1 Introduction
Technology is proving to be a game-changer in the quest to reach audiences in fresh and engaging ways. It’s little surprise then that retailers are looking to drive business growth by investing in digital business (Newsroom 2016).
Worryingly though, many organisations launch into their digital projects with a predetermined set of requirements often based on the failings of an existing digital solution. As a result they often lack a well-defined strategy and understanding of how a digital initiative supports an agreed, measurable business objective (White 2016).
The following chapters describe how the Discovery process enables a retailer to achieve business value on its digital projects. The following will identify the four components of a successful Discovery that can be adapted to serve any retailer’s unique needs, helping to deliver return on digital investment—whatever the nature of a business and its particular goals.
2 The Role of Discovery Within an RFP Process
Many companies opt for the request for proposal (RFP) process as a systematic way to get consistent responses from different suppliers at the outset of a digital project. All suppliers receive the same information, questions, and timeframes within which to respond.
This is valid when procuring straightforward services and commodities where a key objective of the process is often to arrive at the lowest price. But when the end solution is far more nuanced, it drives the focus of the exercise towards procuring features instead of collaboratively exploring value generation and the most effective way to use the budget.
It does this by starting with an assumed answer in the absence of any concept of value. There’s rarely a clear view on whether the requested features will generate any value, and the RFP may incorporate features that have not delivered value historically, but are included because the retailer has always done things in a certain way. This builds waste into the project and means requested features could be competing for budget against potentially far more worthwhile features that haven’t been considered because the concept of value is missing.
The need to evaluate other options before jumping into the Discovery process is understandable. But launching into a full RFP process too often means prescribing an answer and inviting conversation around features per pound, rather than value for budget.
There are far better ways to gain confidence in a potential technology partner than a full RFP from the outset. This can be achieved using a partner selection process focused on the likes of track record, industry experience, and cultural fit. Once that’s been done, the process of deliberate, collaborative, and value-driven Discovery should begin (Brook et al. 2017).
3 The Discovery in a Nutshell
When it comes to digital investment, the Discovery’s role is to identify the simplest way of addressing a business challenge in the shortest-possible timeframe. Whether the retailer is investing in a new digital solution, or extending an existing one, the Discovery process aims to find the easiest and most effective way of realising the business objective.
Discovery allows the retailer to understand the range of possible options open to their business through an assessment of key influences, constraints, and opportunities. These options can then be explored in depth to arrive at a minimum viable product: in other words, the most basic commercially viable digital solution that achieves the business objective in the fastest-possible time. This establishes a base from which to further enhance the solution whilst also enabling the retailer to quickly start delivering return on investment.
Of course, no two Discoveries are exactly alike, because each retailer has a different context that will shape how that Discovery will unfold. Every retailer is at a different stage in their own digital journey. Some will have a long track record of digital innovation and will have clarity on what they’re looking for. Others may be embarking on their first significant investment in a digital channel.
The four components of a successful Discovery
Although each of the steps in the Discovery process is described below as a sequence, the reality is that there’s a high degree of interplay between the steps. In practice, the Discovery takes the shape of several cycles of refinement. Each step surfaces more options and considerations that are used to achieve alignment between all parties on the most effective way of responding to a given business challenge (Brook et al. 2017).
4 The Four Components of a Successful Discovery
4.1 Business Context
Responding to a retailer’s business challenge requires an appreciation of business context: the factors that will influence how to identify and frame opportunities, constraints, and risks. Understanding this business context ultimately helps identify the options from which a preferred approach can be agreed.
The business context component is key to avoiding some of the pitfalls that can derail a digital project. There are frequently wider business issues and operational models that need to be considered during the Discovery process so you don’t uncover unwelcome surprises during the implementation phase.
- 1.
What wider business initiatives could affect your options?
Digital projects are rarely commissioned in isolation—they form part of an ongoing drive to improve business performance. Often an individual project is part of a wider initiative and is informed and influenced by a broader business strategy. Such wider business activities could present opportunities or constraints that need to be considered.
- 2.
How will this project impact your current and future operating model?
From an operational perspective, understanding your current and future operating model will surface additional considerations. Too often digital solutions reflect operating practices which in themselves are not optimal. But simple changes to improve or adapt your operational processes can often be uncovered during a Discovery delivering business benefit before any further investment in a digital solution is made.
- 3.
Who are the stakeholders that need to be considered for this project?
