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Over the years, Open Web Technology has served a vast list of clients across numerous industries.

Why Open Web Technology?

  • We walk the talk: we have done it several times already for us directly or for clients of ours.
  • We are a small, flexible and highly connected team of professionals with a unique combination of strategy and technology expertise.
  • We share a true passion for innovation and impact.
  • We leverage a broad business and technology network in both Western and Eastern European countries.
  • We all have personal entrepreneurial experience.
  • We speak most of the local languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, etc.

We set up and moderated an international community of digital transformation experts

Situation: our client – a global insurance company – is currently launching multi-channel products across geographies. The head of digital business asked Open Web Technology to help him find a way to reduce the resource overhead between these initiatives while keeping high local responsiveness.
 
Open Web Technology approach and impact: We set up a community regrouping digital transformation experts in charge of the different local initiatives. Monthly calls as well as biannual workshops were organized to support discussions and knowledge transfer. The agenda and aims of the community were defined with all the participants and refined each month to ensure useful discussions for everybody.
During the past few months, our community produced various valuable outputs:
  • It helped branches identify if other countries already solved the problems they are currently facing and led to useful knowledge transfers and bilateral cooperation
  • It defined a set of multi-access definitions and golden rules approved by all the participants which will serve as guidelines for newcomers 
  • It generated best practices documents showing how high performers designed and implemented efficient solutions
  • It gave an overview of local multi-access initiatives status to the headquarter management team
  • It showed which solutions and tools are broadly used across geographies and can potentially be mutualized
The community, still active today, continues to support exchanges and discussions between the different stakeholders and will soon welcome its first participant from the emerging markets.

How should we seize the Cloud business opportunity?

Situation: our Client - a leading European Telco - required Open Web Technology to help them define the strategy and operational approach to enter the Cloud service market.
Despite a clear opportunity to capture (both revenues growth and customer retention) and in spite of unique assets to leverage against competition, the first trials to enter the Cloud market had reported mixed results.
A project was launched to quickly improve the situation and build a leading position in the market.
 
Open Web Technology approach and impact: by working closely with our Client’s teams, we have identified and implemented five main levers to accelerate the development of a new Cloud offer and increase the chances of success:
  • We defined a new sourcing and go-to-market strategy (direct channel and indirect channel through IT partners) depending on the type of Cloud products (level of IT skills required).
  • We developed a more compelling roadmap for new products and services, in line with clients’ and partners’ priorities as well as with internal assets against competition.
  • We accelerated project time-to-market through iterative cycles.
  • We fine-tuned business models to build partnerships with 3rd party Cloud services.
  • We put in place a strong Cloud Governance across the Client organization, to drive individual projects, increase reactivity and guarantee strategic alignment.

Should we package our in-house management software and bring it to the market?

Situation: over the last 20 years, our Client – a leading financial organization – has internally developed a state-of-the-art management software, which is currently used by internal teams and few external partners. This system is recognized as best-in-class by peers in the financial industry.
Due to the increasing pressure on operational costs, the Client asked to Open Web Technology to help them:
  • evaluate the opportunity to package and sell their own software on the IT market;
  • define the most appropriate commercial approach to do so.
Open Web Technology approach and impact: through iterative work sessions with the Client, we have evaluated the market potential and the competitive advantage of the in-house solution against existing IT products in the market, as well as the risks to share this own system with other industry players.
Having confirmed a strong potential, we have assessed different strategies to enter the market and designed a “selective” approach, with a progressive deployment of the offer starting from priority European countries and selected segments of potential clients.
A new sales organization has been put in place, along with a strong governance, clear objectives and KPI’s, as well as adapted commercial processes (sales funnel management, etc.)..

How to significantly improve our capacity to deliver innovation and IT-driven projects?

Situation: a major Telco operator in Europe had to re-invent the way they worked internally, in order to significantly increase their ability to deliver innovation and IT-driven projects.
 
