Bpifrance has been recruiting with Tandemz since 2021 and is used by 10+ people among their team. We chatted with Jean-Baptiste Kaloya about how they conduct research at Bpifrance including how they created a continuous research habit with Tandemz.
Jean-Baptiste
Jean-Baptiste is the head of product design at Bpifrance. He joined the bank in 2021 after several roles in product design as well as entrepreneurship experiences.
Bpifrance
Bpifrance is a parapublic investment bank. They help companies grow by providing funds and guidance at all stages of their developments. They invested 67 billion euros in 2022.
They started a transition in 2017 to reposition themselves as a fintech tool with innovative digital products to secure funds.
This new model’s goal is to allow their clients to be more agile with they how the manage their investments needs and to help Bpifrance’s bankers to focus on high value tasks by automating or reducing the complexity of certain processes.
A complex research context
Bpifrance’s activity is complex for several reasons. First of all, they are a parapublic organization with over 2000 employees evolving in the banking sector. These 3 elements and their combination create a lot of constraints and explain an initial lack of UX maturity.
The second aspect of the complexity of conducting research at Bpifrance is the variety of end users their products addresse:
- their clients (from very small companies to large corporation: entrepreneurs, accountants, financial teams)
- banking professionals at Bpifrance and their partners
- partners like other banks, incubators, the French state
- individual investors (retail customers)
Their products revolve around 3 main use cases, creating increased complexity:
- online banking: allowing Bpifrance clients to follow and manage the money they have loaned
- a digital interface for small companies to loan money within a week 100% online
- a platform for individual investors to invest in private equity from 1000€
They also transitionned from roadmap driven processes to impact driven processes by creating learning loops and a continuous research habit.
A fast growing product team
Jean-Baptiste worked with 5 designers when he arrived at Bpifrance. He has since grown the team to 30 designers with a majority of product designers including 4 UX researchers.
These researchers' scope are segmented by end users:
- a researcher for clients (entrepreneurs)
- a researcher for Bpifrance’s bankers (banking prfessionnals at Bpifrance and their partners)
- a researcher for partners
- a lead researcher
Building an ambitious research practice
Jean-Baptiste and his team conduct research at different stages of their design process.
First, they conduct research for generative purposes, talking with entrepreneurs.
Since early 2023, they have started a continuous research effort where Tandemz provides at least 2 participants each week.
Designers and product managers then choose a lead for each participant depending on their current priotities. They conduct interviews in teams of 2 to 3 including an interviewer.
Later in the design process, they conduct moderated and unmoderated tests using their clients' community or Tandemz to recruit participants.
Other recent research subjects include studying the ecological transition of companies, cybersecurity or the specific need of very small companies.
Overall, Tandemz helped Bpifrance grow their research practice by creating continuous research habits through a reliable flow of qualified participants for all their different personas.
This has allowed them to reduce the uncertainty related to the conception of products they create and to stay close to their core client target to better understand their needs.
