Here is my take on the problem statements which were of particular interest to me. For ease of scanning, these have been structured as follows:
Metrics
Approach
Recommendations
Artefacts
Improving customer LTV for Cred's newly launched e-commerce Store
Cred Store is a recent initiative to leverage the D2C wave & reduce coupon friction
Metrics
Increase ARPU for Store Purchases
Decrease Store Churn Percentage
Read More
Approach
A person shopping on Cred would typically be from a middle to high income class with a good credit score. They are people who would expect the best experience from Cred whether it is card payments, rewards or shopping. However, any friction will cause them to turn to a competitor product immediately.
Hotlist & Price Comparison - It is not clear for a Cred User that the prices & discounts being shown are the best in the industry. This creates cart checkout churn. By aggregating results of the same product from Google & other e-commerce websites, Cred can show a price comparison tool. This gives the user confidence that the points they gain on Cred are really worth spending on e-commerce purchases.
Approach
Flagging of Disingenuous Discounts - Some of the discounts shown seem disingenuous as the original price is often inflated. Also, many D2C brands actually bring out fake products. By allowing the user to flag disingenuous products, we are ensuring that high quality and genuine items are highlighted. It helps improve store churn as well as ARPU.
Returns & Customer Support - As the customer does not have an easy customer support option, they end up buying low-value items. To increase ARPU, a customer support & returns plan has to be formulated.
Recommendations
Improving Product & Price Authenticity
For items where price & discounts have been verified by Cred and are deemed to be accurate, Cred can label these items as “Cred Verified”.
Returns & Cancellations can be added advantages to such items, as well as awarding Cred Coins on such purchases.
A "Flag This Product" Option can be given flag the product in case the users finds the info unreliable.
Recommendations
Adding Visibility to Price Margins when compared to competitor Stores
Cred can link up with a third party vendor that scrapes results from Google & e-commerce websites and gives back a result to Cred stating whether the price & discount indicated are “Best Price” or not.
For Products which are unique to Cred, a "Limited Stock available" and a "Unique" tag can be added to the product.
Increase Swiggy's Revenue through its early stage multi-restaurant ordering initiative
Metrics
Increase overall revenue/day
Increase number of orders/day via new initiative
Read More
Approach
We breakdown the problem into component variables (avg. order value, #orders/household, Avg. time for delivery) through a MECE equation. We then estimate overall market and justify the attempt given certain assumptions. We then isolate the most important variables, deep dive into solutions to move these variables and finally optimize for the solutions.
Revenue ~ Avg. Order Value, #orders/household, #household (Demand Side)#delivery partners (Multi, Single), Avg. Time for delivery (Multi, Single) (Supply)
Swiggy makes 1.5 million deliveries/day in 500+ cities with market penetration of 3%. By making assumptions of constant number of cities and constant Swiggy commission for every order, there is a possibility of 1% increase in Swiggy revenue via MRO.
Approach
We first make a test run in existing set of partners and customers, first establishing an equilibrium between Avg. order value and #orders/household.
Once equilibrium is established, we focus on acquiring more households and increasing # delivery partners. Post this, we simplify the goal to increasing # households by 1% and formulate the right launch plan for doing so.
Recommendations
Attempting to reach equilibrium between Avg. Order Value and #orders/household
Decrease Avg. Time of Delivery - Incentivize drivers to do both SRO and MRO deliveries, Optimize routing/maps algo to take care of MRO, Create checkpoints where riders can drop-off food for other riders to pick up
Increase #orders/household - Incentivize families to do MRO when absolutely necessary, Restrict the restaurant combinations for a MRO delivery according to location, Putting a minimum limit to price of an item in MRO order
Recommendations
Optimize for # MRO households/Avg. Time of Delivery after reaching equilibrium
As we increase households and decrease delivery time, customer satisfaction increases initially but hits a parabolic optimum after some time.
Post that, we would need to increase number of delivery partners to maintain customer experience and increasing revenue.
Restrict to one/two member households, target Tier 2 Cities and an audience which is not very time-sensitive to achieve goal of increasing households by 1%.
