There are many ways to define the concept known as ‘product’. One of the simplest (and therefore one of our favourites), is that a product is an offering that delivers user value, or facilitates the delivery of value. This definition clearly establishes product as far more than just technology and positions a product as something that can act to deliver an outcome.

However, like most definitions of product, it’s a little bit fuzzy.

An important part of any digital transformation is the change from traditional IT and business departments into multi-disciplinary product teams.  This change unlocks improved speed-to-market and better customer and commercial outcomes.

However…this is not an easy change for big organisations to make.

Some companies still view their relationships with customers as a one-way street, but we're here to show you how to transform it into a two-way avenue. How can your customers contribute to your growth?

Growth can be defined in various ways: expanding your company, achieving better financial results, increasing market share, and more. In this article, we will zero in on a fundamental aspect of any business—its products. How can you achieve growth by enhancing your existing products and creating new ones?

We’ve discovered who a customer actually is and how organisations can become more customer-centric. But have you ever wondered how individuals transform into customers? Join us for a journey into the realm of psychology to uncover the process.

In case you missed it, Veriteer is now a change agency. As a title, it’s simple, straightforward, and sums up what we do. Change is our new currency, and it is about much more than just changing the customer experience. We help our partner brands to go beyond ‘dealing with change as it happens’, to instead drive intentional changes in their business to deliver future success.

So far so simple, but this change in our identity didn’t just happen overnight. To help everyone understand our evolution from CX consultancy to change agency, we wanted to share the genesis of the change and how have we changed our practices in order to evolve.

In this connected age, and the ones still to come, there is no single successful business model, no single successful process and no single successful product. Incumbents across all industries are seeing their competitiveness challenged on all fronts by an ever-widening pool of startups, corporations, joint ventures, ecosystems and individuals.

The chosen solution for many of these organisations is to transform their business through acquiring new digital products and services via capital intensive programmes. Whether this involves acquiring a disruptive startup, launching an e-commerce offering or investing in a new technology platform, organisations can often be sold the illusion that a single large transformation will make them competitive again.

'Customer-centricity' is a frequently heard term. But do we truly understand what it means? And, more fundamentally, do we genuinely understand the concept of a 'customer' and their identity?"

Let’s figure it out together.

What is design: a process, a philosophy, a discipline? At Veriteer “design” is the most important part of how we do what we do, so with all the noise and confusion that has sprung up around it in recent years, it’s really important for us to be clear on what we mean when we say it.

Furthermore, in Veriteer it is also really important how we use the term. There are many people in the world today who have an emotional connection to their own definition of design, and for whom being a designer is their most important identity. And given that many of these people work in Veriteer, it is a sensitive topic.

This article captures the essence of what we mean by “design”, and describes the breath of its application across Veriteer.

One of the fundamental tenets of how Veriteer drives business change is keeping a laser focus on target outcomes. This is surprisingly challenging in big, complex, change programmes, with teams often feeling more comfortable focusing on activities, outputs, or timelines.

However, that’s not exactly what this article is about. A more interesting, and often ignored, topic is how to define good target outcomes in the first place.

There is a lot of content out there that defines and compares different objectives frameworks (e.g. OKRs, balanced scorecards, OMTM), but there is less discussion about the magic required to make sure that these frameworks are populated with good outcomes.

The world is changing faster than ever before, and the pace of change will never be this slow again.

In this environment, it is easy for companies to feel out of control, in a position where change happens to them, rather than being determined by them.

At Veriteer, we have encountered this super tricky challenge in many of the large and small brands that we work with. As a result, we have had to learn how to help our partner brands deal with it. And in addition to (hopefully) making us more useful to our customers, these learnings have helped shape our own next evolution.

As restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic eased, our client's Click & Collect service faced declining demand, jeopardising its financial viability. A business case was initiated to assess the feasibility of implementing centralised fulfilment to reduce costs. ​Estimating real-world logistics costs proved challenging despite potential staffing efficiency and pick rate improvements. 

The client was experiencing high employee turnover rates within their Business Service Design team, an integral function whose work is ultimately focused on improving the overall customer experience.

