Getting stakeholders excited about ecommerce in a 140+ y/o organisation
Defining the new direction for SGS ecommerce initiative
The agenda of the first workshop. I involved the stakeholder in workshop design
Client
SGS (via Mobiquity)
Year
Apr 2021 - May 2021
Role
Strategy, service design, qualitative research
Impact
SGS Board and Managing directors of Lines of Businesses possitivle received the presentation of the new direction.
Currently we are discussing next steps and dates on future workshops and further research efforts.
Challenge
Figure out why current Online store is not bringing profit and propose new direction for ecommerce.
Outcome
Alignment on the new vision and 8 guiding principles. Proposal of 17 opportunities to investigate further.
As-Is situation
Documents analysis
Reviewed multiple documents shared by SGS, e.g. strategy and roadmap for Client portal, various individual business cases, market & competitor analysis etc.
Apparently the biggest SGS clients asked to have a digital space where they could review their engagements with SGS. This is how the idea of Client portal came up.
Review of Online stores of different SGS regions
As SGS is decentralised organisation each region can decide for themselves if they want to start selling products online or not and what kind of products.
Several regions might sell the same products, however they have different processes how they conduct sales. In result the look and feel of their online store usually is different.
Interviews with Online store team
I spoke to the members of the Online store team to understand how their work is organised, what are their challenges and what works well.
The team is working for a couple of years now and is combined out of 5 only people.
UK store
New Zealand store
China store
Journey maps
In order to gain high levell understanding about current situation and main pains that all sides experience I asked Online store team to help me map two journeys. The first one is SGS customer journey who is shopping online, the second - Line of Business (LoB) which is selling online.
Online store and Line's of Business (LoB) journey map
Looking for opportunities
Interviews with people from different business areas
My PM and I interviewed 10 people. We chose to talk to regions who are not interested in selling online as well as with regions are very successful in online sales.
Current situation analysis indicated there is no common understanding on business, LoBs, clients needs, there is no common understanding on what kind of products should be sold online and to who. Therefore I decided to ask stakeholders of their opinion what should be the reason for being for Online store, who should be the primary client and why and other fundamental questions.
Interviewees' answers grouped by theme and similar answers linked
Energizers before the serious part are great to get participants in the creatiive mindset
Workshops that bring silos together
The first workshop I designed to get people aligned about what's working wel and what's working not that well. Afterwards we split them in groups and asked to write down and analyse the root causes of the main frictions.
Fishbone exercise works well for everyone to understand where the frictions are coming from
The second workshop I designed to achieve alingment on possible solution direction. We wrote guiding principles for ecommerce and I facilitate a "critique" of the principles. Afterwards I split participants in groups and asked them to ideate possiblle solutions for the main frictions.
I prepared frames for customer journeys for people to imagine in which part the customer is experiencing the friction. I added friction from Fishboones of Workshop 1 and prepared the HMW questions in advance.
Proposed direction
Ecommerce vision
Together with the team we defined a clear ecommerce vision based on the interviews, current innovation strategy and best practises of ecommerce.
We have also refined the guiding principles that will help SGS to decide on the next steps or when taking strategic ecommerce decisions in the future.
17 opportunities to validate
Together with the team we defined 17 opportunities that reside in different parts of the ecommerce framework.
We have presented the next steps and a high level roadmap in order to explore possibilities based on assumptions that we had.
Feedback collected in the end of the workshops
Conclusion
The direct stakeholders - Online store team - were very happy with our work as it brought awareness about their struggles for different business areas.
The proposed global & local"hybrid" direction and roadmap were well received by the SGS board as welll as by managing directors of lines of businesses (LoBs). We are currently in the discussions on the next steps going forward.
Feedback from the team
"It was my first time working with Vaiva on a project and her reputation preceded her, so expectations were high. I'm happy to say these expectations were also met. She brings extensive experience from both the field and theory, and delivers with enthusiasm. Due to planning/staffing, her entry into the project was somewhat chaotic but she was quick to adapt, get on board and contribute.
She has a well-stocked "facilitation toolkit". She comes across as comfortable navigating co-creation formats, interviews, presentations and other session formats, and managing the participants involved. Her experience shows in her ability to identify and apply the right techniques, but also improvise if needed. This skill is a great asset to support colleagues from other competencies to manage stakeholders and gather data. I've noticed nothing but high standards in the work she delivered, even if it was on the level of draft or discussion document."
David Vaghi
Senior Product Manager @ Mobiquity
Team operations
Team setup
1 Designer (me)
1 Sr. Product manager
1 VP digital strategy
1 VP creative
1 Sr. digital consultant
Methods and practises
Qualitative research
Journey maps
Workshop design & facilitation
Tools
Airtable
Miro