Recommendations
Creating a Launch Plan through Product, Placement, Promotion and Pricing
Make MRO feature prominent as a separate section on homepage
For existing users, limit #MRO orders per day
For existing users, allow MRO in premium beyond certain number of orders
Segment existing set of customers and give them push notifications regarding the feature
In-app reminders during the full user journey – entering the app, while shortlisting restaurants, checkout etc.
Keep adjusting delivery price as a parameter to figure out the optimal price
Better Market Positioning of Simpl by differentiating from other BNPL apps and EMI schemes
Simpl is a Pay Later payments app that integrates as a payment gateway with e-commerce platforms to ensure seamless transactions by providing a 20 day line of credit.
Metrics
Increased NPS Score for early adopters of the new features
Read More
Approach
Why this problem?
Low Satisfaction of existing solutions: Credit Cycles in India today are extremely broken, with less discounts, crappy interfaces. EMI adoption is increasing and BNPL models need a revamp. If Simpl does not capture market now, it might be too late.
Banks are more trusted: Due to years of expertise in underwriting, banks are more trusted. As ML based models are new, Simpl needs to attack consumer psychology by providing higher value propositions and create a Delta 4 level product to move consumers away from Bank interfaces.
Approach
Who are we building for?
Metro City User: A typical user of Simpl is between 20-45 years, living in a metro city, having a good credit score. They are likely to purchase e-commerce and online delivery, and understand the value of 1-click purchase as well as short-term credit.
Gig Economy: However, Simpl needs to expand beyond this user base. It needs to focus on awareness & acquisition in the marketing funnel. By extending credit period, gig workers & freelancers who are not sure of their paycheck can actually reduce variability in their lifestyle by adopting short-term credit. This way they will be able to estimate their monthly expenses, and pay off when they receive payment for their services.
Recommendations
Build a better product
On-boarding - Screens need to be differentiated; one click payment & multiple vendors will no longer work. On-boarding needs to be more about lower interest rates, great rewards & points, opportunity for p2p loans etc.
Better Ledger System - Ledger System needs to be updated to give insights about consumer purchases, Robo-advisors need to be developed to nudge the user towards good credit behavior by sending appropriate reminders, Graphs and Charts need to be shown instead of just ledger format.
Social Network & P2P Networks - Friends & Contacts need to be integrated with the app by importing from Facebook, Whatsapp etc., Comparisons with spends from friends needs to be shown and good behavior must be encouraged, P2P Loans for deserving customers should be initiated with the right underwriting models.
Recommendations
Compete on Price
Longer Credit Cycle - 20-days credit cycle needs to be increased for high performing & trustworthy customers, Longer No Interest Credit Cycle also allows for gradually moving into Personal Loans for customers with good behaviour.
Rewards & Discounts - Points should be awarded for payments made via Simpl, Vouchers & Coupons must be made available extensively for redeeming of points, Points can be used as a proxy for credit score to upsell/cross-sell products across Simpl.
Recommendations
Better Placement
Bills & Payments - More categories like Rental, OTT, Ola Postpaid etc. should be included, Bill payments should also be integrated with the interface of the vendor rather than just from the Simpl app.
Better Online Integration - Needs to integrate with vertical commerce, fashion, retail, grocery, commute, health apps etc., not just food delivery. Needs to be placed on top of the payments ranking on major apps like Zomato, Ola, BigBasket etc. by offering better deals to major players.
Better Offline Integration - Needs to develop QR code either interoperable with UPI or a separate one and increase adoption with offline commerce, Needs to offer very low commission model with merchants to compete with banking apps.
Recommendations
Better Promotion
Banks & EMI Solutions are slow to adopt online marketing solutions. Simpl must take advantage of the same.
Simpl as a brand needs to be present where its customer is - major offline retail stores, fashion stores etc. Simpl advertisements must be present in most prominent buying locations
Based on issue tree analysis as per https://app.diagrams.net/#G1z99LFumEQPhLztytW0VHvQ-a7dCkUI7r , we have identified important factors which could affect the decision of launching an Amazon smartphone:
Xiaomi has overall sales in range of Rs 10k crore, OnePlus in range of Rs 6k crore (2 million phone shipments). Amazon India revenue including marketplace, payments, cloud etc. is about Rs 20k crore. AWS India revenue is close to Rs. 4.2k crore.