There will always be people with a vested interest in the outcome of a project, or whose actions can impact the success of your outcome. It’s important to collaborate with these stakeholders from the outset so that their views, interests, and motivations are taken into account. Most digital solutions need to evoke interaction with a critical stakeholder: the user (or customer). Taking time to explore user behaviour before landing on a specific solution is a critical part of the Discovery process. After all, a software solution built in isolation from those whose problem it tries to solve is useless.
It’s key to remember that software alone cannot bring retailers closer to their objectives—only the people using it can. Software therefore is an enabler, not a solution. Without understanding how software should or could impact its users, one cannot hope to be effective at delivering that software successfully (Buckley et al. 2015).
4.2 Business Challenge
Having clarified the business context, the focus moves onto collaboratively exploring the specifics: the business challenge, and a clear and concise view of both the business objective(s) to be realised and the stakeholder behaviours that will influence a retailer’s ability to achieve these objectives.
If a retailer’s challenge is growth in an increasingly competitive market, the business objective (at a high level) might be to ‘increase revenue’, and ‘reduce product returns’ (at a more granular level). Whatever it is, the business objectives must be capable of being measured. If a retailer cannot measure their business objective, they can’t quantify their ability to impact the business challenge (and their success in doing so).
Some organisations are convinced of the value provided by having a hierarchy of key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure and drive business performance. Others are comfortable to have performance measured at the ‘top line’ only. In reality, the greater the clarity around the business objective, the easier it will be to identify the behaviours that will help realise this objective (DIM 2016).
4.3 Business Solution
The question at this stage is whether a business solution, capable of meeting the agreed business objective, can be achieved through technology. And if so, what is the simplest and most effective digital solution for achieving the retailer’s business objective?
The workshop process will ultimately yield a list of top-level, non-prioritised features that could potentially be combined to create a digital product. This is the stage where many technology projects fail to meet expectations. It’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming that all the features identified are required—and that they’re all key to realising the business objective. The Discovery process helps avoid this by always ensuring the business objective is the driving force in determining how to prioritise features.
When prioritising features, it’s critical to put business value first, avoiding ‘vanity’ initiatives, and looking to build with long-term benefit in mind. Avoid an approach so committed and rigid that your product cannot react to changes within your business or marketplace. The focus should remain on delivering features that provide real value and traction towards your business goals.
4.4 Deployment Plan
A Discovery performed well should shape an execution strategy that maximises early business value and minimises risk. The first instance of this is the minimum viable product (MVP), which is defined during the Discovery process. The retailer then needs to consider how to implement this through a design and build stage.
Deploying any digital solution is challenging, and there are many technical and business considerations to take into account. Remember no two projects are the same and each will have its own challenges and risk profile that must be reflected in the approach to deployment.
Today’s myriad of tools in this space presents a minefield for businesses looking for a quick fix for a complex problem. Effective Discovery surfaces the business and technical considerations and some early recommendations on deployment approach, organisation, and tooling.
An important consideration in implementation is the pace of change in technology and the wider business environment where speed-to-market is often critical. Time isn’t money; it’s more valuable than money. It follows then that it’s often more productive to get something out fast and start testing the market, rather than investing significant effort in designing, only to realise that some – or, worst case scenario, all—of your assumptions become invalid (Ringel et al. 2015).
5 Examples of How the Discovery Delivers Value
The Discovery process is enabling leading retailers to ensure ROI in their digital projects. A member of Estee Lauder’s digital team describes the Discovery process as ‘invaluable’:
“We have worked it into our project analysis and estimation procedures. It’s ensured we stay focused on clear business value rather than an unsubstantiated list of requirements”.
Here we look at three case studies that demonstrate the value of Discovery workshops in ensuring a retailer’s business objectives are realised through an appropriate digital investment.
5.1 Changing Course on Business Objectives
A luxury bespoke shirtmaker thought that its digital investments should primarily focus on customer acquisition. Thanks to the Discovery process it became clear that the most pressing business objective, that could be achieved with the simplest solution, was to engage and convert more of the retailer’s existing customer base.
This retailer came to technology agency Inviqa looking to define an ecommerce roadmap for the short and medium term that would enable the company to realise its business objectives. A strategy workshop (a part of the Discovery process) was conducted to explore the retailer’s business objectives and start forming a direction as to how to achieve them.
Loyalty
CRM (Segmentation and personalisation)
Product Personalisation (bespoke online product)
Enhanced Content and Added Value (product stories, product care, aftercare etc.)
