Budget
my salary

Problem or Ask
Upon enetring the role I quickly saw that employee moral was at an all time low. Business profits were plateauing at best. Competitors were eating into RAKBanks bottom line. Ccomplete change management (culture, processes, activities) was required.

Why Come?
Its never easy helping an ignorant business thats pretty much on its knees with its head in the sand, and thats before COVID hit. So how did I create a stratregy that could help?

Solution
Fistly I started researching. Speaking to customers and employees alike with a goal to identify low hanging fruit - surveys were sent out, anonymous employee feedback boxes were placed everywhere and I started an audit of existing digital propositions; again with a clear goal of identifiying both inefficiencies/waste, failing CX/UX and poor product propositions.

Secondly I began looking a both inflight and proposed projects with an aim to stop-dead any proposal that either wasnt essential IT upgrade or on-going maintenence work or had no empirical evidence to suggest that the market or end-users wanted, required or needed it. Instead focus would be placed on vastly improving the CX within our existing product and services (mapping customer journeys), automation of rules-based processes (preview the high level strategy)

Outcome (to date)
6 initiatives were stopped due to their failure in producing evidence that stated the market and/or customers were wanting, requesting or needing it. That saved a total of AED 21 million alone. The money was then reallocted to workstreams that set about improving, enhancinng and enriching the current customer exprience of existing products and services - UX, Servcie Design, Copywriting (which was the first time this activtiy had ever been specifically done in the banks history, which also included the conversion of English to Arabic. And yes, the UAE is an Arabic speaking nation).

Budget
£120,000

Role
Lead, planned and conducted strategy, Research, UX, Interaction and UI design

Problem or Ask
How can we identify, adapt, leverage and ensure adoption of the most optimal processes being used around the world/p>

Solution
A strategy that moved identified gaps and overlaps into actionable, reusable digital (where applicable) solutions. Various other support actives included; education pieces, cross-border-collaborations and knowledge transfer sessions.

Why Come?
Optimisation and efficiency. Why shouldn't one country, who has identified and resolved the same business challenges, not transfer processes, learnings and thinking?

Outcome
One country (Switzerland/Brauerei Feldschlösschen) was identified as a 'lighthouse' country with regards to applying the most optimal solutions to common challenges. However, little was known about what they were doing and they were considered a 'rogue country of operation' by the Group, and other countries. But what they were doing was working, and well. I worked closely with Brauerei Feldschlösschen to capture and map, at great detail (ie: front of stage and back of stage, rigourous customer and consumer research), their processes and bespoke application systems. I then presented these findings within a long-term strategic vision and roadmap to the Carlsberg Group C-Level in Copenhagen.

Budget
£250,000

Role
Lead, ideated and conducted strategy, Research, UX/Service design

Problem or Ask
In 2015, Nectar's pre-tax profits plunged from £74.4million to £14.1million, but Sainsbury's had their eyes on other data. Customer data to be precise. Sainsbury's litrally had no visibility on customer data collected by Nectar, and they wanted in.

But how?

Solution
Working with a small dedicated team (Mark McElhaw UX, Rob Trono ECD, Laura Pascoli PM), we came up with many many ideas and some very plausible solutions, but only a few would get presented to Sainsbury's. However, all would needed testing with customers to reduce risk as they were all going to be something brand new. The ideas we finally presented ranged across the board of problem solving, innovation & technology, such a completely payless store (WAIT! remember, this was a full 18 months before Amazon launched 'Amazon Go'), a circular ecomony model (which is still viable, yet un-exploited opportunity today) and a CRM rules framework which would use billions of data points on individuals to provide scarily accurate, but completely relevent prompts. Once selected we headed into creating risk mitigated proof of concept (POC) for these. We spent many months researching, iterating and refining the solutions with many customers (we also engaged with 3rd party research agency Sparkler, to help balance the vast work load) and multiple cutting edge technologies (Facial recognition, Big Data, Machine Learning, NFC etc.).

