Product & Service Research, Strategy, Innovation, & Foresight

Rescuing AT&T Enterprise Business from Declining Customer Satisfaction and Massive Cost Inefficiencies

THE OPPORTUNITY

AT&T Enterprise Business faced significant customer dissatisfaction and attrition due to a fragmented and inefficient customer experience. Key issues included redundant and conflicting systems for billing, customer care, product pricing, and delivery, along with complex registration and purchasing processes.

As a digital product leader and digital transformation consultant with KPMG Advisory, I was tasked with developing a solution to streamline and enhance the customer experience, reduce attrition, improve overall customer satisfaction, and identify efficiencies.

THE APPROACH

  1. Customer Journey Mapping: I led the creation of seven multidimensional customer journey maps, documenting ideal-state customer journeys across the Learn, Buy, Get, Use, Pay, and Support life cycle. These maps incorporated customers’ needs, motivations, and behaviors, as well as their physical, geographic, and social contexts.

  2. Stakeholder Engagement: Conducted interviews with over 50 subject matter experts, stakeholders, and customers to gain a 360-degree view of pain points and requirements. This participatory approach ensured alignment on the optimal customer experience.

  3. Design Thinking and Motivational Design: Executed a mix of design thinking and motivational design principles to connect business goals with the ideal customer journey. This included creating a vision for a seamless digital experience that addressed rational and emotional customer needs.

  4. Solution Implementation: Implemented a solution discovery and optimization tool within AT&T’s Business Center, allowing authenticated users to view current product mixes, receive contextually relevant product solutions, and optimize their orders. This tool integrated predictive analytics, third-party catalogs, and configuration management databases to provide intelligent recommendations.

  5. Process Optimization: Streamlined the order configuration and fulfillment process, including electronic routing of quotes and bills of materials, integrated help, and centralized communication tracking. This improved order processing efficiency and reduced the need for manual interventions.

    THE RESULTS

    The implemented solutions significantly improved customer satisfaction by 61% and reduced attrition rates by 16%. Customers experienced a more streamlined and personalized interaction with AT&T’s services, with clear and consistent communication throughout their journey.

    Moreover, My team and I identified operational changes that, upon implementation, would save AT&T over a billion dollars, demonstrating the project's substantial financial impact.

Journey Map Sample

Example Service Blueprint and Journey Map

Participatory Design Workshops

“This is the first time I’ve felt like my voice was heard and my ideas acted upon”

Strategic Foresight and Innovation at Boeing HorizonX

THE OPPORTUNITY

Boeing faced a rapidly changing aerospace and defense landscape with emerging technologies and market disruptions posing opportunities and threats. As a Senior Principal for Applied Innovation, I led Boeing’s strategic foresight and innovation capabilities.

My role involved leading efforts in strategic foresight, strategic innovation, product management, business model design, and overall innovation management. This included directing design prototypes, conducting qualitative research and observations, analyzing third-party research, and conducting interviews inside and outside Boeing.

THE APPROACH

Strategic Foresight and Trend Analysis:

  • Implementation: I spearheaded the development of a foresight capability acquisition plan, which included early warning systems and custom analyses to detect and respond to emerging trends and disruptions. This involved establishing a network of foresight practitioners and integrating foresight into Boeing’s operational rhythm.

  • Training and Development: I conducted structured team training and facilitated coaching sessions to build foresight capabilities across Boeing HorizonX, ET&T, BCA, BGS, and BDS divisions.

Qualitative Research and Design Prototyping:

  • Directing Prototypes: I led the creation of design prototypes to explore innovative concepts and validate strategic assumptions through rapid testing, learning, and iteration.

  • Conducting Research: My team and I conducted extensive qualitative research, including interviews and observations within Boeing and externally with industry partners, to gather insights into customer needs and market trends.

Business Model Design and Product Management:

  • Business Model Innovation: I formulated new business models that leveraged emerging technologies and addressed evolving market demands. This involved analyzing market disruptions and integrating innovative approaches into Boeing’s strategic plans.

