Case Studies with EY-Seren
I was a Principal Service Designer on Seren’s Preferred Supplier List for over five years. During this time I embraced their culture and was considered a go-to consultant for new clients. Every role resulted in more revenue from client development.
Sector: Finance
Client: Discovery Bank, Johannesburg
Challenge faced: Discovery Finance Group needed to enter into the Retail banking sector, leveraging it’s existing financial portfolio and client base while attracting new customers. How could it define it’s marketing mix and product service model to compete in an already competitive market?
Outcome: Produced and presented to C Level a new and successful overall Value Proposition based on six weeks of in depth quant and qual research and analysis and eight key personas that were used to design and launch South Africa’s digital first mass affluent bank.
Personal Role: I lead a team of researchers and designers on location and travelling all over South Africa to conduct research ( Diary Studies, 1:1: Interviews, Co-Workshops, service safaris) that led to the growth of this new EY key account.
Reference: https://www.discovery.co.za/bank/
Sector: Finance
Client: Barlcays, London
Challenge faced: How could Barclays Retail Bank reuse Online Channel Account Opening success to manage customer flows at peak times while retaining a positive in branch experience?
Outcome: Conducted research, analysis and design of a new Barclays Account Opening procedure, creating a new operating model for in-branch digital kiosks along with staff training. Allowing for specific branches to deliver positive experience for new customers and maintain excellent in-branch experience for existing customers. More accounts were opened using this hybrid digital model during peak times such as University start dates.
Personal Role: I lead a team of researchers and designers on location and travelling all over London and South East to interview and model the new hybrid experience that was regulated and ensured staff happiness and avoiding money laundering.
Sector: Finance
Client: Discovery Bank, Johannesburg
Challenge faced: After successfully conducting the outcome of Discovery’s Value proposition the Banking team wanted their staff to be able to adopt Service Design Thinking as a strategic tool themselves. They requested knowledge transfer.
Outcome: A six week bespoke hands on training course was designed and delivered to eight Discovery employees. This full-time training was held on site in Discovery offices and resulted in the Bank adopting design thinking that led to the successful launch of the first ‘behavioural economics’ bank in 2018.
Personal Role: I designed and delivered the Service Design Training course. Some of the employees have since left Discovery and continued to employ the skills acquired in their new roles with “life-changing” gratitude.
Sector: Finance
Client: BNP Paribas, Belgium
Challenge faced: BNP were unable to prioritise their essential High net Worth banking clients as new emerging competition was growing. Retail banking service was being prioritised over HNW clients due to volume and frequency of customer usage. However if a HNW client left the Bank then significant assets would be lost. BNP Paribas Belgium NHW clients were being approached by Northern and Southern European new entrants. What strategy could the bank adopt to retain their HNW clients?
Outcome: I lead a team of designers and created a plan of action to interview key C level stakeholders within the bank along with both Flemish and Walloonian HNW customers in their homes and in co-creation workshops to assess the issues and opportunities of banking with BNP. We created and iterated through design methods and workshops (with translators) a new strategy that was exemplified as a digital app with prioritised news and investment feeds and connectivity to private bankers. The result was that the CEO said “We now have a strategy for our High Net Worth Clients”.
Digital representatives from BNP Luxembourg, Italy and France came to the final presentation and adopted the design strategy for their own markets.
Personal Role: This was EY Seren’s second account in Europe and my second non UK account where I was deployed to advocate the methodology of Service Design Thinking to generate outcomes that led to the growth of EY Seren in the EY network.
Reference: https://wealthmanagement.bnpparibas/en/whom-we-serve/ultra-high-net-worth-clients.html
Sector: Government
Client: The Big Lottery Fund
Challenge faced: The Big Lottery Fund, the distribution arm of the National Lottery are responsible for awarding grants to applicants for community projects. The problem was they did not know where the fraud was occurring and if they were being fair in awarding the funds.
Outcome: A new process and service design in the form of a Service Blueprint that described 3 years of change to implement and obtain benefits.
Personal Role: This was a new account for EY and EY Seren - I built a relationship that led to additional revenues. Namely Knowledge transfer sessions and People performance.
Reference: https://www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk/funding/programmes/national-lottery-awards-for-all-england
Sector: Government
Client: DCMS
Challenge faced: DCMS had identified that there was a need for Government intervention to stimulate the skills gap in UK for CyberSecurity. As such they required a new more trusted Grant and Awarding process that ensured that they distributed the available funds accurately.
Outcome: In 12 weeks, working with a team of consultants and using User Centred Design methods we designed and delivered a new Grant Award process that has since been adopted as a model during the Covid Crisis of 2020/1 to award other grants from DCMS.
Personal Role: Leveraging my experience from Big Lottery Fund and using design thinking methods I ensured that EY Public Sector were adopting the EY Seren Design Thinking methodology to best effect new UK Government clients.
