Connecting the consumer

A Fortune 500-ranked client with a global reach and millions of consumers of their physical product that offers in-app connectivity features, was looking to extend their digital offerings.

Supporting the product’s brand vision and value proposition and exploring how the corporate purpose is extended with the offering of digitally connected services was at the top of the agenda for the client’s connected services team. Further understanding of the mobile consumers of the future and insights on what the current and future potential technologies could be used for was a pre-requisite, to design a long-term connected experiences vision, strategy, and roadmap. The North Star and the path towards it would then guide them to deliver compelling digital services and offer a desirable user experience, integrating product and services for years to come.

“Our mission is to expand consumer engagement for the connected portfolio, finding ways to support the consumer journey. Having a clear vision and a supporting strategy was crucial if we were to navigate our digital transformation process in an agile manner. Exploring and prioritizing practical applications of digital concepts was also on our list of requirements”, says the client’s head of Connected Services.

From vision and strategy to execution

The project was set up in two main phases. The first phase aimed towards setting the vision, strategy, Lighthouses, i.e. major milestones and creating a roadmap of service concepts. The second phase consisted of 12-week cycles where prioritized concepts were developed into prototypes for end-user testing. Based on the user feedback the concepts were modified and specifications documented before handing over to be implemented.

The groundwork for the first phase included desktop research addressing customer pain points, existing strategies, analysis of current technical architecture and organization, including interviews and workshops with stakeholders from different parts of the organization. A day with scenario planning was done to explore potential opportunities and risks in 5-10 years.

Over all 15 000 data points was collected and analysed before a service blueprint and the roadmap for the concepts based on customer desirability, business viability and technical feasibility was created.

Using the outcomes from the first phase, two of the concepts was further refined and developed as prototypes to be validated by user testing. The data collected from the test informed the team further on users’ motivation and the concepts could be modified accordingly in the final documentation.

Project Status

The project is on-going and a recent part of the process is testing a framework for effectively comparing concepts’ statistical chance for success over time. Constant adjustments for changes in the organization and priorities is anticipated.

“Being able to reach common ground around the vision as well as the supporting strategies to be shared across the organization, will assist in aligning our efforts”, the project owner says. “Having a service blueprint, presenting how to attain desired experiences during the different stages along the customer journey, has helped us map necessary technical advancements required to enable them. This has then allowed us to plan for the service in alignment with corporate IT. A valuable way of working with concepts was introduced and validating or discarding them early on in the process, will reduce development costs. This has prepared us well for adapting to ongoing changes”, the project owner concludes.

Over all 15 000 data points was collected and analysed before developing a service blueprint and the roadmap for the concepts based on customer desirability, business viability and technical feasibility.