A large chemical manufacturer engaged Sketch to develop a mobile app for automotive dealerships. The ability to create “in the moment” up-sell opportunities for adding protective coatings and tints to a car purchase would drive revenue for both the chemical company and dealerships.
When a customer looking to purchase a car inquired about protective coatings and/or tints, the dealership sales rep would have to return to their computer and enter the Vehicle Identification Number to receive a display of options for that car. The dealership sales people soon discovered that while protective coatings and tints were a nice upsell, the process removed them from their potential customer and excitement and forward momentum was lost. As a result, the dealership salespeople were not proposing these high-profit margin additional services.
Hoping to capture upsell directly in the moment, the chemical manufacturer needed a mobile app that could be used to scan the VIN while the dealership salesperson is at the car and with the prospective customer. A large consulting partner was brought in to assist. Unfortunately, after many months, no software was delivered. As a second attempt, the chemical company decided to “go it alone” with their own IT staff. Unfortunately, other priorities kept the team from really being able to focus on the delivery of the mobile app and as more months slipped by, it was clear this was also not the solution.
Through initial discovery discussions, the chemical company realized they needed more than just development assistance, they also needed to upskill their technical staff through a modern development framework. The team working to develop the mobile app were new to Agile and wanted to use the engagement as a catalyst for improving their creation of feature stories, automating integration and delivery pipelines, writing better code, and expanding test automation. Sketch, already providing Coaching support to another area of the chemical company, was brought in for development support to drive the creation of the mobile app through Agile best practices.
Sketch’s initial focus was on getting the team’s arms around their Work In Process and introducing a more rigorous method of writing feature stories. Through this, it became evident that the team could also benefit from Coaching, as the Product Owner was struggling to represent the needs of the stakeholders, making it difficult to scope and size requested features. Coaching and facilitation activities brought about the alignment of stakeholders needs and goals with the Product Owner, Scrum Master and the team. Sketch technical experts worked with the development staff to build continuous integration capabilities, versioning and branching for iOS and Android builds and tutored in React Native development language. These efforts led to more accurately estimated, tested, and delivered features.
After just over two months, the chemical company had an app deployed through the Apple app store with beta users across a dozen dealerships. The auto sales staff were thrilled to have a way of offering upsell and value-added opportunities to their sale while remaining by their prospective customer’s side during the entire process. The chemical company’s technical team was better aligned and able to take advantage of their newly automated processes. The working arrangement between the chemical manufacturer and Sketch was such a success we were engaged in another round of development work – this time to make the original web application integrated with the mobile app for receiving data, order processing and deploying coating and tint specifications to cutting machines.
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