Design Thinking Case Study

Bai-Tech

An attempt at solving the most prominent issue of a number of Indian households — the bai problem!

To explore this setup, various design thinking tools were utilized.

01 Persona

Employee Perspective

Hello, my name is Gita. I live in Ayanagar with my husband and two kids, near the metropolitan city of Gurugram, which I travel to every day for work. It takes me around 30 minutes to reach my madam, Rashmi’s house. She is a nice woman and treats me well. Unlike my friends, I can claim that I am happy at my work place. But despite that, I haven’t been to work in two weeks, and yesterday I got to know that my madam has hired someone else in my place. It was a huge disappointment for me, but still not enough to overshadow my embarrassment from the fresh scars on my face and body. If I had gone outside my house, surely everyone would’ve figured out that I’ve been beaten at home. I will have to stay home for another week before starting to look for work again. We are running out of money now, so I will have to grab the first opportunity that I am able to spot.

∴The Need

In India, house-helps generally come from a background that isn’t adequate in terms of quality of life. Various shortcomings (shortage of basic amenities, social and societal issues) constantly prevent them from maintaining stability in their work place, and as a result force them to take up odd jobs.

Employer Perspective

Hi, I am Rashmi, a middle-aged housewife living in Gurugram. I just got off the phone after speaking to the head of the maid agency. He has been sitting on my money for weeks now and hasn’t provided a single decent maid since Gita left. I was actually quite fond of her but I guess these house-helps should never be trusted. It is becoming increasingly difficult for me to manage the entire house alone. Just last week, my BP had gone low due to all the exertion. Now, I have to keep calling this agency all the time so that they send home a decent maid for a change. I hope the next one doesn’t decide to leave after a few days like the one who had come in earlier.

∴The Need

Most households in India have had multiple bad experiences with hiring house-helps, which raises issues of credibility. This, in turn, makes the process of scouting and finding a reliable house-help an extremely tedious and cumbersome task, involving various trial & error cycles.

02 HMW

How might we ensure a proper lifestyle for house-helps in order to provide better quality of work-life and in turn improved productivity at work?

How might we devise a system for people in order to be able to hire trustworthy and long lasting house-helps?

The solution is Bai-Tech, but how does it work?

Bai-Tech will essentially be an app that works using your location, helping you view a list of registered house-helps in your vicinity, whom you can hire on an hourly, daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Both employers and employees can register themselves on the app under appropriate categories. House-helps can either self-register or contact the management team for the same. It will be similar to setting up a LinkedIn account. However, until and unless they complete all the required steps, including police and health verification, their profile will not be shown to the employers. Employees can open slots each day according to their suitable time periods, which can be seen by the employers, who can then select their preference and get in touch with the maids via the app.

03 Stakeholder Mapping

The following are the key stakeholders that would make this solution come to life. The App Developer and the App Maintenance team will work together to make this a reality, and solve issues that may arise while using the app during test runs. The Management team will be responsible for the scouting and verifications of the registering house-helps, and also look into any complaints or grievances from either parties. Lastly, the Advertising team would work towards raising awareness about our app in the already existing customer segments.

04 Business Model Framework

This tool clearly defines our partners, activities, resources, channels and customer segments along with how we plan to manage our customer relations and the value that we offer. The cost structure and revenue streams help us understand the exact inflow and outflow of money, helping us plan ahead efficiently.

*The average costing of each service has been kept in mind while constructing this hypothetical framework.

First 3 Months

4th Month Onwards

In short, our profit margin would increase by almost 135% after the first 3 months, if we are able to maintain our customer engagement numbers at 350 (from the earlier number of 300) per month! This would be ensured with our increased attention (and remuneration) towards advertising and management, along with app maintenance.

05 Perceptual Maps

This tool has been used to analyze our brand position in the eyes of our customers.

It is evident that our primary competitors are:-

• Local Maid Agencies,
• BookMyBai, and
• HireHelpz

Thus, the Ten Innovation Model Framework was used to understand what sets us apart from them.

06 Ten Innovation Model Framework

How to tackle the Competition? | Our USPs

• Multi-level Verifications to ensure house-help credibility.

Both Police and Health Verifications will be conducted on a regular basis to ensure that all the registered house-helps on the app are 100% reliable and disease-free. Any contradictions found at any point of time would lead to the suspension of the person’s registration, thus making them invisible on the app.

• Salary Manager

Helps both employee and employer keep track of the salary. Especially beneficial for daily or weekly-based employment, and also caters specifically to the elderly customer segment.

• In-App Scheduler

Ensures that customers can easily manage their appointments, be it cancelling, rescheduling or just keeping track.

What is the future of this App-based Business Idea?

• Feedback Loop and System of Rating

Separate feedback and rating system for employees could be put in place and displayed on their profiles. This would ensure better performance each time and not just on the first few days of hiring.

• Increased Job Opportunities

The employees (house-helps) can be further trained for more jobs and therefore ensure their loyalty overtime. This would additionally (and obviously) also increase their salary bracket significantly, thus ensuring that we achieve our main initial target of ensuring a good life quality for them, while also providing more value to them.

App Interface Design Proposal- Draft

*Scotch Brite Ad is sourced via Google Images to showcase how Referral Marketing would work/ look like on the user interface.

Why the shades of Green? The color green symbolizes:-

• Tranquility, which is often lost due to maid-related problems in Indian households.
• Good Health & Hygiene, which is a major concern for most employers when hiring a new house-help, especially in this post-COVID world.

Both of these things are ensured primarily by our app!

This was a student project done at NIFT UG Program by 3rd Year Students for the subject of Design Methods for Innovation. Faculty and Design Thinking Coach : Francis Xavier. Graphics: Self-designed using Canva.

Reach out to me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khyati-rishi12/