projectbook_rachelwu

Project Book2008- 2012

Rachel Wu MSc.Strategic Product Design, TU Delft

Rachel Wu • 2010 - 2012 Master of Science Strategic Product Design, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands• 2006 - 2010 Department of Industrial Design, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan

Currently studying in Strategic Product Design in Delft University of Technology, I am interested in areas of user-centered design, qualitative research and business model generation. Discovering and transforming consumer insights to design and business directions is my core work, and through this, I hope to generate innovative ideas that benefit the clients and more importantly the society.

address: Korvezeestraat 411,

2628 DT Delft

mobile: +31 6 4444 1730

e-mail: [email protected]

Linkedin: Rachel Wu

Table of Contents

Context mapping for CBA (Centraal Beheer Achemea, 2011) 4 Mapping needs and expectations of customers for new service innovation in truck insurance

Customer research for eating on the go (LU, 2010) 5 Understanding human behaviour when eating on the go and gaining insights to design better eating on the go experiences

Monster Clash, collective toy design (TU Delft, 2011) 6 Creating a rich play scenario and exploring new possibilities for collective toys

Green Up (Entrepreneurship project, 2008) 7 Brand development, marketing and sales for my start-up design studio

R2 - brand framing agency (TU Delft, 2011 ) 8 Business plan for a branding consultancy which creating commercialization plans for west European brands in emerging economies

Cradle to cradle business model for DSM (DSM, 2010) 9 Business model generation for sustainable business and bottom of the pyramid consumers

Brand extension strategy for Suit Supply (TU Delft, 2010) 10 Strategic plan for Suit Supply to grow from 30 to 300 stores in 10 years

New product development for Cocune (Stöpler BV, Cocune, 2011-2012) 11 Developing market, product concept and commercialization plan for Cocune medical disposable products

4

Context mapping for CBAMapping customer needs for new service innovation

Client Centraal Beheer AchemeaYear 2011

Keywords Customer research for new service development, context mapping, creative session and workshop

Collaborator Robert Paauwe, Tsiwen Liu, Jipkang Vuong

Supervised by Muzus (a design agency specialising in conducting qualitative re-search), the project goal was to find insights and design directions for Centraal Be-heer Achemea (CBA), a Dutch insurance company, to successfully introduce a new insurance service in the truck industry.

The main method we used for customer survey was context mapping which consists of five main research stages: preparing, sensitizing, make& say, discussing, analys-ing, capture& share, and conceptualizing. General exploration of the B2B2C business was made and accordingly a sensitizing booklet was designed. Three truck dealers and one truck buyers were invited to participate in the context mapping sessions. .

In the end of the project, an interactive workshop and presentation were designed for effective communication. Key results can be summarized as follows. First, an easy-to-understand insurance service which supports a positive relationship be-tween truck dealers and buyers is proposed. Secound, the insurance product should be bonded closely with the truck dealers. Third, it’s important to understand every truck dealer and buyer is different. It’s necessary to make a flexible plan and service which can easily adapt to different needs of the end customers. These insights were also concluded as go and no-go options for the company to check when making business investment decisions.

4 5

Customer research for eating on the goUnderstanding customer behaviour and gaining insights to design better eating experiences

Client LUYear 2010

Keywords Customer research for new product development, qualitative research

Collaborator Xu Chen, Ye Tao, Zhang Wei, G.V.Singh

In course New Product Development for NPD, “eating on the go” was chosen as the topic to explore. Cooperating with LU (a Dutch snack company), insights gained from this project can be used to develop a new and better’ eating on the go’ experience for LU products.

This qualitative research about customers’ eating behaviour started from collecting background information--we learnt about LU’ s main scope, mission and vision, and accordingly adjusted the target group to high school and university students. As for the sampling method, convenient sampling and intentional sampling were used. Dif-ferent eating behaviours were analysed on the base of information from video and photos we took during observation.

Presented as analytical results, these insights help LU to get in-depth understand-ing of customer behaviours and add input in the process of designing a new set of foods/snacks that can be eaten on the go.

6

Clashmonster

Monster Clash, collective toy designCreating a rich play scenario and exploring new possibilities for collective toys

Client TU DelftYear 2011

Keywords Toy design, context mapping with children

Collaborator Dave Senden

Monster Clash is a school project under the course Design for Children’s Play and Learning. The final goal of this project is to create a toy collection which stimulates the imagination of children and through collecting and the associated play activity, gives them a feeling of satisfaction, responsibility and accomplishment.