Open Web Technology approach and impact: together with Client’s teams, we defined and rolled out an operational strategy to accelerate time to market of innovative services while significantly reducing the associated development costs.
A consistent set of measures have been implemented, both in terms of process / organization and IT infrastructure:
  • Small teams of max 5-6 persons, full-time, polyvalent and co-located
  • Bigger projects are split in smaller pieces and teams
  • Teams are end-to-end (no hand-off’s), from idea to development, release and maintenance
  • Decision gates reduced at minimum, at project start and for final go/no-go
  • Once a project has been approved, project team is autonomous and fully empowered to deliver it.
  • Strong “delivery” culture
  • Limited number and role of committees, mainly focusing on final decision for launch of high-visibility projects
  • Fully virtualized and modular IT infrastructure

We assessed the impacts of a new disruptive multi-channel product on a global financial company sales force

Situation: our client – a global financial company headquartered in Paris – asked Open Web Technology to assess the impacts of a new disruptive multi-channel product on their classical distribution force: a network of brick-and-mortar agencies. The challenge was to build a business case which was:
  • simple enough to be easily understandable by all the stakeholders
  • flexible enough to allow multiple forecasts with different sensitivities
  • elaborate enough to capture all the relevant factors and parameters
Open Web Technology approach and impact: we used a top-down approach starting with a very simple and generic model which we refined by small iterations. Applying agile software development concepts to the strategic planning world, we forced ourselves to produce a working prototype of the business case every two weeks. This method helped us keeping the model coherent and understandable. After each prototype release, we identified which parts of the model needed further development and how to prioritize our effort.
Combining this agile process with a constant involvement of relevant client teams, we were able to produce a simple and comprehensive business case in no more than a few iterations. In addition, thanks to its flexibility and an appropriate knowledge transfer, the model can easily be reused for other products and markets in the future.

Reinventing Search Experience, step by step

Situation: Our client is operating one of the top-five largest audience web site in Switzerland. Search is widely used to get access to any kind of information, from the latest high-tech product’s specifications to the next sport event that will take place in Zurich. The project had set three main objectives: (i) to improve the quality and relevance of search results rapidly, (ii) to re-align business goals and (iii) to improve overall user experience. Put simply, to reduce the split of search traffic that was routed outside our client’s web site from 75% down to 45% while not deteriorating users’ satisfaction. 
 
Open Web Technology approach and impact: We delivered a new Search experience after an three month first iteration. We decided early on in the project to reduce its complexity by limiting the changes to the existing IT architecture as much as possible i.e. by keeping the existing data model. Read more in our case study here.

Defining and rolling out a new online customer interaction strategy

Situation: our client is a (large) cloud solutions and services provider for SME. Building a differentiated online experience in B2B has become a necessity as businesses are not only looking online for buying box moving goods but also for more complex enterprise solutions. In this context Open Web Technology has been requested to support the definition of an online strategy and new ways to interact better with consumers on the web.
 
Open Web Technology approach and impact: by working closely with our client we splitted the assignment in 3 phases. Firstly, we reviewed its exiting online footprint and benchmarked it against best practices; secondly, we defined three strategic axes: (i) Online Advice/Support (ii) Online Sales and (iii) Online Self Care, and we identified the related projects to be rollout within the next 6-12 months; finally, we program managed the delivery of all these projects in a pragmatic and iterative approach before we hand over the solutions to internal online operations team.

How to offer high-end online experience to our customers?

Situation: Our client –a Swiss company active in the high-end watch industry- requested our help to define and deliver best-in-class web presence, online shopping experience, support and software for its customer around its new and innovative watch product line.
 
Open Web Technology approach and impact: 

Open Web Technology worked closely with the client team and its suppliers to define the immediate, short term and mid-term priorities for the software portfolio:

  • identify functional gaps preventing a full product launch and list corrective actions
  • identify usability issues, with focus on final customer experience and define a better information architecture
  • identify and document weaknesses with the customer support and suggest a more formal approach to case follow-up

In addition, Open Web Technology collaborated with the client's software suppliers to create project plans and quality processes.

We have designed and roll out an innovative multi-channel solution in order to increase online sales for a leading ICT provider in Switzerland

Situation: iPhone clients are contacting their telecom provider as soon as Apple is announcing a new version. The sales process starts a few weeks later though, and actual delivery happens few weeks or months later. Our client, a leading ICT provider in Switzerland, ambitioned to provide a seamless multi-channel user experience (web, mobile, tablet, phone, stores, etc.) from information to sales to delivery.
 