Recommendations
Competitor Analysis
The premium segment is dominated by three players and looks like a duopoly with high customer loyalty. Although, market is big, making a significant dent in the market is difficult.
The mid-range + budget segment is long-tail with high number of shipments. This means that should Amazon be able to come up with an enticing offering here, it can consolidate the market into a duopoly with Xiaomi and Amazon as the leaders.
Recommendations
Patents
Apple, Samsung are known to be aggressive patent enforcers + filers.
Xiaomi has ¼ the number of patents compared to Apple & Samsung worldwide.
Thus, here as well it makes sense for Amazon to enter mid-range segment.
Product + Budget
On Gadgets, Techradar, Verge, Oneplus & Samsung have superior ratings in the premium segment, whereas Vivo, Oppo have sub-par ratings.
Amazon clearly has spending power & can out-spend Vivo & Oppo in R&D as well as marketing.
It makes sense for Amazon to target the budget segment, and not take on the big players.
Recommendations
Market Share
Upsell/Cross-sell - Amazon can have huge market reach with its Amazon Prime offering (10 million users, need 5% conversion). If it is able to place the smartphone intelligently, in between its web series, it can disrupt both premium & mid-range segment (a lot of people watch pirated Amazon series, so the phone needs to be placed in between the series).
Nudges like tying up with banks to offer discounts/credit cards can help in marketing in the premium segment.
New customers - Influencer Marketing, giveaway smartphone, social media giveaways, referral coupons, gifting, social media viral post; Amazon will be way ahead when compared to OnePlus & Samsung (even Apple). Thus, even the premium segment makes sense here.
Recommendations
Company
Maybe, it can gain market share as well, but internal company logistics need to work out as well.
AWS India is running into losses with increased revenue.
AWS has partnered with Airtel for delivering cloud services. However, cloud revenues are slowing down.
Thus, overall it seems that Amazon is in a good position to enter the smartphone market, especially the mid-range + low budget segment.
Cred is a credit-card aggregator app that helps make credit payments on time.
Cred Stories usually alternate in an unstructured manner ranging from paying rent to financial planning to NFTs to film stars giving advice.
Mixing financial knowledge with news & entertainment may not be the right approach for an app positioned towards the ultra-affluent.
A better approach might be to have multiple categories in Stories with different color outlines signifying News, Knowledge, Advice, Entertainment etc.
How Spotify reorganized different music categories to enhance user experience
Spotify is a music-streaming platform with a playlist-driven approach to music curation
As Spotify aims to be a discovery platform, Search in Spotify was highly frictional earlier with categories like Artists, Songs, Playlists, Albums being shown in vertical format with very limited number of results.
However, as Spotify expands and drives user acquisition, it has re-wired the search experience into a horizontal bubble category format with extensive search results.
This ensures that users are able to find the song and the category they search for easily. Although, this might mean a drop in "Songs reached via recommendation" and thus overall product positioning, Spotify can afford to do this now, given it is a household brand name.
Understanding MX Player's gamification system
MX Player is a video-streaming platform that focuses on self-produced OTT Content.
For it's games section, MX Player has coin, rupees earned as a way to increase engagement.
The games ecosystem is built as a gateway into its movies and shows, working as a cross-sell. Further, TakaTak and Music work as independent levers to attract audience.
If all these levers can come together to build "social" into the product, that can significantly increase engagement rates amongst the 100 Mn installed MX Player audience.
Breakdown of User Psychology by Zomato to increase ratings adoption
Zomato sends a notification for a rating 15 min after arrival of food. This coincides exactly with the time you would have finished eating, which nudges you to instantly review.
The nudge at the bottom of the screen to rate the restaurant in the home screen is highly effective and increases engagement.
Zomato keeps testing for default filters of dishes vs restaurants based on your order & rating history. Higher personalization means higher NPS.
Dark Patterns at play in Linkedin and Practo
Linkedin makes it really difficult to withdraw a connection request once you have sent it. Once sent, you have to go into "Profile", "Connections", "Sent"...and so on, rather than having an option on the home screen.
Practo promises refunds on 15+ min delays on physical appointment in Practo-approved centers. However, their customer wait time for claiming refunds is exceedingly high and the process is difficult.
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