Boys aged 8-12 were selected as the target group since they showed much interest in participating group play and competitions which met our design goal of enabling associated play activity. An extensive literature survey and a context mapping ses-sion with Dutch kids were conducted to understand child psychology in different ages and play behaviours of different genders.

Integrating insights from research, Monster Clash is presented as the final design. It is a collection of toy elements which form a whole on a larger scale. The largest part of the collectables consists of a set of 5 balls with different functions: non-func-tional, light, sound, rolling, and bouncing, which can display a specific behaviour in response to impact. These balls can be connected together magnetically to form a larger structure which is envisioned as a monster creature. Extra attachments can be given to the monsters to form rich expressions. A special handle is designed to connect magnetically with the toy and children can start an exciting monster battle by direct the monster into other monsters.

The concept allows for rich play scenarios, varying from individual play (construction and admiring the monsters) to group play (one-on-one battles, group battles) and explores new possibilities for collective toys.

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2008, Taiwan

Green Up, my design studioBrand development, marketing and sales for my design studio

Client Entrepreneurship projectYear 2008

Keywords Entrepreneurship, design studio, design promotion

Collaborator Chen-Hua Wang, Yu-Lin Chen, En-Hao Chen, Yu-Jen Wang

Green up is a design studio founded by four other classmates and me in 2008. A variety of products were developed under the brand, which were necklaces of three different designs (the forest, snow, and natural fruit), coasters, T-shirts and pencil boxes. All these products were characterized by using artificial grass as the main material and catered to the brand name: Green UP.

The chosen material aimed to express the brand image of nature, fresh and energy. Targeting university students as the main customers, Green Up products were de-signed especially for normal school life use (pencil boxes and T-shirts), and as an ideal Christmas gift (necklaces and coasters). Some products were designed as lim-ited version as to attract more interests.

The brand was a success by making good profit during the Christmas season. The success factors, according to customer feedbacks, were its vivid brand character, 100% handmade proved uniqueness, and the original design.

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Brasília office Amsterdam office

Research director Creative director Client director

- find new partners: evaluation and cooperation- managing existing partner: long-term trust

- strategic direction- design criteria- communication plan- interaction design- conceptual design

- find new clients- client management- sale and marketing

R2 brand

framing

agency

research database

creative design strategic planning

rich direvables- innovation- interaction- research-based

- clear design criteria- advertising plan - from raw data to plan

- direct contact- strong local network- user-centered

research

strategy

design

implementation

*with partner research agencies

*with partner executing agencies

*creative director, NL

*creative director, NL

R2 - brand framing agencyA branding consultancy creating commercialization plans for west euporean brands in emerging economies


Keywords Business model generation, entrepreunership, design consultancy

Collaborator Ritzo Holtman

In the course Design Consultancy Practice, a business plan for a start-up branding consultancy named R2 is created. The core business of R2 is to create innovative and user-centered solution for companies to successfully launch their product and ser-vice in emerging economies. Through user-centered research, R2 ’s core activity is to interpret local customers’ latent needs to strategic direction and communication design. As a result, R2 helps the client brand connect successfully with local custom-ers without cultural barrier.

Beside the vision, mission and key activities of the consultancy, organisational struc-ture, cost structure, revenue and employment were also discussed. Potential cus-tomers and partner companies were elected to create a tangible business plan. The final business structure of R2 was based on “business model generation”(written by Alexander Osterwalder), and portrayed the future growth and development of this company.

The eternal goal for R2 is to have firm and growing business in its Amsterdam and Brasilia office, and become a pioneer branding consultancy in connecting interna-tional brands to local contexts.

8 9

Cradle to cradle business model for DSMBusiness model generation for sustainable business and bottom of the pyramid consumers

Client DSMYear 2010

Keywords Business model generation, cradle to cradle design, BoP and CSR strategy

Collaborator Kiki Liu, Karlijn Jacobs, Frances Blomberg

It was a half year school project for client company DSM. The aim of this project was to make the global science-based company the most prominent cradle-to-cradle brand in the world. We defined the term “cradle-to-cradle “ from a social point of view, which is to use natural resourses wisely and create a positive cycle of human force and natural materials.

