When the balance isn’t right, products are culled, funds closed and operations shuttered. It can mean a prolonged period of lost opportunity and low growth. It could mean irreparable reputation damage.

So why are so many products poorly executed, what are we up against?

First culprit is The Empty Parachute. We know the market landscape has shifted. Chasing a fluid, cost-efficient and value-driven model, businesses are rethinking strategy – who they are, how they operate. Routinely cutting corners. Patch-working product design with the operating model has advantages, but is it sustainable? Parachuting your competitor’s solution into your offering, your eco-system, no adequate appraisal for fit with corporate strategy or client objective, that’s dicey!

Great ideas are few and far between; ill-conceived ideas are risky. The Pressure to Innovate is immense. It is not about absence of ideas, motivation, or funding. It is about the first-mover advantage and products that deliver. Let’s face it, we love what we create. We tend to over-promise as well as overestimate the rewards and play down the risks, even when they are glaringly obvious. Reluctance to change the structure or design following a protracted innovation cycle can be very costly.

“Parachuting your competitor’s solution into your offering without adequate appraisal for fit with corporate strategy is dicey.”

The Trafficking of Human Capital muddies the water: new managers bringing ‘best in breed’ borrowed from previous success looking for quick results. Increasing the pace of occupational rotation, where management have 12 months to register success before moving to the next project, won’t help. Better to stop an unviable project early when the opportunity is judged gone, than to invest in yesterday’s ‘next best thing’. Its sound business.

Tough economic times, demand rigorous scrutiny of the product portfolio and make for tough decisions – The Balancing Act. Which products to invest in, in which markets? What do you decommission? What is the correct basis for decisions on new products? Do you add new features or expand? How do you allocate resources and time, to greatest effect? Are we satisfying regulators and addressing client issues? Clients demand products that achieve a predefined objective. Creating sustainable, life-cycle profits from interconnected product may be nirvana; getting it wrong may be terminal.

Delayed Reaction. It is near impossible to design and deploy a single multi-dimensional product with a long shelf life that caters for all segments. A prolonged development and delayed market entry is dangerous in a sector where new architecture and the eco-system move at breakneck speed. By the time you get to market, customers’ needs may well have changed or the economy turned.

“Creating sustainable, life-cycle profits from interconnected product may be nirvana; getting it wrong may be terminal.”

So investment switches to R&D; the ‘engine’ is targeted on inventing ‘the next good thing’. You have The Investment Gap: the launched product left fighting for resource with a bit of help from Marketing. Switching the ‘engine’ that understands, builds and launches the product to new activities, may make short-term financial sense. But that’s all. Assuring success needs commitment from the people with understanding and ownership. Be sure, the clients will know that commitment’s gone. When time comes for contract renewal, you may find them gone, too.

It’s no good outlining the pitfalls without quick wins to help you.

The most obvious is Your Core Expertise. Identify the area you are recognised as the best, by your clients, by competitors and by your industry. This is the basis on which you can make a real difference, become a trailblazer.

Involve Stakeholder Groups. We tend to forget that innovation is a collective process. Since no single person has a monopoly over ideas, the more diverse the team, the better the solutions. Bring all stakeholders to the table throughout the product development process, they all have insights to bring. They can make the difference in developing the idea, guiding R&D, testing the concept with their clients and influencers and, shaping the value proposition for launch and even afterwards.

We know that doing Quality Research and Analysis before you set out is a sine qua none of a successful launch. Do thorough analysis but be pragmatic. Despite initial positive signs, market conditions may turn sour, meaning prospects for growth and viability becoming bleak. Consider all factors carefully that may prompt a different action, including project resource and how the architecture will co-exists when new technologies emerge - it’s a given they will.

Message, Target and Timing. Get intimate with your market. Understand them better than your peers. Look out for those with fingers on the pulse, eyes and ears in the market. Have a commercial instinct but be realistic about product outcomes in your communications. Clients value integrity. Your message has to be on point in a language the client understands, so they can see exactly how your relationship will solve their problem or help meet their objective. Above all, time your launch carefully to get maximum impact.

The process is fraught with complications. Do you face similar challenges and are your strategies working? I would love to hear from you to help you navigate the right routes, for the best outcomes!

First published on LinkedIn in September 2016 - LinkedIn Article

Nine years on, the failure modes have not changed. The stakes have.

If your board is deploying AI without the fiduciary governance framework to match, you are living inside one of these six failure modes right now. The question is which one — and how far along the cycle you are.

The Capital Markets Playbook: Europe & Africa addresses AI governance, concentration risk and institutional decision frameworks for boards and investment teams navigating exactly this terrain.

www.theimpetusglobal.com

© 2026 Yenni Leighton / The Impetus Global. All rights reserved. KENSAM™ market framework coined by Yenni Leighton, The Impetus Global, 2024.