Case study: Aditya Birla Group Locator (A map app)
Client: Aditya Birla Group
Project Timeline: November 2019 — February 2020
Focus: Brand Strategy & Website Design
Location: Mumbai, India
Background
Aditya Birla Group is an Indian conglomerate with 19 different businesses operating across 35 countries and having a workforce of 1.5 lac worldwide.
With over seven decades of responsible business practices, their businesses have grown into global powerhouses in a wide range of sectors — metals, pulp and fiber, chemicals, textiles, carbon black, telecom and cement.
Existing in almost every sector especially in India, ABG aims to provide support to their employees in every aspect- from emergency assistance to shopping stores.
Design Challenge
ABG wanted to simplify the process of assisting its employees. Their focus is to not only help their employees in emergencies but also make it easy to avail of other social benefits. Since the company has multiple verticals they want to allow their employees to benefit from the same. Hence, their goal is to combine all of these services on a single application.
To break it down, ABG wants the mobile application to cover:
- ABG Offices
- Units of ABG
- Shops & Stores
- Education
- Transit Residences
- Holiday Homes
- R&D Labs
- Hospitals
The challenge is to have all these fronts on the app, where the focus would truly be on the functionality. Getting users in and around their city and other cities in India while traveling. A super simplified user journey such that it takes them just a few minutes to get what they are looking for.
The Solution
Since this was an application only to be used by ABG employees, we wanted to make sure it covers all grounds for them to get from a point to another. Understanding the user journey before the app and mapping results to plausible solutions was our primary interest.
We first connected with their employees, they gave us a walk-through of their process when they traveled across ABG locations and used company coupons/discounts.
Here’s what we learned:
- When new employees join the company, it is hard for them to know, contact and get around various ABG locations and stores
- Finding out about deals and newsletter facility is another feature which the app needs to cater for all employees
- In case of emergencies, the app needs to connect them to SOS helplines for immediate assistance
- Locating transit and holiday homes when traveling away from home
- While going from, say an ABG office to a unit, getting in touch with SPOC for facility-related queries is hard for employees
- Finding locations nearby ABG retail stores within and outside the city to avail discounts can get quite confusing
On evaluating the users and their thought process– we finalized a map model. This means, on opening the map, users first come across a map and a navigation panel. The navigation would allow them to filter views as per their needs- shop, stay, etc. Designing the filters as sliders for ease of use. Based on different locations in a city, type of business, company, and other categories.
The discover page was added keeping in mind the user’s need to know about the various deals and discounts they can make use of. The page is designed to show stores that are new and trending which can be filtered as per need.
Users can also upload reviews and images for the places they have visited, which helps other users make better decisions. Enabling emergency contact screens to connect with the admin heads in case of emergencies.
ABG envisioned an all-purpose app that would be of most use by their employees. As a team, we intended to create a well-functioning application keeping the users in mind throughout. The end product is a perfect intersection of the two– an all-purpose app that functions well.
What I Delivered
I helped the ABG team create an app that was a perfect fit for their multifaceted needs. Capturing all verticals of their business and combine them into a single application. Maintaining a clean UI and establishing a fine-tuned user journey.
Insights & Learnings
Reflecting on the process post 6 months of design, development & design iterations. I examined how the current site performed. Here are some of the insights gathered:
- No.of employees using the application- As of February 2021, there are 47,862 ABG employees using the application
- Post the pandemic lockdown, as more and more in-person locations, have started to open up, Feb-21 saw a 140% increase in monthly app usage (compared to Jan-21)
- Playstore and App Store ratings- The ABG locator received a 4.2 / 5-star rating on the Google Play Store and a 5/5 star rating on the Apple App Store
Looking back, the app is doing a great job. Benefitting both — the employees and the company. Though, there is one thing I feel that could have been done better: With the app, our main focus was to assist our traveling employees - we were not ready for a pandemic, where employees start to work from home! During the lockdown, we could have included features for employees that benefitted them from home and made them feel more connected to the Aditya Birla Group.