Following a discussion around assumed goals and some of the initiatives that the retailer cited for realising them, it was clear that, above all else, the retailer’s current aspirations were around growth—rather than other strategic directions for the online business.
What wasn’t clear at this stage was what type of focus this growth would have, or what strategies and tactics the retailer would employ across its online business activities to establish and support a defined engine of growth.
An exercise was undertaken to understand where the retailer wanted to focus its effort to drive growth using three different growth engines: sticky, paid, and viral. The initial perspective from the retailer was that its strategy for growth would be fairly balanced across sticky and paid.
But whilst pivoting between growth engines is possible, actively pursuing growth via different engines at the same time can mean that it becomes increasingly difficult to establish what is working and what isn’t. Market experience tells us that driving more than one growth engine at the same time yields mediocre results as you’re not committing to any particular route. Changing or shifting between engines of growth is possible, but requires large investment and re-thinking of the core product.
The Discovery uncovered a recommendation that the retailer focus exclusively on one area for the above reasons. It was clear that there was some uncertainty as to where the retailer should focus its efforts in the short to medium term in order to achieve its business objectives, and with varying opinions as to whether it should opt for sticky or paid growth.
During a conversation around metrics, there was a discussion on how we would know if any of the above-proposed initiatives—creating a sub-brand, implementing a German-language site, utilisation of personalisation, etc.—were a success, and what metrics would be used to measure them. Average order value (AOV) continued to be cited as a key indicator of success.
Since increasing AOV is a key goal, and since initiatives to achieve this goal can sit in both the paid and sticky growth camps, an impact mapping workshop was conducted to establish a clear, shared view on what initiatives would be the right ones for the retailer to invest into to have a positive impact on AOV. The technique is a collaborative process that establishes the individuals or groups (referred to as actors) who can have an ‘impact’ (either positive or negative) on achieving a business goal, and then explores the ways in which they can do so.
By using this approach it is possible to identify alternative and non-obvious ways of achieving business objectives which more conventional approaches don’t always uncover, or take long periods or time to do so.
Impact mapping focuses on creating products that have ‘value’ and not just ‘features’ by ensuring there is a clear line (albeit with assumptions) from functionality to the actions it will cause, which will ultimately work towards (or against) an objective.
The next step in the impact mapping process was to define what possible initiatives could be used in order to encourage or discourage those actors who could affect the outcome of the project—for example: what can we do to encourage a customer to buy more?
Following voting, there was a clear indication as to which actors the retailer felt would potentially have the most impact on its ability to achieve its goal of increased AOV: Customers (new, lapsed, and existing), plus the retailer’s ecommerce team, product team, senior management team, and IT team.
The retailer’s team then conducted an exercise to identify all the initiatives that would trigger each actor (or influencer) to take the desired action—for example: what could be put in place in order to make an existing customer buy more, or what could ensure that the product team have the right product available online for sale?
This exercise produced a collection of possible initiatives that could be used by the retailer to try and reach its goal of increasing AOV. From these initiatives, the team selected a shortlist of both quick wins, likely to cause a positive impact on the business goal within a fast timescale, and riskier initiatives that have the potential for a much greater impact on the business goal.
It is fair to say that not all of the above initiatives would yield the expected immediate benefit. A sensible approach to this problem is to perform small tests to quickly and cost effectively gain insight into the value that an initiative may bring.
For example, instead of developing a whole international website for China, you might firstly create a link on your existing site to allow customers in that market to register their interest. Depending on uptake, you might choose to partner with a courier who can deliver stock from your UK business to China. Next you might look at accepting Chinese payment methods, and so on.
In this way, it’s possible to build up information on what works and what doesn’t before heavily investing in a designated Chinese site with all of the additional business overheads that requires.
The Discovery process enabled the retailer to redefine its primary business goal, and provided the means to define a roadmap for the short and medium term that ensures continual growth (Brook et al. 2017).
5.2 Helping a British Fashion Brand Achieve its Growth Targets
An iconic fashion brand was unsure where to go next with its digital strategy. It enlisted technology consultancy Inviqa in order to achieve its ambitious growth targets for the next few years.
Whilst adequate for the retailer’s needs in the infancy of its business, the company’s ecommerce platform was rapidly becoming a barrier to advancing the online business. This fashion retailer enlisted Inviqa’s support to help add value to its business through identifying a short to medium term period of investment.
