Developed a Go-to-Market plan for a ground breaking product
Through qualitative research, the team and I prototyped three concepts, tested the experience touchpoints to validate the desirability, and co-created a development roadmap to launch a new payment model.
Client
MSD Animal health (via frog)
Year
Jan 2023 - May 2023
Role
Strategy, research, service design, prototyping
Impact
I built collaborative and trust based relationship with the client. This translated into project continuation and new project sales.
The chosen business model will allow MSD to tap into $200million business opportunity.
Challenge
Convince the leadership that newly developed business model can bring value to veterinarians, pet owners and the organisation
Outcome
GTM plan for the validated Pay-per-Use business model.
Part 1
Framing the approach
The context
MSD has developed a ground-breaking product. It is an injectable product that protects dogs from fleas and ticks for 12 months.
In the US on average dogs are given anti-parasite treatments to protect them for 6-9 months per year, because pet owners forget or don't want to repeatedly apply antiparasitic medication despite vet's recommendation to protect dogs for 12 months.
A common story in pet owner's life
Why the traditional pay-per-product business model is a "no-go"
Early research indicated that most vets would prescribe the product only for small dogs.
The dose depends on the dog’s size so one vial of the injectable can service ~ 7 dogs. The bigger the dog, the more product will be needed - the higher the price.
Price per vial is $1200 so for a large dog the treatment may cost ~$650 depending on vet's margin. Most vets admitted they wouldn't even dare to offer the treatment for such price.
Traditional business model makes the product profitable to vets only when prescribed to small dogs
The ask
My colleague and I were asked to figure out the business model for the product. When we started talking to stakeholders we realised that there were gaps:
- Everyone had different explanations to team's ideas for business models
- Many saw different problems
- Many thought they know their vets well, and other audiences are irrelevant.
- People didn’t know what it means to work collaboratively in agile
We spoke to internal MSD stakeholders, couple of vets, vet office administrators and pet owners to get a better understanding about the current situation and initial reactions to the new product.
Interviews with pet owners frogs from the USA
Card sorting excersise
Redefined the problem
During the interviews it became clear to us that the product introduction in itself is not a problem. Issues arise with the fact that new injectable will cause more training and work for clinic staff as well as to the vets who are already very busy.
The updated challenge: design a business model that can reduce the impact on cashflow for vets and incentivise vets to treat large dogs too.
Current persona journeys
The “aha-moment” for the client
Initially the client was only focusing on pricing strategy for different business models. During the alignment workshop, I facilitated the co-creation of the new decision-making criteria which helped them broaden the focus from pricing to strategic, business, and technical fit of each idea.
These questions helped the team see that next to pricing and other business areas, pet owners are a critical part of the process and must be considered during solution development.
"Likely" "Unlikely" - this allowed the team to quickly assign the most suitable response to critical questions in the uncertain situation
Decision to test 2 ways for pet owners to pay
The team was very interested to test the two innovative concepts - "pay-per-use" and "pet owners pay directly to MSD". It has been decided to split the latter concept in two to test pet owner's preference for convenience to pay before or after the treatment.
Part 2
Testing the concepts and planning
Setting up the way of working
Agreed on timelines for the next phase, sprint length (2 weeks) and established RACI for 20+ team members.
Defined the core team of six people, coached them on the new process and innovation mindset. Most importantly we asked them to commit at least one hour per week for the collaborative work. Little by little we kept involving them more and in the end we collaborated almost daily.
Storyboardng workshop setup
Final storyboards for the concepts
Co-creation workshops led to refined concepts
Storyboarding workshops helped to extract the knoweldge and mental models from the experts and stakeholders on how each model could potentially work step by step.
Frog team afterwards consollidated the input and turned concepts into prototypes for testing. I worked closely with the interaction designer to create six user flows - two for every concept to test vet's and pet owner's experiences.
Concept C pet owner's flow
Concept A. Pay-per-use model when pet owner pays to a clinic
Concept B. Pet owner pays to MSD after the treatment
Concept C - Burner brand. Pet owner pays before the treatment directly to MSD
Insights from qualitative interviews
Interviews with pet owners and vets were led by frog team while stakeholders connected to listen and ask questions in the background.
The results were processed in a couple of stages: recording main takeaways from each interview, finding common themes and deriving insights, enriching client's personas with behavioural aspects and placing them on axis in order to reflect their main behaviour drivers.
Immediately after the interview, process and discuss the main takeaways in a structured way.
We showed the process to the client, derived insights together and placed vets in corresponding behavioural archetypes axises
2-day in person workshop to decide the winning concept and define next steps
Interview insights readout led to the conclusion that "Concept A. Pay-per-use" will be introduced first; and "Concept C. Pet owner pays before the treatment to MSD" will be introduced later to administer repeated treatments.
During the sessions 2 Service Blueprints and 1 GTM Roadmap were filled in. Together we defined project's vision and next steps going forward for the next phase.
Stakeholders did a "museum walk" to read through the OnePagers from every interview, participated in discussions and collaboration sessions
Pre-filled the happy path of the blueprint, then had the client fill the rest!
Main deliverables
Final Service Blueprint for Pay-per-Use model
GTM roadmap to show to the leadership that all aspects of the plan development were considered
Tech ecosystem map shows Concept A data flow that is aligned with the third-party software representative
Conclusion & Next steps
Leadership of the client was convinced to go with the innovative solution
At the same time when we wrapped up our research, quantitative market research results came in from the client side. It confirmed our recommendation and showed that veterinarians see great value in Pay-per-Use business model.
These results helped to build the business case that going to market with 2 business models is a $200 million dollar opportunity in the next 5 years!
The solution adheres to the Ethical aspect because it gives access to the ground-breaking treatment to all dogs sizes
The 3rd phase of the Concept A development is in the progress of collecting approvals from the client leadership. The product is still waiting for the FDA approval too.
Feedback from the team
“Vaiva helped organize and evolve client perspectives to help get them to not only agree on an approach but see the value in partnering with frog.
Vaiva is an incredible strategic partner and helps solve the unsolvable. She's collaborative but also stands up for her perspective."
Matt Resnick
Head of Brand Strategy @frog
“You handled the client communication and promoted collaboration with them very well. Your efforts have not only strengthened our client relationships but have also significantly contributed to the overall success of our projects. I look forward to working on more projects together.”
Fei Liao
Sr. Interaction Designer @frog
Team operations
Team setup
Part 1
1 Strategy Designer (me)
1 Strategic consultant
4 Stakeholders from the client side
Part 2
1 Strategic designer (me)
1 Interaction designer
1 Design Associate director (part time)
1 Consumer Engagement Director (part time)
2 Third-party experts
9 Stakeholders (4 in the core team)
Methods and practises
Qualitative interviews
Design studios
Design reviews
Wireframing
Prototyping
User journey mapping
Behavioural archetypes
UX/UI design
Service design
Strategy
Workshop design and facilitation
Tool
Figma
Miro
Qualstage