Evolving Secrid’s product offering into product service systems

Abstract

Secrid is a company that designs and manufactures innovative wallets and has grown very fast by doing so. The company has the ambition to play an important role in the self-defined pocketwear market, which is symbol for small and convenient products you carry with you. Acknowledging the rise and popularity of the smartphone as a pocketwear product, the company desires to explore the market of digital products and services. Secrid has not yet expanded their product portfolio beyond the wallet. However, brand extension is necessary for any one-product-brand to survive. As Secrid currently has no efforts in this market of digital products, there needs to be a way to translate Secrid’s brand to digital products and services. By designing for a typically Secrid emotional experience, the brand can be translated to this market independent of the functionality of the products for this market. Personality Driven Design Personality Driven Design is a tool that materialises the process of design for an emotional experience. It has been extracted what concerns Secrid’s customers have regarding their wallets as those influence the emotional experience according to appraisal theory. Designing for those Secrid specific concerns for different products is accomplished by ideating around personality traits that are matched to those concerns, as people connect with products in a way similar to how they connect with other humans. Through this process of ideation, it is continually asked how a certain personality trait influences the usefulness, usability and desirability of a product; thus making the design of a new product personality driven. As Personality Driven Design is focused on the emotional experience of the product that is subject to its process, it can also be useful for the design process of for example the marketing department. Additionally, it provides a new perspective on the development of the Secrid brand. Personality Driven Design is the first step by step tool to design for an emotional experience and has impact on design methodology and design for emotion literature. Beyond Secrid, the tool or its mechanism can even be generalised to different companies and purposes. Portfolio of Concepts As Secrid needs a way to get started in this new market, the portfolio of concepts is introduced. The portfolio consists of four concepts that indicate Secrid’s role in the market by being designed for different—yet still Secrid—concerns. The Talisman concept envisions Secrid’s ultimate role in the market and embodies what the company can accomplish in the future. The Passbook concept is a less complex concept that the company can immediately start with. The concepts of the portfolio are sequentially more complex, so the company needs to acquire the necessary capabilities to realise those products. This is primarily done by the hiring of new people and partnering with a software development firm. Internalising knowledge on digital products and services has the added benefit that the company acquires the flexibility to deal with and act on technological innovations, which can also be beneficial for the physical product portfolio. As the company looks towards the market of digital products as a great opportunity that can add value to the brand and organisation, every concept contributes to various performance indicators to indicate their success. The risks that come with the development of the portfolio are identified and mitigated by various strategies that indicate the company needs the flexibility to adapt alongside the development. Every project can be strategised, but as change in the context is unavoidable, such a strategy is never finished. Conclusion Personality Driven Design and the portfolio of concepts provide Secrid with a way to enter the market of digital products and services and has a wide variety of inspiring products it can start developing. It is therefore recommended that Secrid starts implementation of both deliverables.