[interview] the project story
Project Overview
The Retail Operations team at Virgin Media have been working with Ocasta Studios to develop a suite of iPad apps that improve working practices in their stores and improve visibility of store activity to head office.
Virgin Media is the first provider of all four broadband, TV, mobile phone and home phone services in the U.K. The company’s cable network delivers ultrafast broadband to around half of all U.K. homes, as well as market leading connectivity to thousands of public and private sector organizations across the country.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
The Retails Apps project required a team crossing many separate but inter-dependant skills areas. The team delivered a complete client and server solution, hosted and managed with integration to existing Virgin Media systems. The Ocasta Studios team comprised:
Ben Collier (Project Lead)
Greg Marsh (iOS Developer)
Tendai Moffatt (iOS Developer)
Dimitris Smyrlakis (iOS Developer)
Steve Liddell (Experience Designer)
Martin Higham (Solution Architect)
Julz Dawson (Server Developer)
Will Oates (Project Manager)
Project Brief
Ocasta Studios were already actively working with Virgin Media on mobile initiatives and were recommended to the retail operations team to see how mobile technology could improve their working practices. Too many systems were still paper based and fragmented across sites, could matters be improved?
Each store had been given iPads and it was decided to use these to move retail operations into the digital age. Utilising tablets would allow staff to stay on the sales floor and fitted well into a working environment where time was at a premium.
The first app deployed replaced a 300 page operations manual that had required regular updating and reprinting. Putting this in an app ensured it was always up to date and could be easily referenced while in front of customers. This same app also provided daily and weekly checklists for stores to complete and submit.
The second app allowed store managers to record staff observations for training helping stores deliver a more consistent and better customer experience.
The final app gave managers offline access to sales dashboards, management performance indicators and also provide a means of generating store visit reports.
All apps were connected to a shared centralised service managed from head office through a web based administrative front end.
Project Need
Deploying the Virgin Media Apps Suite revolutionised the way retail staff go about their daily work. Tasks that had taken minutes now took seconds and all while staff stay available on the shop floor to respond quickly to increases in customer volumes.
By using mobile apps staff could start a task or look up information in a second and leave off again whenever required. Information is stored on the device for speedy access and collected data synchronised to secure servers during moments of inactivity. New tasks and information could be created centrally and pushed out to store in seconds with interactions controlled and tracked to make sure procedures are being followed correctly.
The store mobilisation has also proven invaluable to staff at head office with a dramatic increase in visibility of the stores. Comments are collected automatically for procedures to be improved. Regular tasks monitored so compliance can be checked and staff performance reviewed to ensure support can be targeted where needed.
User Experience
The user experience for staff was extremely important to get right, to ensure the apps could be used correctly in the challenging store environment and to encourage staff take up. The retail staff are keen technology experts and familiar with the best consumer apps on the market, Ocasta had to deliver apps that matched this level of professionalism and ease of use.
It was also important to understand how the staff would interact with the apps. Staff are often standing which restricts their ability to type easily so we designed the apps to allow quick drag and drop data entry and single tap option selection. Fast start was also built in so data could be entered without sign in and all data stored securely between sessions.
Lastly, Virgin Media branding was implemented throughout the app experience to ensure corporate standards were promoted. Look the part, act the part and be a part!
Project Marketing
As an internal corporate deployment marketing was only needed for internal users.
To encourage take up the Retail Operations team kept staff involved throughout the development process and feedback and user testing sought at each stage.
Project Privacy
The project has utilised best practice privacy in each component of the service.
Retail staff use existing user accounts to save remembering new passwords and internal control data is synchronised to the apps to save retyping information.
Sessions and data are accessed using OAuth session authentication and access to administrative areas of the service are controlled by group and named individual access rights. All communication is secured by HTTPS encryption.
The apps themselves are signed by Enterprise certificate and pushed automatically to store iPads.
Business Operations
These apps help businesses across a range of business operations activities, from managing personnel, project management and customised apps for specific business processes and tasks, we're looking for apps that make it easier for businesses to run both day to day operations and improve their business functionality and efficiency.
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