During a business goals workshop, a series of business goals were established which were then discussed by the wider group to ensure they were defined as clearly as possible and (as much as possible) used the SMART framework. Goals included defined increases in revenue, online conversion, and average online visitor numbers.
When discussing the priority for these objectives, it became clear that they fell into three distinct groups, with a primary goal that must be achieved above all others, three secondary goals which need to be achieved in order to maintain the longer term growth of the business, and five additional goals. The latter, whilst important to deliver, would not be the main focus for investment compared to those with a higher priority.
The target revenue figures were (by the retailer’s own admission) aggressive, and while the goals were not unrealistic, it was recognised that achieving them would require significant investment (both on-site and in the wider business).
It was agreed that, in order to achieve the business goals, significant improvements to the existing site and its backend environment would need to ultimately be present in the new site. Further to this, additional tactics and capabilities would also need to be employed in order to achieve the retailer’s targets.
The workshop identified that a tactical and strategic approach (beyond improvements to the website itself) would be required—for example, measures to acquire new customers and then retain their loyalty.
New customers
Social media
Customer services
A risk mapping workshop was then undertaken to identify the risks to the success of this project. Impact mapping was then used to identify factors that could work towards or against the achievement of the business goal.
When considering the retailer’s digital commerce site, impact mapping was used to produce a list of capabilities, feature developments, and additional initiatives (which don’t necessarily result in a feature—an affiliate marketing campaign, for example).
In this workshop, a priority decision was made by the team as to which people (actors) could have the greatest impact (based on the behaviours suggested). Initiatives were then explored for the suggested behaviours for these actors.
For the ‘new customers’ actor group, swapping brand loyalty to the retailer was identified as a behaviour the team believed would have a positive impact towards achieving the business goals. The likes of live chat, incentives, product videos, and a clear shipping and returns policy were identified as capabilities to prioritise since they were believed to have most traction towards achieving the business goals.
The Discovery recommended that establishing reliable analytics was a matter of priority in order to measure the success of the new site from the moment that it goes live and to assist in mitigating risk during switchover before that. Other key improvements to be included within the new site to ensure traction towards the business goals included improved design (beyond that surfaced during Discovery) and enhanced search functionality (Brook et al. 2017).
5.3 Helping a Specialist Online Retailer Focus on Value Generation
A specialist online retailer enlisted Inviqa’s support in migrating to a new ecommerce platform. While the client had initially focused on procuring features, the Discovery process enabled them to collaboratively explore value generation to use the budget in the most effective way possible.
Fact-finding and quick wins: to develop an understanding of the retailer’s business context, business and operating model, and to explore whether there were ‘quick wins’ in terms of improving the performance of the current ecommerce channel.
Business Discovery: to identify the business goals that would drive growth for the retailer and explore what new and existing ecommerce channel capabilities would readily drive these business goals.
Solution Discovery: to explore and compare investment in the existing ecommerce platform in the medium term, compared to immediate migration to the new platform. To identify the solution boundary and identify any key technical issues that would impact the implementation of the preferred option.
The Discovery identified numerous business goals around the themes of strengthening the customer experience, integration, and future-proofing. These goals were reviewed to see if they could be refined and quantified. From this discussion, it was agreed that the retailer would work towards one overriding goal to focus on in terms of new site capabilities: to increase conversion from 1% to 2% over a time period to be agreed.
The retailer started this engagement with a list of predefined features, but the Discovery helped to generate a shorter, qualified list of features. One feature from the current site that had previously been viewed as essential was questioned from a value generation perspective against the business goal. It was decided that the feature should be deprioritised and could be deferred if necessary for budget reasons.
In addition to identifying the business objective, the three Discovery phases achieved indicative cost estimates for realising the business goal across the new and existing platforms, as well as a project plan for delivery (Brook et al. 2017).
6 Concluding Remarks
The purpose of any Discovery is to create alignment between the product owner, wider business, and technology partner to identify the most appropriate use of technology and approach to implementation.
A successful Discovery should leave an organisation with a blueprint for a project towards an agreed set of goals and objectives, and an approach to achieve them. Typically, this should include the identification of risks, approach options, constraints, proposed implementation, complexity, and priority of options.
The Discovery phase is invaluable for enabling solutions that meet—and even exceed—expectations, but it’s important to remember that the learning doesn’t stop at Discovery, and the principles that underpin the Discovery process should continue to act as the foundations for successful project delivery and beyond.