Open Web Technology approach and impact: we supported our client in launching in a fast track approach a new Online Shop supporting the new marketing and sales processes for iPhone launch.
  • We used a user-centric and iterative  approach in order to be able to launch the new solution within a few months
  • We helped our client to overcome traditional barriers between the IT departments and business units.
  • We support the project team during the roll-out and the operation of the solution.
  • We fine-tuned the process in order to make a success out of the iPhone 4S.
In Switzerland, about half a million iPhones have been sold within a few week!

We have designed the 3rd party Internet services innovation strategy for a leading European Telco

Situation: Our Client - a leading European Telco - requested that Open Web Technology help them define the strategy and operational approach to streamline innovation with 3rd party Internet services. Over the last decade, our Client had fallen short in developing innovative services and capturing the new revenues generated by data traffic explosion (Internet and mobile), despite the significant efforts they have deployed along the way. By trying to grow internal product managers and IT specialists into Internet service designers, they had underestimated that radically different approach and skills are required to succeed in the fast-changing Internet industry. Over the same period of time, Cloud service providers have proven to be the indisputable source of innovation for both professional and consumer Internet services (voice over IP and video chatting, music streaming, location-based services, highly flexible business software, etc.). The objective of this project was to identify and implement the main ingredients to unblock the path for successful partnerships with Cloud innovators.

Open Web Technology approach and impact: By working closely with our Client’s teams, we have identified and implemented three main measures:

  • the development of a technology platform for flexible integration of third party services (an “Enabling Infrastructure” allowing to expose our Client’s own assets to third-party services);
  • a limited set of clear business models to integrate Cloud services into our Client’s overall offer (a “light” Cloud service integration and a “full” integration, to be selected case-by-case);
  • some adjustments in our Client’s organization and skills, to facilitate innovation with fast-moving Internet players (an accelerated innovation funnel, a clear and unique entry point in the organization vis-à-vis third parties; Simplified project teams and steering committees, focus of IT teams on building innovative eco-systems with external partners and integrating third party services).

Two Cloud services have been selected to experiment the newly defined quick innovation path. Both services have been successfully launched and their time to market has been reduced by more than 50%.

Implementing SuisseID, the Swiss standard for digital identity and signature

Situation: our Client is a government who is deploying a large scale e-government strategy and who is a recognized leader in delivering online services to citizen. The project had set two main objectives: (i) to define partnerships with official Swiss identity providers and (ii) to enable the digital identity Swiss standard as authentication method for our Client services.
 
Open Web Technology approach and impact: we set the strategic goals and the right management approach with our client. Strong partnerships with key digital identity providers have been settled. Audience targeting have been defined in order to comply with time to market priorities. Past projects and existing services have been leveraged as much as possible, with the integration to the e-government security layers.

First initial step towards citizen safe deposit box

Situation: our client is a government who is deploying a large scale e-government strategy. The project had set three main goals: (i) to define initial step towards the citizen file dematerialization, (ii) to deliver government official documents in the citizen online secured space and (iii) to provide citizen accounts balance information regarding citizen financial status. 
 
Open Web Technology approach and impact: priorities have been defined for the development of the set of online services, in terms of user experience, productivity and return on investment. Past projects have been leveraged in particular with the reuse of transversal services to accelerate new projects (information data flow, document storage, security, etc.). Once the design foundation of the solution settled, development started following an agile approach.
The solution was delivered on time and on budget. 

We have designed the mobile applications strategy for a leading European Telco

Situation: Our Client – a leading European Telco – had successfully launched a certain number of mobile applications, but without a consistent strategy and with limited coordination between internal teams. In this context, Open Web Technology was requested to help formalize our Client’s ambition in the mobile app’s landscape, and set up the appropriate organization and software development environment.

Open Web Technology approach and impact: By working closely with our Client, the strategic priorities and the right operational approach have been defined and implemented:

  • Strategic priorities have been defined for the development of mobile applications, both in terms of app’s categories and platforms / devices
  • Past app’s projects have been capitalized, with the creation of standard “libraries” of app’s building blocks to accelerate new projects (ID, navigation menu, design / visuals, security etc.)
  • A “fast track” project management funnel has been implemented, as well as a unique “control tower” to orchestrate mobile app’s projects across the organization.