Outcome
Just as we were nearly done validating the most viable and customer focussed solution, the initiative stopped dead. The official word we had was that it was all getting too risky (despite off-site, dedicated 'war rooms', despite military grade NDA's) and too costly (the budget was pre-set. And we werent asking for any more to achieve what we were doing).

It became much clearer a few years later. In 2018 a 'last resort' option, which we had presented to Sainsbury's, became a reality. They purchased Nectar from Canadian comppany Aimia, for £60m.

One huge positive that came out of all this is

Budget
3,500,000 AED

Role
Concept, strategy, research

Problem or Ask
RAKBank have UAE schools as partners. RAKBank have the Coca-Cola arena as a partner. So how can we create a single, digital payment solution that spans these, and potentially many more?

Solution
Focus on creating a solution for the greatest opportunity for adoption and exploitation first, then expand the payment model beyond that only once the target audience has adopted and gained sufficient traction.

Why Come?
Not only is it a payment conduit between myself, my childrens schools and their facilities, its also a P2P top-up card between myself and my children. Meaning, as a parent I can transfer, control and monitor all expenidtures my children make on their own device's wallet.

Outcome
I presented several viable strategic solutions, each with varying degrees of 'end-user adoption and friction' vs. 'build complexity and budget'. Once the business had approved a direction and the delivery stage had begun I took a step back from leading, instead I oversaw external vendors Wipro/DesignIt output quality to ensure the businesses vision and direction was adhered to.

Type
Greenfield/Creation initiative

Client
RAKBANK Business Banking

Budget
AED 4.4 million (US$ 1.2m)

Role
Strategy & Service Design

Problem or Ask
How can RAKBANK create a one-stop, online community for its 20,000+ small to medium businesses, whilst leveraging existing partnerships and cross-selling others.

Solution
I worked with the Managing Director of Business Banking to extract high level requirements before conducting end-user research with SMB owners to map out the complete end-to-end business owners journey from starting up (funding, trade licensing etc) through to end of life (closing a business in the UAE).

During this research I established there was a massive gap (opportunity) in the market, so I created a new strategy which would fulfill and exploit this gap. However, the MD thought it was beyond the scope of the original ask/budget, so reeled it in to be just about RAKBank offerings. Following extensive workshops, including journey maps, information architecture, content strategy creation and retention models (some of which was captured in this Miro board) - the digital whiteboard option due to WFH/COVID situation - the interactive concept for SMESouk I created was done to both motivate and support this new direction and looks quite different to the production version; which was the result of Marketing using their external agency to add a layer of brand identity (see Outcome below)

End-User Research conducted? Yes.
During the initial service design stages once I had captured the Business Bankings side of requirements. Then later, after the MVP prototype concept hade been made

Following several visual brand design iterations (of which some were appealing to the wrong audience) with their preferred external vendor, the Marketing Department settled on the final design as presented in the outcome

Outcome
https://smesouk.com

Type
Existing offering update

Budget
AED 10 million (US$2.7m)

Role
Lead and oversee strategy, Research, UX, Interaction design

Problem or Ask
From a UX POV: Move an outdated, legacy based app into a customer expectation aligned, DevOps/Product Design Agile (SAFE) model of operation. From a UI POV; Improve the look and feel of a 'dated' looking app and website for digital personal banking

Solution
Research existing customer behaviour (without clickstream analytics), identify and establish areas what to/what not to improve (feature omission/scope), devise strategic options for design operations, whilst adhering to tech capabilities, limitations and legacy/Finacle/APIs, and present to Exec/Board, conceptual design, solution & roadmap, then usability test solutions, build, deliver, devise and manage customer migration strategy including the marcomms strategy

Why come?
Vastly improved customer experience. First major UX, UI (and tech) overhaul since its launch in 2012

