Spark Studio

Service Design, Customer Journeys and IT Management

Our Work

LocalTapiola

Business & Digital Transformation Program

LocalTapiola is one of Finland’s largest finance and insurance groups, with 1,6 million private and 150 000 commercial customers and a market share of 30% in P&C insurance.

The Problem Statement

LocalTapiola Group has defined a new strategy and vision to provide its customers with life-long security. In order to support their new strategy and vision, Local Tapiola Group’s management has initiated a program to extensively modernize their IT environment as their current IT environment is rather complex and wouldn’t support the new strategy very well. The new strategy requires not only changes on the IT side but more importantly also changes to their business.

Our Approach

We worked with LocalTapiola to support the management team in the coordination of the upcoming business change. We focused on identifying the short and long-term changes that LocalTapiola’s vision would require. With the chosen service design tools, we provided a vision of what the change would potentially look like for the customer, LocalTapiola employees and for LocalTapiola’s other stakeholders and partners.

  • Interviews with various experts and observations of LocalTapiola’s operations in different lines of business
  • Visualization of the potential change from the customers’, employees’, other stakeholders’ and partners’ point of view
  • Service Blueprints, mock-ups and use cases to align business needs with enterprise architecture
  • Business change risk mapping
  • The outcome of our work served as part of the foundation for the program’s next phases, in which detailed business requirements are defined for the upcoming development phases.

The Result

LocalTapiola has established a very skilled and motivated organization who will transform the group and fulfill LocalTapiola’s vision. We helped LocalTapiola begin this journey with working in the following areas:

  • Creating a deep understanding of the vision across the program organization and all business lines
  • Bringing the customer and employee point of view into the center of business development and IT architecture work
  • Senior advisory view on how to deliver successful transformation programs

Spark Studio’s work was everything that we expected and even more. They come into the program with good recommendations and prove to be worth it.

Christine Dahlman, Development Manager Strategic ICT, LocalTapiola

TVK

Case 1: Audit of TVK’s IT

Spark Studio was commissioned to audit TVK’s IT organization, IT governance, IT development & IT maintenance methods and IT budget. The outcome of the project was a suggestion of how TVK should reorganize their IT. Spark Studio made a plan for TVK’s IT governance, IT development and IT maintenance. Furthermore, Spark Studio create a detailed road map for IT development and an IT strategy where the organization’s IT costs were optimized for the next 18 months.

Case 2: Managing Requirements Project

Spark Studio was commissioned to manage a requirements project for a new web-based application for TVK and act as an advisory in the RFP (Request for Proposal) process. Spark Studio’s role in the requirements project was to create the needed mockup’s of the new application and act as the project manager in gather requirements project. The outcome of the requirements project was a detailed documentation of the requirements that was used in the RFP process. All selected IT providers reduced their initial RFP quotes significantly due to more clearly specified requirements.

Firstbeat

Planning of a New Website

Firstbeat Technologies is the leading provider of physiological analytics for sports, fitness and wellbeing.

Spark Studio was commissioned by Firstbeat to assist them with planning their upcoming new website. The work included Service Design and technology analysis, where the outcome of the project was a suggestion for Firstbeat’s future content structure, web technology recommendations, and project plan.

TRHV

Transition of Operations

The Employees’ Group Life Assurance, is a life insurance that each employee in Finland is covered by. The Employees’ Group Life Assurance was operated by Retro Life Assurance until March 2015, when the operations were moved to the Federation of Accident Insurance Institutions (FAII). Spark Studio was commissioned to manage the transition of operations project between the two parties.

Mezuria

Spark Studio is the selected partner of Kokemukseni Suomi. Spark Studio’s role is to re-design the entire service and manage the development of the new Kokemukseni Suomi platform, which was released in fall 2015 as Mezuria. Spark Studio uses Service Design methodologies to redesign the whole service, both the physical and digital channels. We’re using different methods, such as customer interviews and prototypes, to gain a better understanding of the customer’s needs. The service design outcomes are a new service process through all touchpoints, UI/UX of the new website and application, guidelines for sales, marketing, and customer service to provide a holistic customer experience. Spark Studio is also assisting Kokemukseni Suomi in managing the IT development (choice of a technology platform for their new website and application, assistance in bidding and selecting partners for the implementation).