Type of project
MSc course - Tech-Enabled Innovation Studio
Client
Rabobank
What we delivered
Strategy presentation
Strategy report
Prototype of the strategy
Period
Feb 2025 - jun 2025
Rabobank, widely known as the agriculture bank, has extensive internal knowledge regarding sustainable transitions, particularly within agriculture. Despite this expertise, the bank's clients, like those in the coffee supply chain operating on thin margins, struggle to access necessary guidance and funding to transition to sustainable practices.
This project addresses how Rabobank's Relationship Managers (RMs), the primary client contacts, can effectively facilitate the transition to sustainable practices within the coffee industry. Currently, RMs lack the necessary tools and technical knowledge to address complex client queries regarding these transitions. The resulting knowledge gap creates inefficiencies, limits the impact of Rabobank's support, and hinders clients' ability to achieve sustainability goals.
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The complexity of the coffee industry
The global coffee industry is characterized by immense complexity due to its structure, diverse geography, and conflicting interests among numerous actors. This vast supply chain, spanning the worldwide 'coffee belt,' involves many actors operating on razor-thin margins. This complexity is further intensified by the significant influence of climate change—which threatens crop yield and quality, increasing financial risk—and the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which imposes complex traceability and compliance burdens on the entire chain. These external pressures, alongside the existing issue of smallholders abandoning the market (the 'dumbing down of coffee'), necessitate that Relationship Managers become both financial and sustainability experts to effectively support clients.
Coffee & Rabobank
Rabobank finances all actors across the coffee supply chain, yet the organization is highly siloed, resulting in a lack of communication between departments and missed sales opportunities. This structure necessitates a neutral stance to avoid disadvantaging any client stakeholder. The key challenge is that Relationship Managers (RMs), despite Rabobank possessing vast internal expertise, struggle to navigate the sector's complexity and the increasing requirement to act as sustainability experts in risk assessment. This knowledge gap hinders Rabobank's impact, as only the most experienced 'Tier 3' RMs can handle this complexity. The project identifies a clear opportunity to unlock the bank's potential by breaking down internal silos and equipping RMs with the necessary tools and insights to influence the coffee sector's sustainable transformation.
Our strategy: Raboinsight
The RaboInsight tool is an AI-powered system designed to seamlessly connect people, products, and insights within one intuitive interface. It is natively embedded in Rabobank's digital working environment using Microsoft Copilot Studio.
Key features include:
Meeting Analysis: The Relationship Manager (RM) can toggle the tool on to passively listen to client meetings (with full transparency). This eliminates manual note-taking, allowing the RM to focus on the conversation.
Automated Summary & Analysis: After the meeting, RaboInsight generates a summary of client challenges and goals. It then cross-references this discussion with internal data (products, past interactions) and external market data (industry trends).
Actionable Suggestions (Rabro): The analysis results in recommended next steps and concrete, tailored suggestions for the RM.
Trends Dashboard: The tool includes a dashboard that curates relevant articles and insights (e.g., ESG trends, regulatory updates) for the RM's client portfolio. A "Client Relevance" button helps RMs see how a trend (like the EUDR) affects specific clients, prompting proactive conversations.
Value and impact of RaboInsight
RaboInsight transforms client engagement into a proactive, strategic process, driving value across three main levels:
For relationship Managers (RMs): The tool streamlines administrative work by automating note-taking, reduces admin load, and generates intelligent suggestions, empowering RMs to focus on relationship building and closing deals. RMs gain visibility into niche solutions, making their role more impactful.
For clients: Clients receive financial solutions more closely aligned with their actual business needs through smarter, data-rooted proposals. This leads to specific, well-informed follow-ups, which deepens trust and strengthens long-term relationships.
For the organization (Rabobank): RaboInsight supports strategic goals by driving higher deal volume, improving client satisfaction, and enabling more effective cross-selling. It centralizes data, creating a scalable foundation for growth and leading to a more agile organization.
Technolgy-enabled process
The strategic design project for Rabobank was executed using a tech-enabled process, meaning technology—and primarily AI—was leveraged across multiple phases to both empower the design team and significantly increase efficiency.
In the first phase, technology was primarily used for efficient research and information handling. Tools included NotebookLM for summarizing large files and reports, and Perplexity and ChatGPT for quick and complex research.
In the second phase, I focused on automating and streamlining workflows. Tools used were ChatGPT to prepare and restructure interview questions , Microsoft Teams for generating meeting transcripts , and external databases like Lemlist to find email addresses and automate outreach to organizations like coffee cooperatives.
The tools in the third phase provided creative input and structure for brainstorming. This included XMindAi to generate visual mind maps and initial discussion topics from prompts, acting as an "extra teammate". Miro was also used for automated clustering and Figma for AI-suggested templates and visual communication.
The tools in the third phase provided creative input and structure for brainstorming. This included XMindAi to generate visual mind maps and initial discussion topics from prompts, acting as an "extra teammate". Miro was also used for automated clustering and Figma for AI-suggested templates and visual communication.
In the final phase of the project I focused on rapidly generating and visualizing the concept. Ailixr was used to test the core functionality of RaboInsight and simulate an interactive experience. Visily was the primary tool for rapidly designing the interactive application using AI-powered templates, with seamless integration to Figma for interactive flows. Finally, Envato was used to create the professional animation video for the final presentation.
