Designing a service concept for the future Finnish grocery trade
Wendland, Melanie (2013)
Laurea-ammattikorkeakoulu
2013
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 1.0 Finland
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201305209675
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201305209675
Tiivistelmä
The purpose of this thesis was to develop a new service concept for the Finnish grocery trade with the aim to help customer focus on healthier food consumption. The service idea and concept that was developed is called ‘Green key’ and encompasses a set of food-related and technology-enhanced services that inspire people to discover healthy meals, accelerate grocery shopping and preparation on busy days, guide people with choosing the right products for a balanced nutrition and reward them with bonuses such as discounts, home delivery and customer voting for favourite and new products.
In the theoretical part I created a basic understanding of the terms service concept, service innovation and design and suggested service design tools to concretise the service concept. A discussion about value creation in future services built the grounds for the theory of transformative services on which the service concept has been developed.
The service concept was designed using a service design process including the phases of insights, ideation and concept. Customer insights have been collected using online survey and cultural probes. An expert interview, desk research and trends have been used to gather insights about the market. Service ideas have been generated using the ideation technique of opportunity brainstorm and customer value constellation. The service concept was concretised with a range of tools including Service World, Moodboard, Service Poster, Service Blueprint and Customer Journey.
The empirical study and theoretical discussion in this thesis have shown that supermarket customers long for new service offerings in the grocery trade sector and seek for inspiration, more variety and guidance in the preparation of healthy meals. The service concept developed in this thesis proposes a new opportunity to create value for customers and providers in the grocery trade sector and stresses the need for service innovation rather than product innovation. The Finnish food industry is currently driven by product innovations but this research shows that service innovation can be a key differentiator and driver for competitiveness in the future. Through the use of digital technologies and the power of the crowd in social media channels, customers can be engaged and motivated to prepare healthy meals.
In the theoretical part I created a basic understanding of the terms service concept, service innovation and design and suggested service design tools to concretise the service concept. A discussion about value creation in future services built the grounds for the theory of transformative services on which the service concept has been developed.
The service concept was designed using a service design process including the phases of insights, ideation and concept. Customer insights have been collected using online survey and cultural probes. An expert interview, desk research and trends have been used to gather insights about the market. Service ideas have been generated using the ideation technique of opportunity brainstorm and customer value constellation. The service concept was concretised with a range of tools including Service World, Moodboard, Service Poster, Service Blueprint and Customer Journey.
The empirical study and theoretical discussion in this thesis have shown that supermarket customers long for new service offerings in the grocery trade sector and seek for inspiration, more variety and guidance in the preparation of healthy meals. The service concept developed in this thesis proposes a new opportunity to create value for customers and providers in the grocery trade sector and stresses the need for service innovation rather than product innovation. The Finnish food industry is currently driven by product innovations but this research shows that service innovation can be a key differentiator and driver for competitiveness in the future. Through the use of digital technologies and the power of the crowd in social media channels, customers can be engaged and motivated to prepare healthy meals.