About
The TREND_LOUNGE is a platform for innovation and gives employees of BAWAG P.S.K. the opportunity to develop creative products and service ideas for the retail sector by presenting their ideas within a slot of three minutes in front of an internal audience.
Innovation presentation
It is crucial for a bank to identify new trends and product innovations from bottom up. By developing and implementing the “TREND_LOUNGE”, the BAWAG P.S.K. has created an internal platform for innovation. The TREND_LOUNGE is an event for employees of BAWAG P.S.K. to present their innovative ideas for product and service for private customer business. The ideas are presented within a slot of three minutes following comments from a jury. Then, more than 130 participants vote online for their favorite idea. The best ideas are awarded. The result: ideas that present BAWAG P.S.K. with a unique position.
The “TREND_LOUNGE” event empowers the Bank's workforce and has achieved to strengthen the awareness for innovation within the company. Furthermore, it boosts the creativity of the employees and better exploits the existing potential of the company. As a result, we are constantly improving competitiveness and actively shaping the interaction between organization, technology and social change.
The TREND_LOUNGE takes place 3 times a year. Up to 130 employees coming from the headquarters and from various branches across Austria voluntarily attend the event. Each TREND_LOUNGE has a theme. Among these themes were, e.g. upcycling, customer satisfaction, or financial wellbeing. In each TREND_LOUNGE up to 10 ideas are presented. Due to the great interest, it is necessary to pre-select the ideas based on predefined basic criteria. Throughout the process, communication and interaction is an essential part of the quality of the ideas presented and, in turn, their successful implementation.
Uniqueness of the project
So far, we are not aware of any other company which has introduced a platform for employees to develop product and service ideas for the retail business and to present them in front of an internal audience. The innovation aspect is an essential part of it, because the TREND_LOUNGE has achieved to strengthen the awareness of innovation in the company, to support the creativity of the employees and to make even better use of the existing potential of the company.
Many small steps lead to success: the naming of the idea, the creation of the logo and of advertising materials, the communication, the process from the topic preselection to the invitation, the presentation on stage personally or per video-tool, the moderation, the jury, the online evaluation of the ideas, up to the presenting of the TREND_LOUNGE trophy.
