How can you resist digging in when a beautiful plate arrives to your table at a nice restaurant? The dish may taste just as good if it came mixed up in a bowl, but a chef’s artful presentation is just as essential to the overall experience as the balance of flavors. Plus, when the diner at the next table gets a glimpse, they may be tempted to order a plate as well.
The same is true for technology. We may have a great product that delivers consistent value, but if it’s clunky, hard to use, or visually unappealing, then we’ll never get the traction that we’re after. This is especially true if we want to sell our tech in today’s competitive marketplace.
That’s exactly why
o9 engaged Ole & Lena. Their Digital Brain platform is a comprehensive software suite for supply chain management, data-informed decision making, and other business tools. But their user experience (UX) didn’t match up to the caliber of the technology itself. With a lead on a major Fortune 500 company in the food & bev industry, however, they knew that if they wanted to maximize their chance of making the sale, they needed to showcase more than the backend technology that most of their customers leverage directly via their
API.
They needed a chef’s touch for the plating. They needed help translating their technology into an experience.
The Problem
o9 creates world class technology. Their machine learning (ML) systems are some of the best on the market, and their advanced search capabilities can query databases faster than almost any other search engine. Especially within the supply chain management space, their quality is unmatched.
To win the big contract that they were after, though, they needed to optimize for the human element. They needed to reimagine the look, feel, and UX of their technology. It needed to be sleek, modern, and intuitive. They asked us to hone in on building out two key solutions for their platform:
key account management and
net revenue management.
Most of all, they needed it fast.
The Solution
Our work began with a one-day virtual kickoff. We gathered all the requirements, familiarized ourselves with their product and their goals, then we got to work designing the core foundational elements and drawing on our consulting and supply chain experience to formulate a vision and a roadmap to take us there.
We collaborated with their design team to match their brand style, and we worked alongside their development team to understand their data model so that we could translate it into a full-fledged experience. From there, it was heads down: solving problems as they arose, making calculated risks, leveraging our strong communication skills, and quickly driving forward to come up with solutions.
We innovated, iterated, and applied the tenants of
human centered design and
agile methodology. Within the space of just over a month, we provided them with two new solutions to add to their platform.
The Results
Ultimately, our work opened the door to new revenue opportunities. By collaborating and building out these new solutions that add functionality to their platform, o9 gained valuable sales collateral. Their sales team can now leverage these assets to be more effective at their jobs and at converting leads into customers.
While this project was very much a collaborative effort, we sculpted the vision and pushed to execute it. Our skills and experience proved invaluable to meeting o9’s needs within their timeline—only by drawing on every tool in our belt were we able to meet o9’s strict deadlines.
Getting such a complex product over the finish line in such a short amount of time was challenging, but that’s what we live for. There’s no feeling more rewarding than seeing the results of hard work done in collaboration with brilliant people.
o9 concluded that they loved our work. By optimizing their tech for the human user, we helped them with sales and revenue generation.
And we can do the same for you.
Get in touch today for a free consultation.
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