Our goal in the case is to change the helpless BoP popuation from ‘waste’ of society to a ‘productive’ society by teaching them how to use the land wisely instead of do-nating food. A business model bridging three parties, which are DSM, BoP farmers and the academic field is introduced. In the model, DSM forms closer relationships with agricultural specialized institutes and through them, has direct contact with the BoP farmers in developing countries.

“Lead farmers” (which come from the concept of “lead users”) play a key role in the project. These lead farmers are selected, and during the contract period, they grow raw materials for DSM, offer crop samples to the academic institutes, and receive cultavation workshops. This demonstrates a win-win situation for all parties, that the BoP farmers receive better education and ensure their work, the academic in-stitutes get fundings and have more research data from the crop samples, and DSM get better quality and quantative crops, as well as establish a positive brand image.

In the long run, the BoP farmers can gradually get away from their difficult situation and become potential customers of DSM. AWith such a csr approach, the goal of becoming the most prominent cradle-to-cradle brand is near.

The is

we

be

expand

Technology Development

Produc on of premix

Produc onof for fied

productDistribu on Marke ng End

consumer

extends to whole value chainDSM’s original focus

Figure 3

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Brand extension strategy for Suit SupplyFrom 30 to 300 stores in 10 years


Keywords Strategic planning, brand analysis, touch points study

Collaborator Evelien Griffioen,Wouter Volkers,Miguel Melgarejo,Stephanie Kool,Joost van Hoof

Suitsupply is a young Dutch company which specializes in making tailored suits and provides effective and personal service to its young customers. The ambition of the founder is to make Suitsupply 10 times bigger by 2020, meaning having 300 stores in 10 years. In the course Brand and Product Stratedy, we selected Suitsupply as the client company to accomplish his ambition.

Internal as well as external study were conducted to understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the company. Next to that, persona of a typical Suitsupply buyer was made to make clear of the target group, and a 23plu-sone model (developed by company BR-ND)was used to define the characteristic of the brand. Results of the analysis showed that, with strengths such as vivid brand characteristic and clear target group, Suitsupply can grow exponentially by first re-inforcing its brand touch points and then diversifying services in extended brands.

An operation time line was proposed in the strategic plan which listed out all strate-gic steps for Suit Supply to accomplish its goal. The first step is to reinforce Suitsup-ply’s brand touch points, especially in developing service apss, entertainment apps and strengthen its impact in social media. Through this approach, brand loyalty and brand awareness can be built among the young consumers. And customer feedbacks can be collected effectively through these channels. The secound step is to carry out a brand extension plan, where new stores such as “Intimatesupply”, “Scentsupply” are opened. The diverse and extended services can offer its core consumers a richer experience, various selections in different price ranges and ultimately meet the final goal of growing to 300 stores in 10 years.

10 11

New product development for CocuneDeveloping market, product concept and commercialization plan for Cocune medical disposable products

Client Stöpler BV, CocuneYear 2011

Keywords New product development, market research, marketing plan

Collaborator Bart bleijerveld , Stephanie Kool, Jelle Benschop, Xiao Han, Wei Zhang,

Under the course Joint Master Project, I worked with five other TU Delft students for six month, aiming to develop innovative medical disposable products for Cocune, a young medical product brand of Stöpler BV. The new product should fit current product portfolio as well as fulfilling the goal of making 50% of the turnover of Stö-pler disposables department.

There were three phases of the project: goal definition, idea conceptualization, and in the end a marketing plan. Collecting data from field survey and literatures, the finite design goal was to design “A package of ‘care products’ for the growing Dutch home care market, and is used mainly by the informal caregivers, to support home care nurses’ nursing tasks.”

In the conceptualization phase, three package concepts were proposed, which were the “washing in bed package”, “toileting, changing incontinence product package” and “massage package”. To meet Cocune’ s goal of making profit in the short run, “washing in bed package” was selected through process of prototype making, user tests and various feedback sessions, a package of new Cocune disposable products: a waste bag, a pair of easy-disposal gloves, and a comfort bathing sponge were de-veloped.

In the end, a strategic time line was proposed, suggesting proper points for product launch. Also, concluding from all the field surveys,a concrete commercialization plan was developed. The product and the marketing plan are ready-to-use by Cocune, and expected to be launched on the market soon.

Contact : [email protected]

Thank you for reading, how do you think of my work? I am looking forward to more discussion