Globant’s Prism and Newton’s Prism

A quick overlook of a dynamic business strategy’s impact on a product, and our role as a Product Studio

In 1664 Issac Newton demonstrated with the prism experiment that sunlight is actually composed of variously coloured rays of light. This discovery revolutionized science and set the foundations for the invention of fiber optics, laser technology and modern telescopes.

In some way, our process at Prisma has a lot in common with Newton’s prism famous experiment.

Turning on the light

In August 2019, the Prisma Discovery project began when Globant and Prisma SA (one of the main players in the market for payment solutions for retail in Argentina) closed an agreement to start developing the new version of the virtual wallet “Todo Pago” and its retail solutions, with a strong focus on onboarding usability and promotions & discounts.

In the last few years, Mercado Pago’s continuous expansion over the small businesses segment with payment links and QR scanning technology has pushed other companies to develop a solution in that segment.

The objective was to launch a virtual wallet (mobile app ) to allows users to pay at the terminals already deployed by Prisma (acquiring model) and of course with the ‘Todo Pago’ program (grouping model) mainly with QR scanning before the end of 2019. Also, the web portal and the seller’s app would be redesigned and launched during 2020.

From light to dark

The first problems were the lack of alignment between strategy and development: for example, we knew what was expected of a wallet, but we did not know that unique feature that would allow us to hit the market dominated by the Macado Pago app.

On the other hand, a group formed by the biggest banks in Argentina saw the same scenario and began to get together to fight back for the financial business that Mercado Pago was taking away from the traditional banks, so they went to look for Prisma as a technological partner, this added pressure on the strategy and began to pushing us with questions as:

• Do we want an app that regular customers want or that banks think is good enough for them to join?
• Do we have to validate the value hypothesis and find a differential feature to compete or do we want to have what others already have?
• Are we going to be a B2B or B2C business? How was the part that the merchant’s network would take on the success of this initiative?

All these questions became chronic and began to harm teams that did not have a clear vision from the strategy.

Decomposing the light to see the rainbow

This scenario challenged us to change the lens with which we were looking at ourselves, changing it to a prism in which we could decompose each of the initiatives and value propositions as if they were different colours.

We went from a compact structure that was functional in a discovery stage to a portfolio of programs and solutions, each with a new purpose, we’ve analyzed and identified an ecosystem and started to create each separated vision, goals, value proposition and metrics. We’ve found answers to all the questions by organizing ourselves into three well-differentiated value streams that strategically enhanced each other:

• Todo Pago Platform: Solutions for the corporate segment implementing APIGee
• Wallets: Mobile application for buyers
• Micro Merchants: Collection solutions for merchants (payment links, merchant App & Web portal)

Also, we have to work along the different team to adapt the already ongoing 2020 strategy to the new normal, that changed the rules of the game and enhanced online transactions due to COVID19. Seeing ourselves as a technology provider but also as a transformational driver, we’ve also helped to bring to the table an important partner to enhance the wallet solution (Clarín, a major communication consortium in Argentina, and its 365 loyalty program), where BIMO wallet was born.

Our goal as a team and in particular as a Product Manager was to ensure that the strategy definition was reflected in the final proposal for each discovered Product. In a way, the Prisma experiment was simply to introduce the light that the initial discovery had given us, pass it through the prism of the organization of portfolios based on the generation of value and see how it was decomposed into a series of initiatives that drew the strategic roadmap and tactical for the next few months.