How can your digital strategy support a pivot in your business model?

When business goals change, technology and strategy need to adapt

Now more than ever, businesses understand that they must be flexible in order to navigate changing circumstances, and take advantage of new opportunities. Yet pivoting a business model can be risky: it requires time and resources, a thorough understanding of the new users' needs, and how these can be met.

The first step in any pivot is therefore to research and validate the new business direction. This involves getting to grips with the problem you are trying to solve. Why have you decided to make the change to your business model, and how will your pivot solve this problem?

At Deeson, we often approach complex problems such as this with a Design Sprint. Run over three or five consecutive days, this is a way of rapidly validating new concepts by exploring the problem in depth, researching user needs, and creating innovative solutions.

We work with our clients to create a prototype at the end of the design sprint, which they can test out with real users. The overall aim is to validate the new business direction as efficiently as possible.

Helping HelloNina pivot to a new audience

HelloNina is a business advisory service backed by accountancy firm BDO. We worked with them to pivot their business model away from helping startups, to targeting the SME market.

HelloNina realised that their business advice service was more suited to established small businesses, rather than the startup audience they originally chose. By targeting SMEs rather than startups, they would therefore be able to extract more business value. 

Approach

Our product team (consisting of a product strategist, designer, lead developer, delivery manager, developers, and user researcher) worked with HelloNina over the course of a three day design sprint. This process found that the existing tech platform was restricting HelloNina's ability to pivot their business, as it was unable to adapt to their specific needs. They needed a new tech platform to create a user journey that was right for their new strategy.

We also found that it was difficult for HelloNina to acquire new users. As a result of their pivot, HelloNina partnered with software providers, with access to their service bundled together with a software purchase. The redesigned user journey therefore had to accommodate this additional way that someone might gain access to the service, along with the traditional route of sign ups on the homepage.

Impact

We helped HelloNina redesign their product for a new, SME audience, by creating an online booking platform for their business advice services. Our design work cost-effectively reimagined and prototyped the new user journey, which then built.

This way of working ensured that no time or energy was wasted on creating a service that would not support the new business direction. It enabled HelloNina to meet the needs of a new target audience, and generate more value for their business. We also identified that the company branding needed updating in line with this new vision.

If you'd like to know more about how our team can help you with a new business idea or direction, we'd be happy to help. Get in touch with us here.