Bringing Growth in Services Business with Mind Mapping Techniques

Challenge

My company manufactures multiple engineering products those are used in power industry. As per  standard industry practice the conventional procurement pattern of these products are under a single  package. However, Services or After Market activities of these products are being managed by each  product like an individual silo business. We observed that while we get frequent service calls for one  product; we are getting very less or no calls for other products from same customer. This has been going  on for many years, however, this fact got unnoticed – so while products were doing a stable business,  growth was not happening.

Problem Statement: So, the task was to bring growth back in services business of all products.

Selection

As Yousef said in her book “Designing for Growth” page 23 & 24 that “ultimately growth is always  about solving customers’ problem” ….and….” most promising place to start any growth search is to find  out what customers don’t like about today”. We had to find the reasons or root causes of this customer  behaviors over years. We thought its best to listen directly from customers. We decided to do a Journey  mapping of few of our key customers (a mix of Government, Private, Cash-rich, Not much investment  oriented, technology inclined, preferring low cost solution etc) and tried to understand following: – what  they want to accomplish during their regular, shutdown & emergency maintenance works, how do they  rate our service in all these cases, what frustrates or bothers them most in above situations, what added  value do they expect from us, what compels them to choose local technicians instead of calling us & what  kind of risk do they perceive by engaging them, how our competitors are serving them etc. We also looked  at our services value chain of different products, tried to capture mindset of our people. In this excercise,  we got lot of raw data collected in our What Is phase.

By this time, we understood that there must be a completely new service approach to overcome this  situation and ensure growth, however we had no clue how to do this. Also, we felt the need of appraising  the people inside company in more visual & engaging way of what we observed with customers, so that,  we can systematically study this data, bring out some meaningful insights. Also, as Jimenez says, “the  goal was to establish a design criteria for What If idea generation phase. In design thinking we use the  Mind Mapping process to capture and represent the minds of our customers.”

Hence, we decided to opt for Mind Mapping exercise along with all stake holders – product managers,  commercial team, legal & contracts team.

Application

As suggested by Yousef we couldn’t go for a yard sell because this was COVID time and we all were  working from home. However, we adopted the same concept digitally – we invited total 20 people,  organized 4 different calls in different days where approx. 5 people participated in each call. We arranged  our findings in a presentation form and walked each group though the same presentation and asked them  to individually take the note of learnings which they think can lead to potential idea. This was sort of a  digital version of Yard sell and offering a tour.

Then we divided 20 people in 3 groups each for one product. Each group was constituted by relevant  product specialists, commercial representative and contracts representative. Groups were asked to meet  independently and share their thoughts that they noted. Also asked them to discuss among them and try  to bucketize the thoughts under few Clusters and write some Insights.

After all groups confirmed that they have compiled their Insights; on a different day we again organized a  call for all 3 groups together and asked them to share their Insights to the whole team. Then finally we  ran a marathon online meeting for several hours & debate with all members to translate Insights to Design  Criteria.

There was an amazing sense of accomplishment when we concluded the meeting. Also, there was a  consensus among stakeholders that we have to innovate a whole new service offering around those  design criteria to meet our target. However, we still didn’t know how such product would look like.

Insight

Insights were a big eye opener; there has been tremendous discovery of clients’ Unarticulated Needs as  mentioned by Yousef several times in her lectures. following are few:

  Our Marketing is not focused on overall maintenance philosophy - Clients face several system  related issues which was never told to us. Interestingly we have in-house solutions for most but  neither we marketed ever those as a product/offering nor customers were aware of our capability

  We are missing the market demand to be solution focussed company - Clients expect a  comprehensive engineering solution to their problems while our approach has been attending  shutdown maintenance and selling of spares

  We are not connected to client as partner to their daily problems - In many occasions client  couldn’t find root cause of the problem; so they kept on trying on their own or calling local  technicians because our service engineers were costly and client wasn’t sure whether we can offer  a comprehensive solution covering multiple products – as a result even after several attempt the  problem persist and made client frustrated

  Our value chain ensures good quality product & on-time service while Customer Empathy was  grossly neglected – this is the point Yousef mentioned while illustrating mind set

  We are not available for client’s emergency - Our engineers are often not available in emergency  which compels client to go for local technicians. We need an intimation in advance to depute our  service troop.

  We are missing the big picture of Growth opportunity - Over years our R&D has developed &  added many new features to our products and customers knew about it either from our brochure  or from market but always hesitated to incorporate those because they think it would need full  replacement of product & hence a big capital expenditure. However, they were completely  unaware that small upgrades are possible in existing products without much capital investments.

Approach

The Design Criteria that we adopted was following:

If anything were possible, we should be able to offer a fixed price multi-year service package  that includes following:

 Make service engineering solutions catalogue comprising all products that we have (to be

developed from unarticulated needs of client) and allow customer to choose a fixed  number of services within the contractual period

 Customer will be eligible to get a fixed number of visits of our engineers whenever they

need with an intimation of just 48 hrs within the contractual period

 Make a training catalogue for all products and ask client to choose any fixed number of

trainings for their engineers of better system maintenance and latest technical updates

Way Forward

We need to brainstorm and conceptualize the product. We strongly feel that if such a product  can be developed; we can address lot of real pain points of our customers. Also, these being a  multi-year package we would never go out of touch with the client and we would be the first one  to know their day to day operational issues and can further develop our offering more suiting to  their needs. This being an Integrated service approach encompassing all products we would be  the first point of contact for all their needs under regular, shutdown and emergency maintenance  works – this would obviously lead to multifold product growth. Once product is developed, we  would do a first launch, learn from feedbacks and then go for ramp-ups for multiple client base.