  • Product Management: I applied human-centered design principles to drive product, solution, and experience strategies from market-facing problems and customer insights.

Cross-Industry Insights:

  • Intelligence Gathering: I gathered and analyzed intelligence from diverse industries to inform Boeing’s innovation strategies. This included examining trends in autonomous systems, energy and data storage, and additive manufacturing to identify high-risk, high-opportunity disruptions.

  • Strategic Recommendations: My analysis led to strategic recommendations on digital transformation, data strategy, and non-traditional partnerships to enhance Boeing’s competitive edge.

THE RESULTS

  • Enhanced Strategic Foresight Capability: The foresight practices I established allowed Boeing HorizonX to anticipate and mitigate risks while maximizing opportunities, contributing to the company’s resilience and strategic agility. This foresight capability directly influenced critical strategic decisions, ensuring Boeing stayed ahead of industry trends.

  • Innovative Business Models: The new business models and product management strategies I developed aligned Boeing’s offerings with customer needs and market trends, successfully launching several new initiatives that expanded Boeing’s market share in emerging sectors.

  • Quantifiable Outcomes: My strategic foresight initiatives led to a 20% reduction in operational risks associated with market disruptions and a 15% increase in the speed of product development cycles. These improvements resulted in substantial cost savings and revenue growth.

  • Broader Implications: These actionable intelligence and insights informed Boeing’s innovation strategies and positioned the company as a thought leader in the aerospace and defense sectors. This enhanced Boeing’s reputation and attracted strategic partnerships and investments from cutting-edge technology firms.

Sample: Planning and securing funding

Sample: Opportunities and risks approach

Sample: Ensuring a balanced portfolio

Sample: Trends and signals dashboard

Sample: Innovation framework

Sample: Strategy approach

Example Epics, Stories, Outcomes

Truncated Doc: Strategy and foresight report

Selling and leading multi-million dollar transformation engagements for the Fortune 100, resulting in over a billion dollars of efficiencies and increased revenue.

Conceiving of, testing, and launching innovative new products and services.

Creating bespoke products utilizing machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI/ML) to solve highly complex and specialized problems.

Additional Examples

Optimizing Energy Extraction Platforms Using AI/ML for a Global Energy Leader

THE OPPORTUNITY

A global energy firm faced challenges in optimizing the selection process for its energy extraction platforms. The existing process was manual, time-consuming, and prone to errors, leading to suboptimal decision-making, bloated development costs, and lost extraction volume.

Utilizing novel AI/ML models, the goal was to reduce the time required for selection, improve decision-making accuracy, lower operational costs, and maximize profit.

THE RESULTS

Efficiency Gains: The time required for platform design was reduced by 40%, allowing quicker decision-making and project initiation.

Cost Reduction: The optimized selection process contributed to a projected 15% reduction in development costs by ensuring the right platforms were chosen for each project.

Accuracy and Confidence: Stakeholders expressed increased confidence in the data-driven recommendations provided by the AI/ML system.

Using AI/ML to Ensure Maintenance Dollars are Allocated to Minimize Risk and Increase Public Safety

THE OPPORTUNITY

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) faced challenges in optimizing their annual maintenance budgets, which are crucial for ensuring public safety and minimizing risks associated with infrastructure failures. The traditional budgeting process was manual and lacked precision, leading to potential overspending in low-risk areas and underspending in critical high-risk zones.

The task was to optimize the allocation of maintenance budgets to maximize risk reduction and enhance public safety. The solution needed to prioritize resources effectively, focusing on areas with the highest potential impact.

THE RESULTS

Enhanced Public Safety: By prioritizing high-risk areas, the project reduced the likelihood of incidents by a projected 32%.

Cost Efficiency: The optimized budget allocations led to a more efficient use of resources, with an estimated 20% improvement in cost-effectiveness by focusing on spending where it was most needed.

Data-Driven Decision Making: Integrating AI/ML tools provided PG&E with a robust, data-driven approach to budgeting, increasing transparency and confidence in their maintenance planning processes.