Design Operations in Roofing Wholesale

Overview

ABC Supply, amidst expanding IT operations, embarked on a digital transformation journey, resulting in $1 million in daily web sales. Despite this, their design maturity lagged behind industry standards.

Capitalizing on growth in the design labor industry, ABC Supply sought to compete more effectively in the roofing wholesale market. However, with a 'beginner' rank in Forrester’s CX Maturity Model, the company needed to rapidly enhance its design capabilities to sustain comparative advantage and grow its market position.

Objectives

Design Maturity Advancement: Transition ABC Supply from a beginner to an intermediate in design maturity.
Customer-Centric Design: Integrate mixed methods research to drive design innovation and customer experience.
Process Measurement: Establish clear metrics and definitions for what constitutes 'good' design process and outcomes.

Methods

Design Praxis Matrix: To assess and advance the current state of design practices.
DesignOps Canvas: For aligning operations with design outcomes and scaling the design team effectively.
Design Initiatives Planning: Strategic planning for short-term and long-term design initiatives.

Solutions

Adoption of Forrester’s CX Maturity Model

We aligned ABC Supply's design strategy with Forrester's framework, setting clear definitions and measurable standards for design practices, ensuring they are customer-cetric and iterative.

Iterative Design Process

By incorporating iterative design cycles — ideating, prototyping, testing, and refining — informed by qualitative and quantitative research, ABC Supply can ensure continuous improvement in design that is deeply rooted in customer needs.

Outcome

The action plan set ABC Supply on a path towards design maturity within the next two quarters, aimed to improve CX. The company is now poised to build on its digital sales success with a stronger design competency.

The Design Praxis Matrix guides the conversation around, ‘how do we do design?’ Each quadrant reflects on a design team’s current competencies and gaps.

The Design Ops Canvas is template for generating and/or documenting ‘how design will scale’ within an organization.

*(Illustrative example)* As a result of understanding the design practice’s competency, answering ‘how design will scale’, and partnering with strategy, we devised a set of design initiatives to realize growth over a 6 month period.

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