Challenge:
This case is an illustration of how channel innovation helps companies increase their revenues and profitability.
Starting almost 100 years ago, this heaters manufacturer has been designing, manufacturing and distributing engineering solutions for hot water generation and for commercial and residential heating.
One challenge has been the reliance on installers, who recommend alternative vendors’ products and solutions, combined with a poor understanding of the end-customer needs.
Our team was briefed with creating a solution to win the support of the installers, who in return would recommend our client’s products and solutions.
Approach:
Our team used a Design Thinking-based approach to fully understand the root cause of the issues and to fast prototype and test preliminary hypothesis.
The solution converged towards building an online sizing tool that enables professionals to calculate hot water demand for a large variety of applications (hotels, hospitals, athletic centres, camping areas, comfort stations, industrial processes etc.).
Once the specifications of the product were defined and tested, our team managed a remote team of developers who built the web application.
Results:
The outcome was an online software tool enabling heating engineers and other technical specialists to design and configure appropriate solutions for hot water applications.
This became the translation of advanced know-how into a user-friendly, simple and effective software tool. Once the application data has been defined, the tool offers the user several configurations and provides the corresponding technical files to support further study.
As a result, the company saw an increase in installers’ number of recommendations of our client’s solutions, which led to increased sales for the company, while achieving simultaneously cost reduction through time saving for their engineers supporting installers in their calculations – a good illustration of how channel innovation can build competitive advantage.
Project info:
- ACV International
- Dworp, Belgium
- Marketing
- Channel Innovation
Newsletter:
To get our update please subscribe to our newsletter.