Reference: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/825141/CSIIF_Third_Round_Guidance_for_Applicants.pdf
Sector: Consulting
Client: EY Paragon
Challenge faced: EY is a huge cumbersome organisation with high IT costs and specific needs to reduce costs while being internationally regulatory compliant and deliver excellent client differentiating experrinces. It was failing to be innovative in the way it interacts with the clients who were adopting more collaborative tools such as Slack, Google, and other more sophisticated tooling. How could it improve?
Outcome: A series of co-creative workshops in London, Chicago and Cleveland along with desktop and safari research produced insight to design a new product “Paragon”. A formal consultancy report to EY C level for strategic decision making on the collaborative future way of working with clients.
Personal Role: I led the team of designers and worked with EY partners to understand pains and opportunity to genuinely change the modus operandi of this Big Four consultancy.
Sector: Telecoms
Client: O2
Challenge faced: O2 UK’s technology stack was old and expensive and Telefonica were setting up to divest the UK arm - in order to maximise its potential yield a new Technology stack had to be designed in an embedded and that needed to deliver a new customer experience. What would a new CX look like for 2021?
Outcome: A new CX based on service design methods and data analysis of existing customer needs. Research of the entire customer ecosystem including retail, call centre and online experiences plus future modelling of technology and cross industry practices led to a world class new experience.
Personal Role: I lead the team based out of Slough developing this key account for EY and embedding EY Seren’s methodology in Telecoms.
Sector: Government
Client: Yesser, Saudi Arabia
Challenge faced: The GDS equivalent of Saudi Arabia “Yesser” required new ways of doing things.
Outcome: A new governance model supplied to over 40 digital project managers.
Personal Role: EY UAE developed this account.
Sector: Finance
Client: LBG - Scottish Widows, Edinburgh
Challenge faced: Innovating in life insurance? With declining policy holders and poor reputation for paying out along with new market entrants LBG and Scottish Widows required a new innovative process to frame this problem.
Outcome: Based on location in Edinburgh over 6 months a team of Service Designers and Product innovators from EY worked with the R&D Innovation team to identify and research potential a new Life Insurance product/service. We delivered to the C Suite a new value proposition that was acceptable to the market.
Personal Role: This key account for EY required the adoption of Service Design Thinking and this opportunity meant that I could continue to develop client relationships that lead to successful outcomes and additional projects. I managed this through knowledge transfer of methodology and coaching of R&D employees on innovation processes.
Sector: Finance
Client: Legal & General
Challenge faced: This old traditional brand had ceased spending on any investment on Digital Transformation for over 8 years and had a requirement to reinvigorate their customer experience in Retirement - specifically Annuity claims online and .
Outcome: A series of research activities and analysis of omni-channel experiences and technologies resulted in a set of new design personas and online value proposition with a plan to transform from being a laggard brand to a modern user centred youthful company that saved operational value in managing customers whilst retaining asset value (i.e. More Pension Pot combining under Annuity payments).
Personal Role: Developed this new account from £175K to ~£1.5pa key account for EY Seren.
Sector: Government
Client: Cabinet Office
Challenge faced: Under NDA
Outcome: NDA
Personal Role: Leveraged my work on Big Lottery and DCMS to improve the way the Cabinet office awards grants. This role ceased when the General Election was called in 2019.
Sector: Construction (Arms Length Government)
Client: CITB
Challenge faced: CITB is the Industry Training Board for the construction industry devoted to building competitive advantage for the construction industry and the people who work in it. They are funded through a levy on Construction businesses as such they need to demonstrate value every three years. They had to perform a bottom up people, process and technology transformation and in doing so required a new valid and acceptable Target Operating Model. They needed to retain brand reputation whilst retaining existing vital people and attracting new employees.
Outcome: Using Design Thinking methods and in a novel way EY Seren ran a series of research activities: ethnographic research, interviews, workshops and analysis of quant and qual data to gain insights and produce a new Target Operating Model focussing on a strategic shift from an educational lens to a influencer through funding that was adopted and embraced by the entire organisation.
Personal Role: This key account was a risk for EY and EY Seren to take on to combine UCD with Process Design. I led a team for 3 months based out of Norfolk and Peterborough and delivered the new Operating Model that was accepted and adopted upon immediate entry into new head offices by the entire organisation. This led to additional projects to redesign the Procurement and Commissioning Process.
Reference: https://www.citb.co.uk/levy-grants-and-funding/commissioning/about-commissioning/
General Other activity at EY:
My role at EY Seren also covered mentoring and coaching perm staff, attracting new staff, influencing sales strategy and service design department structure. I worked closely with C Level and partners. I designed the EY “Service Design” awareness lunch and learn and subsequent one day training course for all EY Consultants to attend (>100) and learn how to work with Service Designers and ensure a more fluid working style between the two corporate cultures. I presented to Kingston Council offering them a solution to finance issues.
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