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enhancing store management for grocers 

Sector: Insurance services

Company: Pacífico Seguros

Role: Design Research, Value Proposition Design

Tools: Shadowing, Interviews, Proof of concept, Personas, Journey Maps, Design principles, Value Proposition Canvas, Benchmark (competition)

Date: 2019

THE CONTEXT

  • The Peruvian ecosystem involving grocery shops, suppliers and clients generates a lot of pain to all the actors regarding payment collection. Additionally, grocery shop owners are one of the main hinges between the formal and informal economic systems. 

  • Two major banks had started initiatives focused on these problems. This could represent a significant threat of losing market or commoditizing the micro-finance segment. 

  • The challenge was to understand how could the bank be a player in the grocery-shop ecosystem. 

* Due to the proprietary nature of this work, the case study will discuss my process and some of the work but at very high level.

Typical grocery shop in Lima

To the right, a shop assistant stocking shelves

UNDERSTANDING THE USER'S NEEDS

Over the course of 2 weeks, my co-worker and I conducted field work together. 

We began by reviewing research from previous years. During a whole week, we immersed ourselves in grocery shops. 

During the next week, we conducted on-set interviews to grocery shop owners. Interviews included prioritizing exercises such as card sorting. Additionally, the business area had a concept that they wanted to validate, so we conducted proof of concept and user tests.

Pictures from the interviews with grocers

Grocers usually manage inventory and finances on individual sheets of paper or notebooks.

Keeping track is not easy for them as they are usually in a hurry, leading them not to write descriptions next to numbers written down

Prioritizing and card sorting exercises

ANALYSIS, personas & Design principles

I analyzed all the information collected and used it to identify 2 personas, each deployed into 2 variants depending on their stage of maturity. 

Thanks to the proof of concept, I discovered that a proposed solution was viable for both personas but only during their initial stages of maturity.

I complemented each persona with design principles and a journey map of their everyday routine including interactions with suppliers, wholesalers, clients and financial entities. 

Prioritizing and card sorting exercises

DISCOVERIES

The grocery shop’s money rotates daily. The owner may have cash on hand, but if the supplier comes to collect, he is left with nothing. If no client comes during the day, the owner has no way to pay the next supplier. As consequence, he must leave the shop to go to the bank and withdraw the money necessary for payments. To avoid this situation, owners take credit.

“Credit is fast, I just sign. A lifesaver when you need it, it gets you out of trouble and gives you peace of mind, but you have to measure yourself.”

Building the value proposition

Based on the qualitative information collected, I built a Value Proposition Canvas, in which the design principles were placed among the sections of jobs to be done, gains and pains.

The design principles were prioritized in a 3-level criteria. They were prioritized depending on the importance of the task, the intensity of the frustration and the relevance of the joy. As priority #1 you could find principles such as immediacy, security, simplicity and freedom to choose.

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Value Proposition Canvas built for the project

see other projects

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the right tools for employees

How might we enhance the day-to-day journey of the bank's branch employees through the tools provided for them? 

(before and during the COVID-19 pandemic)

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MAKING REMOTE CHANNELS THE FIRST CHOICE

How might we turn remote advisors into the main interaction channel, leaving the bank branches as the last option? 

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