Gerdau: Discovery Process
Powered by Gerdau in 2021, the Parceiro Empreiteiro was a product discovery process to explore a business opportunity for the largest Brazilian steel producer and one of the main suppliers of long steel in the Americas.
The Ask
Gerdau wanted to explore an opportunity to work more closely with their contractors as they were indirectly responsible for increasing the business revenue. When doing a renovation project for their clients, contractors were often are in charge of choosing products for that work. The main project goal was to increase Gerdau's frequency of being chosen, therefore, increasing their sales.
Project Goals
What defined success to my UX Work
Late Onboarding
I was onboarded a little bit late in this project to replace another UX Designer that couldn't continue in the post. Due to the short turnaround time, the onboarding process was crucial for me to get the most important information about this project and what was expected of me.
Stakeholders Heavily Involved
Gerdau had a large group of stakeholders involved in the process. This project was their first product discovery experience. Due to the fact that it was being conducted by a third party company, there were a lot of excitement but also a lot concerns around both sides of the table. Communication was key to us.
Discovery Methodology
We chose a very traditional Discovery Methodology, with user research being conducted at first hand. When I was onboarded, the research phase had ended and we were about to chose a concept to kick-off wireframes. The sprint cycle had two weeks of work with weekly presentations.
Crafting a Concept
Understanding the Product Vision
Our process to craft Gerdau's concept, was to go over a serie of questions to identify the opportunities. First, we decided which audience challenges we wanted to solve. We decided to perform a product benchmark and list the main features we felt inspired by. We created a matrix to define what our product does, don't do and the main pain points it's solving to our audience. We also had a clear vision that this product needed to be possibly executed for Gerdau.
First Explorations
Crafting a New Concept
After defining the concept, I created a product user flow to identify the key points of the experience and then I started designing the screens. To summary the experience, contractors would start by browsing the Landing Page to understand more about the Gerdau's program. They would have to sign up for the program to have access to the dashboard - where they could create a work portfolio to obtain more clients. Gerdau also wanted to create a points program for their contractors based on sales commissions.
Work Portfolio and Online Store
Product Structure
The most innovative part of the product was the ability to create an online store for the contractor - where they could sell Gerdau products for their customers. The more they sell, more they would get points on their dashboard to redeem for Gerdau's offering. In the other hand, the shopping list management for labour projects was quite innovative for the industry. Normally that list would be shared via SMS and then the customer and the contractor should meet in construction retailer to purchase the products. We were suggesting to automate this whole process, creating a secure transaction for both parts.
What I've learned?
While the product didn't progress to the production phase, it provided me with an invaluable learning opportunity. The Discovery phase was highly intensive, requiring continuous meetings with the Product Manager to align the business vision with user expectations. Personally, I felt that this project was addressing a genuine real-life pain point in the realm of online payment solutions, which was notably innovative for the industry. I took great pride in being a part of this transformative process.