We have designed and developed the next generation voting platform for a Swiss state

Situation: Over the past years, Open Web Technology has built significant experience in working with Governments. We became a trusted partner when it comes to delivering reliable and future proof solution, assembled with open standards. One of the most populated state of Switzerland asked us to re-platform a full voting solution, including vote preparation (citizens identification and ballot papers production), vote execution (distributed vote counting) and vote reporting (production and online publication of official results). The solution supports many types of voting and elections (incl first-past-the-post, proportional representation, etc.).

Open Web Technology approach and impact:

  • We used a user-centric, iterative User Interface Design approach to prototype the solution, with ease of use (zero-training) in mind.
  • We used a Domain Driven Design to create a clean representation of the complexity of the political rights law. 
  • Once the design foundation of the solution settled, development started following an agile approach.
  • The solution was delivered on time and on budget. It already handled ballots with more than 500 concurrent users. 

We have built the foundational IT Architecture building blocks of a 150 years old engineering company

Situation: Our Client - a Telco operator established for 150 years in Europe - requested that Open Web Technology help them align new and historical business and IT stakeholders on the best possible technical architecture to support the future development and operations of the next generation of Internet Services, leveraging cloud technologies.

Like many other Telco operators, our clients had accumulated a variety of different technology stacks, people and methodology, each claiming they could best serve as foundation for the future development of new Internet Services such as Photo sharing, messaging, billing, etc. Yet, building the capability needed to compete with fast moving Internet “pure” players require far more than a platform upgrade…

Open Web Technology approach and impact: We first helped our client build consensus on the steps needed to assemble the capabilities required to play in the Internet world, beyond technology discussions that are by nature emotional. We then actively contributed to their transition, one step at a time, walking our talk with the client for several years.

Siebel has been deployed, now what ?

Situation: Our Client – a Telco operator offering both B2C and B2B services - required Open Web Technology to setup an efficient and cost-effective governance model for “Customer Relationship Management” projects with the goal to progressively establish one convergent collaborative platform covering the needs of all business units, and addressing all channels: customer care, sales, marketing, point of sales as well as online.

Open Web Technology approach and impact: Put simply, to fix the “two release a year” well-known Siebel syndrome that has been promoted by vendors and system integrators for the last ten years, with yet little demonstrated efficiency impact.

We have boosted the transition from traditional to online channels

Situation: Building a differentiated on-line experience somehow requires a lighter and faster implementation approach that allows to develop over-time, interaction by interaction, a trusted relationship with the consumers.

Open Web Technology approach and impact: We set-up and led a large scale program for a leading Telco operator whose objectives were:

  • to re-mobilize the on-line experts across organizational boundaries;
  • to focus all energy on the roll-out of a set of top priority services over a three month period and
  • to measure the impact and the quality of the work delivered after three months, adjust accordingly and iterate again.

How can we scale up our Agile development team to deliver more scope?

Situation: Our client, active in the media Industry, leverages a blend of Agile and Waterfall methodologies to develop a highly-integrated and multichannel order entry solution. This approach proved successful and triggered significant awareness within the company. As a result, the rate of incoming new requirement increased and the need to significantly scale-up delivery capabilities appeared. We were requested to evaluate how many additional resources would be needed the deliver the additional scope and what skill they must have, as well as to provide a multi-team organization that would scale up while staying compatible with the SCRUM principles.

Open Web Technology approach and impact: 

We helped our client realize that productivity is much more than headcount by identifying existing bottlenecks and proposing solutions to them. We then worked on the team size and setup:

  • estimate of the number and profile of the additional resources required to deliver the new scope within the expected timeline
  • definition of a new, multi-team project setup that stays compatible with SCRUM principles

How to adapt organizational structure to deliver on multi-channel targets?

Situation: Our client, active in the media Industry, was struggling to reach the cost reduction targets they had defined in their strategic plan, although they had managed over the years to reach most of their online KPIs. They were actually questioning the concept that there is a ROI associated with online channel investments.

Open Web Technology approach and impact:  We helped them step back and openly challenge their organizational model with the main objective to identify any organizational enhancements that would potentially facilitate better decisions and alignment around technology and business priorities, smoother and faster delivery of business ideas to the market and, most importantly, clear accountability for costs reduction.

