Explore a new business model to diversify revenues by offering a digital service for existing customers
The Challenge
A large multinational company manufacturing power tools asked us to consult on a challenge. Staying ahead of competition is especially important for such a large multidisciplinary company with international branches so they always seek new ways to innovate and often get inspired by some of their own divisions abroad.
The goal was for EdUcate to help introduce an alternative revenue system, similar to one already working in Brazil. The idea of having a database for skilled workers relevant to the power tool product line of the company works seamlessly abroad; it seemed like low hanging fruit.
The Process
During the six-week-long research phase personas were created for customers as well skilled workers and mapped customer journeys for both. The two-sided market meant we were faced with a dilemma, which became our driving challenge for the 4-week-long business model section of the project: although customer side demands skilled workers, handymen in Hungary have plenty of work and are not in need of a new platform.
In Brazil, the low number of projects and high number of skilled workers meant they were eager to sign up in exchange for getting jobs. In Hungary, the problem lies elsewhere in the process. End users still seek skilled, trustworthy workers, so the need exists, however, for our alternative revenue seeking collaboration to work, we had to find an incentive that would make the program attractive to a worker offering their services.
The Impact
This refinement of the problem statement allowed us to ideate on what would make or break this program: attracting skilled workers. The solutions included peer to peer mentoring, trainings and education in the respective fields of workers as well as a sense of community and network connection with a large well-known company.
Quantitative testing was used to test and confirm that these changes would make it worth it for skilled workers to partner with the company. Thanks to the excessive market research as well as finding the distinction between the Hungarian and Brazilian markets, the inspiration idea grew into a viable product for another market, was implemented.
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