Bringing Growth in Services Business with Mind Mapping Techniques Challenge My company manufactures multiple engineering products those are used in power industry . As per standard industry practice the conventional procurement pattern of these products are under a single package . However , Services or After Market activities of these products are being managed by each product like an individual silo business . We observed that while we get frequent service calls for one product ; we are getting very less or no calls for other products from same customer . This has been going on for many years , however , this fact got unnoticed – so while products were doing a stable business , growth was not happening . Problem Statement : So , the task was to bring growth back in services business of all products . Selection As Yousef said in her book “ Designing for Growth ” page 23 & 24 that “ ultimately growth is always about solving customers ’ problem ” … .and … . ” most promising place to start any growth search is to find out what customers do n’t like about today ” . We had to find the reasons or root causes of this customer behaviors over years . We thought its best to listen directly from customers . We decided to do a Journey mapping of few of our key customers ( a mix of Government , Private , Cash - rich , Not much investment oriented , technology inclined , preferring low cost solution etc ) and tried to understand following : – what they want to accomplish during their regular , shutdown & emergency maintenance works , how do they rate our service in all these cases , what frustrates or bothers them most in above situations , what added value do they expect from us , what compels them to choose local technicians instead of calling us & what kind of risk do they perceive by engaging them , how our competitors are serving them etc . We also looked at our services value chain of different products , tried to capture mindset of our people . In this excercise , we got lot of raw data collected in our What Is phase . By this time , we understood that there must be a completely new service approach to overcome this situation and ensure growth , however we had no clue how to do this . Also , we felt the need of appraising the people inside company in more visual & engaging way of what we observed with customers , so that , we can systematically study this data , bring out some meaningful insights . Also , as Jimenez says , “ the goal was to establish a design criteria for What If idea generation phase . In design thinking we use the Mind Mapping process to capture and represent the minds of our customers . ” Hence , we decided to opt for Mind Mapping exercise along with all stake holders – product managers , commercial team , legal & contracts team . Application As suggested by Yousef we could n’t go for a yard sell because this was COVID time and we all were working from home . However , we adopted the same concept digitally – we invited total 20 people , organized 4 different calls in different days where approx . 5 people participated in each call . We arranged our findings in a presentation form and walked each group though the same presentation and asked them to individually take the note of learnings which they think can lead to potential idea . This was sort of a digital version of Yard sell and offering a tour . Then we divided 20 people in 3 groups each for one product . Each group was constituted by relevant product specialists , commercial representative and contracts representative . Groups were asked to meet independently and share their thoughts that they noted . Also asked them to discuss among them and try to bucketize the thoughts under few Clusters and write some Insights . After all groups confirmed that they have compiled their Insights ; on a different day we again organized a call for all 3 groups together and asked them to share their Insights to the whole team . Then finally we ran a marathon online meeting for several hours & debate with all members to translate Insights to Design Criteria . There was an amazing sense of accomplishment when we concluded the meeting . Also , there was a consensus among stakeholders that we have to innovate a whole new service offering around those design criteria to meet our target . However , we still did n’t know how such product would look like . Insight Insights were a big eye opener ; there has been tremendous discovery of clients ’ Unarticulated Needs as mentioned by Yousef several times in her lectures . following are few :  Our Marketing is not focused on overall maintenance philosophy - Clients face several system related issues which was never told to us . Interestingly we have in - house solutions for most but neither we marketed ever those as a product / offering nor customers were aware of our capability  We are missing the market demand to be solution focussed company - Clients expect a comprehensive engineering solution to their problems while our approach has been attending shutdown maintenance and selling of spares  We are not connected to client as partner to their daily problems - In many occasions client could n’t find root cause of the problem ; so they kept on trying on their own or calling local technicians because our service engineers were costly and client was n’t sure whether we can offer a comprehensive solution covering multiple products – as a result even after several attempt the problem persist and made client frustrated  Our value chain ensures good quality product & on - time service while Customer Empathy was grossly neglected – this is the point Yousef mentioned while illustrating mind set  We are not available for client ’s emergency - Our engineers are often not available in emergency which compels client to go for local technicians . We need an intimation in advance to depute our service troop .  We are missing the big picture of Growth opportunity - Over years our R&D has developed & added many new features to our products and customers knew about it either from our brochure or from market but always hesitated to incorporate those because they think it would need full replacement of product & hence a big capital expenditure . However , they were completely unaware that small upgrades are possible in existing products without much capital investments . Approach The Design Criteria that we adopted was following : If anything were possible , we should be able to offer a fixed price multi - year service package that includes following :  Make service engineering solutions catalogue comprising all products that we have ( to be developed from unarticulated needs of client ) and allow customer to choose a fixed number of services within the contractual period  Customer will be eligible to get a fixed number of visits of our engineers whenever they need with an intimation of just 48 hrs within the contractual period  Make a training catalogue for all products and ask client to choose any fixed number of trainings for their engineers of better system maintenance and latest technical updates Way Forward We need to brainstorm and conceptualize the product . We strongly feel that if such a product can be developed ; we can address lot of real pain points of our customers . Also , these being a multi - year package we would never go out of touch with the client and we would be the first one to know their day to day operational issues and can further develop our offering more suiting to their needs . This being an Integrated service approach encompassing all products we would be the first point of contact for all their needs under regular , shutdown and emergency maintenance works – this would obviously lead to multifold product growth . Once product is developed , we would do a first launch , learn from feedbacks and then go for ramp - ups for multiple client base .