Outcome
Versus the previous year, Customer uptake was up by 23%; remittance conversions up 49%; increased app store ratings (iOS & Android)

End-User Research conducted?
Yes; as insight ahead of design work starting to create the strategy. It was skipped at the Discovery stage due to the project moving into the hands of the Chief Delivery Officer, however I was able to pick researching again (after their departure) during the later stages of development to ensure what we were testing aligned with end-user expectations

Budget
Open retainer - whatever the agency wanted to charge per month in HKD

Role
Lead, ideated and conducted strategy, Research, UX/Service design

Problem or Ask
Using a traditional paper based model of client liaison meant the sales agents were losing valuable time transferring analogue data into the digital systems. How could I help change behaviour so the sales agent time would be better spent elsewhere.

Solution
I started by mapping the sales agents journey - obviously this involved speaking to as many sales agents as possible in order to understand the differences in how they all worked. This had to happen before I could begin to identify commonalities - eg. patterns in behaviour - and begin to form sales agent archetypes. A key business metric was turnaround time, from instigation of lead to completion/close of sale - but I was able to identify, and point to clear evidence that highlighted that this type of KPI was a red herring, and wouldn't accurately reflect any sales agent optimisation, or process efficiency by using a new platform. So the KPI's evolved to be more pragmatic and reflective of activties, by focussing more on longitudinal studies in sales agents change behaviour. Only once all this was achieved was it possible to start solutionising.

I focussed on key stages within the lifecycle of interaction with customers. These then formed the backbone of entire engagement with each customer - how ever long that be (note that some sales agents had known their customers for decades; being present at key life events, such as weddings, births etc.).

Outcome
A 100% digital input platform which was adopted on day one by 86% of sales agents - a percentage that rose to 97% less than a year later. From a bottom line persepective sales were uplifted by 17% and sale agent morale was up on average 2 points on a basic 5 point rating scale from low to high.

Budget
Classified

Problem or Ask
How can First Direct retain their excellent customer ratings, while society shifts into a new era of digital pentration?

Solution
Meet the customers where they are. And dont stop studying and iterating accordingly (sort of reads today like a movement that is now called Product Design, or CRO/DevOps etc.)

Why Come?
If content is King, then connectivity is Queen.

Back in 2011 the mobile device had only just begun to be the now pervasive shackle that would quickly supplant the tablet, laptop and PC as the primary engagement tool.

Outcome
A digital strategy that was supported by four digital pillars, obviously (now) this included the mobile device and also baking in human behavioural studies. This strategy was aimed to span 10 years starting from the early 2010's.

I met my co-founder, Jeffery, during a start-up weekend (hackathon) in Hong Kong in 2015. He had at that point a very rough diamond of an idea, which once partnered (despite his paranoia around telling me the idea!) I eventually helped him mine it out.

Jeffery came from a development background, so our skills complimented each other. We were both very experienced in our respective fields so it was easy to stay in lane. Where we had to cover new ground and work together was the business side - connecting and meeting with prospective partners, selling/pitching to established businesses, controlling IP and creating contracts.

We sold the idea and the (albeit undermarketed) app whilst it was in an early public, but beta-production state. Interestingly the website still lives on today - - while the app has morphed into an existing businesses core proposition.

Graphics that both stand out and the test of time was the goal. Strong colours and basic geometric shapes were the answer.

Commercially released as the artist Paraíso and released on respected record label Claremont 56 in 2015, it took another 4 years before H&M licensed it for use in their Conscious Collection Fall 2019.

Pets are social. OK, maybe not like humans, but Pet owners are almost as obsessed with their pets as their pets are obsessed with food. How might this be encapsulating to fit into todays digitally connected and socially promoting audience?

Petzbe aims to solve this gap by being the first social media app for pets (I know, Pet owners). As as startup driven by a passionate pet owner it was my task to sort out, translate, articulate and realise the many feature and ideas floating around inside the head of the founder. No small ask, but one that I leapt into.