Metro International

To understand requirements, we travelled to 10 countries to meet prospective system users and interview stakeholders representing Metro’s 23 different countries. We analyzed usage of existing tools to discover what people were actually using and how.

Our approach was entirely benefit-driven. We asked users not what they wanted from the product but what their business requirements were (e.g. “to increase sales in a declining market by expanding into new segments”). Based on these responses we developed and built an application, which we constantly refined via interactive prototyping, user-testing and eye-tracking.

The output is a unique browser-based application using advanced rich media tools that allows each user to customise their view and provides them instant user feedback. Users quickly feel confident with the system and find it a pleasure to use.

The key drivers for the application were cost savings (e.g. reducing the value and volume of credit notes) and increase ad sales. ROI has been phenomenal with over 2.3million adverts booked and $2.2billion invoiced worldwide. Other highlights include a 19% improvement in cash forecasting across the business, a 300% increase in proposals issued in Holland and a 119% increase in advertising volume in Mexico.