Energy utility ecosystem
We developed a business strategy and conducted market research for one of Hungary's largest utility companies to create a PSD2-based "Home-Ecosystem".
Industry
Function
ProductContext
The housing market is one of the most important industries globally in terms of value and GDP contribution, with a large number of different services and stakeholders involved, but typically without a single overarching link or platform to facilitate and simplify all the transactions related to their homes for customers. In theory, there has been a lot of research on how so-called housing ecosystems could be the next step for the industry, but successful implementation in practice has been limited or partial. The strategic vision of a housing ecosystem is for a major market player to bring together the supply chain for the home, from purchase to maintenance, thus becoming a full partner to the customer. We were asked by our partner to develop this vision, design the implementation plan, carry out the market analysis and prepare the financial impact study.
The business implementation of the concept was a major challenge due to its complexity and the fact that it had not been addressed at such a level in Hungary before, so the entire strategy and implementation plan had to be created from scratch. In addition, the platform on which the ecosystem was based was an innovative PSD2-based mobile application, a technology that was completely unknown and completely new to the customers.
Approach
The project was developed in close cooperation with our client over a period of six months and was basically divided into two main phases.
In the first phase, we spent 3 months developing a strategy to deliver the project, which involved a detailed assessment of best practice in international markets and identifying the short-term resource requirements and long-term business impact for our client. We also developed a partnering model and value proposition for stakeholders to ensure the success of the project. In addition to the strategy, another key element of the phase was the development of the design plans for the PSD2-based application, where the main challenge was how to translate such a complex business concept into a mobile interface that was easy to use and easy for customers to understand, with a suitable UX/UI.
In the second phase, the theoretical concept and business plan were developed, followed by the practical part of the project, during which a full-scale primary market research was conducted to test the service's reception and to identify and collect tangible consumer needs. The market research included one-on-one in-depth and focus group interviews with individuals from 5 different market segments and a questionnaire component. The role of the interviews was primarily to validate the strategy we had created to get a good idea of the potential reception of the service, and to conduct an end-user side survey of the design plans we had created, which was used to create the final functionality and application map. The questionnaire was then used as a representative survey based on the information obtained during the interviews. The main challenge of the market research was that, in addition to the needs assessment, it also served an educational purpose about the concept's client-side value proposition and how PSD2 works.
Results
As a result of the project, we prepared a complete business development of a concept for our client within six months, which was unknown in Hungary and in international practice only existed on a theoretical level. In addition, based on our primary market research, we created a complete design plan for a new, innovative application based on real data and user opinions analyzed from 16 in-depth interviews, 2 focus group interviews and a questionnaire.