Digital Transformation Project

Table of Contents.

  1. Summary

  2. Project Approach

  3. Timeline

  4. Findings

  5. Recommendations and Roadmap

  6. Reflections

Summary.

This was a project I did for a small business that I worked for all throughout college. I was tasked with researching all business processes and figuring out how more technology could be incorporated into business functions. I worked to identify, understand, and document business processes, objectives, problems, and opportunities. We used agile methodologies (scrum) to plan the project, track sprints, and keep the team updated on findings. For user research, created website awareness survey to discover and analyze customer wants and needs in the e-commerce space. Designed and improved business processes, leaning heavily on the goal for continuous improvement and translation into technology enablers. Identified sets of opportunities and developed logical, actionable recommendations for implementation.

Team: Mia Spencer (Online Sales Transformation Analyst), Kathy Hodges (Gallery Manager), Pam Watrous (Business Consultant)

Methods/Skills: agile methodology, research, heuristic evaluation, survey design

Scope: July - August 2022

Goal: Drive online sales and transfer business processes into the digital realm as much as possible.

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Project Approach.

This was an internal business project intended to create and deliver research and recommendations that would help move the business toward maximizing online revenue from inventory items and increasing the flow of low-touch sales and therefore decreasing our reliance on more time consuming custom work.

Research for this project involved gathering information from all levels of the business to gain perspective through MDJ’s product, customer, sales, marketing, and website data. The goal was to identify, understand, and document business processes, objectives, problems, and opportunities to discover customer wants and needs in the e-commerce space and to improve business processes accordingly.

The project used an “Agile” approach to manage our path, output and results.  We met each week and sometimes more to revisit and discuss the project time, findings, decisions, and actions. Through democratic and iterative contributions, every member of the project team is accountable for the accuracy and quality of the output. 

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Timeline.

Weekly Workflow

  • Meeting with team

    • What sources exist? Where can I find these sources and what do I need to have to access them?

  • Dive into sources and processes

    • General overview

    • Look more closely at details

    • Take notes

  • Write out findings

  • Look into possible opportunities

  • Note recommendations

  • I used this week to collect and organize MDJ’s product data information (inventory, etc). I discovered where this data could be found (sources), what the processes were for tracking product data, and recommendations & opportunities for improvements to those processes.

  • I used this week to collect and organize MDJ’s customer data information. I discovered where this data could be found (sources), what the processes were for tracking customer data, and recommendations & opportunities for improvements to those processes.

  • I used this week to collect and organize MDJ’s sales data information. I discovered where this data can be found (sources), what the processes were for tracking sales data, what analytics were available, and recommendations & opportunities for improvements to those processes.

  • I used this week to collect and organize MDJ’s marketing data information. The goal was to document the current online marketing plan and propose improvements for both peak and off-season sales. I discovered where this data could be found (sources), what the current marketing plan was, whether there was a noticeable correlation between social media marketing and online product sales, and recommendations & opportunities for improvements to those processes.

  • The goal of this part of the project was 1) to discover customer awareness of the existence and purpose of the MDJ website and 2) to conduct an evaluation of the user experience of the website itself.

Findings.

Overall findings were that MDJ lacked standardized and consistent technology and records management practices and did not take advantage of many useful resources available through its subscription to Squarespace.

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  • UX issues with the website interface, found through heuristic evaluation

  • Website awareness and success of e-commerce:

    • Need more marketing and promotion for the website

    • Need to find out where people are finding out about the website and reasons for or against making purchases on the website

  • Records management issues

    • Certain spreadsheets stored locally on M’s computer that only she has access to

    • Invoices being kept for seven years +

    • Only a physical record of MDJ inventory

    • OneDrive folders disorganized

    • Customer database needs cleaning

  • Squarespace features that are not being taken advantage of

    • Inventory management integrations

    • Digital scheduling options 

    • Mass email list options

    • Opportunities to sync Squarespace catalog to Facebook and Instagram to allow customers to purchase products directly from posts, stories, and shops on profile and page

  • Inventory sold in-store but be manually marked as sold online 

    • Point of sale options 

  • Some months sold a lot on the website, some sold none

    • No noticeable correlation between website sales and marketing/social media tactics

  • Some items sell better online, though most sell better in-store 

    • Photography or location of item in-store likely the reason

  • Lots of in-house product photography equipment but no system or trained person to take advantage of it

  • “mail@melissa” emails go to people’s spam folder

  • Customer database is confusing and includes a lot of dead tags and old information

  • Unclear responsibilities for each employee’s role

  • No organized marketing plan

Recommendations and Roadmap.

It would be overwhelming to overhaul all current practices in the name of becoming a technology forward company. Instead, I focused many of my recommendations on improving and standardizing current technology practices. This would allow for a smoother transition and more confident team as MDJ continues taking steps toward a more digital future. Additionally, I noted some points that may require more research in the future.

I gave detailed descriptions of recommendations and a detailed schedule for implementation of these recommendations. I created a survey to assess how aware customers are of the existence and purpose of the MDJ website. When uploading the survey to SurveyMonkey, I realized I would have to split the survey into two: one for people who are aware of the existence of our website and one for those who are not.

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Reflections.

  • What I I learned

    • Became efficient at sifting through information and picking out important insights

    • How to communicate with the team about organization and direction

    • How to organize as well as I can with what I know at the time

  • What could be improved

    • Because each business process is so interconnected, sometimes I had trouble discerning if I was focusing on the right processes for each week, or if the way I divided each week up was the correct way of going about it.

      • Became easier every week

    • Throughout my research portions, sometimes I had trouble understanding what to even ask so I just wouldn’t ask anything. I had difficulty figuring out when I should give myself more time to think about something and figure it out myself and when I should ask questions. With more time, this may have not been an issue, but getting more time for a project is not always possible.

      • Also became easier every week as I gained a better understanding of processes

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