Putting multi-access strategy in motion: where to start ?

Situation: Our client, one of the largest Insurance Companies in the world, was seeking new ways to accelerate the operationalization of the several multi-access strategies they had defined over the years in their various geographies across the globe. In particular, the traditional IT vs. Business project management approach had proven to be slow, incredibly expensive and hardly capable year after year of delivering a targeted return-on-investment that was agreed on.

Open Web Technology approach and impact: We helped them by transforming the way they were planning and executing mutli-channel IT projects. As an example, we have brought extensive multi-channel expertise to systematize the use of incremental User Centered Design methodology to maximize value to the user while containing the project scope to a fixed duration of three months.

We have designed and developed the customer self-care mobile application for a leading European Telco

Situation: Our client – a leading European Telco – has defined ambitious goals for the development of online interactions with its customers and of its presence on the fast moving mobile applications landscape. In this context, Open Web Technology has been requested to develop a mobile application allowing customers to review their data and manage their profile, covering both iPhone/iOS and Android platforms.

Open Web Technology approach and impact: The customer self-care mobile app has been developed and successfully launched, by leveraging the emerging hybrid environments for the development of multi-platform applications (Appcelerator Titanium).

We have transformed the online business and operations

Situation: Our Client – a leading European Telco – had decided to transform its business with a radical and rapid shift to the online channel, but it was struggling to find the right combination of online competency and leadership to effectively implement the change and develop a culture of online. In this context, Open Web Technology was asked to provide the skills and experience to structure the online competency, to define and deliver a project roadmap in line with the business goals of our Client, and to initiate the process and organizational changes needed to support the online channel.

Open Web Technology approach and impact: By taking a leadership role within the organization of our Client, tactical and strategic priorities have been defined and an effective approach has been implemented to initiate the transformation while setting up a new organization for the online channel:

  • Tactical priorities have been defined to lay a solid foundation for the operationalization of the online channel
  • Strategic priorities have been defined to permit an effective channel shift to the online channel
  • Organization and processes have been adapted to sustain the pace of the transformation, establish a culture of online and scale up online operations

We have created an online shop to ship Swiss chocolates around the globe!

Situation: Our Client - a chocolate startup online store - had defined their online selling model, but needed online channel expertise in order to implement their strategy. Open Web Technology was asked to advise on technical components in order to materialize the online selling model.

 

Open Web Technology approach and impact: By working closely with our Client, design was specified, and components were recommended and implemented :
  • Magento e-commerce platform was recommended and chosen for its capability to implement quickly an online shop, with a simple and unique international design
  • Fast implementation (2 months) of the online store with Magento was delivered
  • Third party services were integrated for payment management
  • Third party systems were deployed, configured and integrated for accounting management

Service oriented architecture for a gaming company

Situation: Our Client - a well known gaming company - had acquired a new online gaming platform, but without a consistent strategy for managing its content. Open Web Technology has been required to audit the newly acquired platform, to help define content management strategy, to recommend how to enhance the platform to fulfill the strategy, and to orchestrate enhancements.

Open Web Technology approach and impact: By working closely with our Client, the content management strategy was defined and a gap analysis was set :
  •   The content management strategy was designed
  •   A business and technical audit was conducted and delivered
  •   A new website architecture to support current business and new retail concepts was recommended
  •  The current platform enhancements recommendations were collected, prioritized and implemented

How many resources and what skills are required to deliver our ambitious Online roadmap?

Situation: Our Client – a leading European Telco – decided to align its sourcing strategy to better address the very nature of online projects (web and mobile). Compared to OSS/BSS projects our client was mainly used to deal with, online projects are by nature user-centric and require shorter lifecycles and weaker requirements definition level. Open Web Technology was requested to evangelize the specificities of online projects and and adapt the sourcing policy accordingly.

Open Web Technology approach and impact: By working closely with our Client, we delivered an exhaustive sourcing strategy covering key topics such as:
  • the type of roles typically involved on the type of project considered
  • the estimate of needs, by role, in relation a consolidated project roadmap
  • the most effective engagement model to source those roles
  • a clear split of responsibility between business, IT and 3rd party suppliers
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