ACTIVATE CUSTOMER-CENTRIC TEAMS Construction and Manufacturing

How might we enable technology-focused product engineers to identify the unmet needs of their customers and build creative solutions to address them?

A medium-sized parts manufacturer in heavy industry wanted to strengthen their competitive position and rethink their approach to innovation. In particular, they wanted to complement their advanced tech capabilities with strong user empathy to consistently create industry-leading solutions.

CHALLENGE

The client, an industry leader, was losing ground to their competition. In order to stay ahead of the competition, the client required a new approach to innovation. Unable to employ external consultants due to field access difficulties, they turned to their own customer-facing team to activate a new customer-orientation mindset that helped identify and generate new product ideas.

APPROACH

We assessed the organisation’s processes and systems through stakeholder interviews and a review of strategic documents to understand the current activities, attitudes and gaps on the team. Claro and  the engineering team in Spain worked together to develop and deploy a pilot innovation program that included a customer orientation workshop, user field research and concept ideation sessions

IMPACT

Our client agreed to deploy a taskforce to operationalise the research, synthesis and ideation practices we had introduced. We presented findings and recommendations to the leadership team in their annual meeting to secure cross-functional buy-in. The next step is to scale the pilot to the international sales team and later to the other areas of the organization.