This turnover was causing operational disruption and a loss of crucial business knowledge. Help was sought to both mitigate this issue and additionally attract new Business Service designers.

Due to the rapid global e-commerce growth during Covid, the client planned to invest in e-commerce initiatives across multiple countries.However, a strategic planning model providing robust financial viability analysis was first required for the investments to be approved.​

Their planning model was complex, difficult to use, had security and versioning issues, and consequently had low adoption rate. So, a new way of working was required to support country and proposition set-up, consumer basket and sales modelling, end-to-end fulfilment modelling, top-line and bottom-line cost modelling, and investment planning.

The client faced the challenge of implementing a global Click and Collect service in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and rapidly changing consumer behaviours. They needed help in understanding the new service delivery scope, including business, technology, and internal capability requirements for the development and launch of such a leap forward in service offerings. 

The client sought assistance in defining and preserving their effective sub-culture as they expanded their team. By reflecting on positive behaviours and values that fostered collaboration and alignment with business goals, they aimed to establish a clear framework for the continued growth and evolution of their team culture. 

The client's internal decision to expand online grocery shopping resulted in a poor customer experience in a major global market. Shortcomings included poor relevancy in results​, customers being unable to refine their in-depth search to their preference​, and low customer satisfaction and service performance.

The service was disjointed across the client’s global markets and next roll out phases were planned for other global markets, so the need to create a global cohesive service template was urgent. They needed a best-in-class online search service to help customer experience. 

The client, a global retailer, was on a journey to build a competitive advantage through stronger brand visibility. Therefore, there was a need to expand their online commerce channels in pursuit of both a seamless omnichannel approach and better customer experiences overall.

As this was an enhancement of commerce channels, It was essential that they understood the process and feasibility of catalogue syndication.​

The Liminal aimed to be a unique space, offering highly functional immersive experiences to brands, businesses and communities. To achieve this they needed a "multi-dimensional being space" that allowed complete flexibility in its physical and digital configuration.

Veriteer were asked to take on this brief, design every aspect of the space and project manage its implementation.

The client was experiencing a successful period of growth and wanted the customer to remain at the heart of their business activities and decision-making processes. To continue their growth trajectory, they were shifting from a predominantly service-based business model to a more tech-enabled offering, delivered through the launch of a new digital platform. To enable this transformation, they understood that new approaches and controls would be required to ensure the customer remained central throughout this scaling period.

Whilst this is a common problem in many growing companies, it can be difficult to build a channel for regular, open, and objective customer feedback and opinion that is structured, scalable and action-oriented – therefore, they sought help in developing this transition.​

The Digital Product team for Fleet Management at a prominent global car rental company sought assistance to enhance their strategic approach. The team encountered significant obstacles in effectively communicating the strategic significance of their work, both vertically (to leadership) and horizontally (across various workstreams).

Within the broader organisation, there is a tendency toward tactical prioritisation, leading to inconsistent progress amongst project teams, in achieving their respective goals. Teams with long-term objectives often face resource constraints and encounter delays due to frequent short-term reprioritisations.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the grocery retail industry, necessitating significant adaptations to meet evolving consumer behaviors and needs. One notable trend that has emerged is the surge in online channels, with Click & Collect services becoming increasingly popular.

This presented a challenge for our client, a prominent multinational retailer known for its low-cost operating model, which traditionally did not align with conventional eCommerce strategies. As the market rapidly evolved, our client sought to compete globally while maintaining efficiency and effectiveness, thus posing a unique challenge.​

The retailer established a new customer experience department in 2015. Since then, the team has been push to expand its scope to meet evolving business needs. This meant there was often a mismatch of expectations between what stakeholders thought that the department can deliver, and what its current capabilities and scale allowed. ​​

In order to address this issue, the team's operating model needed to be reviewed and updated to enable the global CX functions to meet business demand more fully and to bring structures in line with the industry standards.​

The client, a global FMCG brand, needed help in defining the most effective ways to merchandise their 'exclusive' lines of products across all digital estates and channels. The goal was to understand what 'Good' looks like in the market, and through testing find the most effective product merchandising, also document merchandising standards and guidelines to continue to exceed customer expectations.