Transforming how modern snacks are vended
PepsiCo owns and rents vending machines in office buildings, but the business has been on a decline for a decade now. Our challenge:At the modern workplace, how can snacks be vended and be desirable? How can the ecosystem sustain this experience?
Our client approached us to reinvent the ecosystem of snack vending in business and industry (B&I), by leveraging existing operations and available technologies. For the purpose of storytelling, some data has been modified or omitted. The view of project does not reflect the views of the client.
Role:
Design Strategy,
User Research,
User Experience Design,
Service Design,
Design Thinking & Workshop
Team:
Lisa Lehman, design lead
Veronica Lin, staff designer
Eric Harsh, designer
Year:
2017 - 2018
THE PROCESSFinding the Problem through Field Research
To better understand the problem we were attacking, our team led and built research plans and strategy in collaboration with our client. From outreach, to discussion guides, interviews and synthesis, our team owned the process of generating and gathering interview data.
Our team traveled to urban and suburban offices, conducting 10+ interviews and workplace tours. We gained a wealth of insight not just on food service operations, but also a critical need for innovative office amenities to attract new talent. In this context where stakes are higher than ever, vending machines are outdated and not relevant anymore. They have a negative connotation to people, and something needed to change.
Our team immersed ourselves through activities with clients such as relationship mapping, journey mapping, opportunity generation and tools observation. We consulted 4 industry experts and 6 industry clients.
Defining our Challenge: Mapping the current ecosystem, stakeholders and their needs
To better understand the ecosystem and the challenges of the project, we distilled our research learnings and insights, to map out the B&I industry landscape, along with all involved stakeholders - their roles and their needs. This heuristic review of the current operational system was intended to help us identify gaps and opportunity areas to improve upon, guiding nearer-term actions and informing the future state of industry.
Our challenge was: How can we leverage new approaches and technology to help food service operations solve for the last mile? What would the future of vending look like?
The key insight was the challenges around the distribution system: products are efficiently delivered to stores and cafeterias, but to fill the last mile to business and individuals is very expensive.
What’s our leverage?
Trends, available technologies, parallel industry inspirations, patterns analysis &co.
As the research surfaced the heightened expectation for new and better experiences, we lead a user experience and technology audit of current office food and beverage purchasing and consumption, major trends, available and emerging technologies, parallel industry experiences, and recognizing relevant patterns.
This activity helped us finding solutions for key pain points and areas to improve upon.
Employees interact with different zones at different times through the workday. Each zone serves a different purpose and requires a distinct approach to stocking and experience. How can the new experience align with users’ unserved needs and values?
Reframing the Problem:
creating frameworks for our new ideas
We developed decks, illustrations and other visual frameworks for internal and external use with stakeholders that synthesize research, insights and convey opportunities that our client can leverage. Our storyboards showed vending experiences that provided unique solutions for distinct zones of the workplace.
We reorganized the ideas logically into 3 scenarios that revolved around distinct office setup and operational challenges, making it easier for the users to access snacks through the existing service ecosystem.
The project surfaced the complex multi-layered relationships between building owners and tenants, companies, 3rd party operators, office managers, and employees. We created platform solutions that satisfy their needs, by reinventing consumer vending experiences and how vending solutions are placed and maintained in the workplace.
We reframed the project as we understood that we were not redesigning vending machines but addressing an unserved need for food and beverage in the workplace environment.
Telling a Visual Story:
storyboards of a day in the life of employees interacting with new modern vending experiences
To present the our solutions to the client, we visualized them into storyboards and maps that highlighted the demand moments, how the concepts satisfied stakeholders' needs, as well as how the opportunities capitalized on the cultural shift to reinvent the vending experience and calling out the competitive advantage.
Our approach focused on connecting the physical-digital user experience to the operational backend of 3POs and product brands. The visual language was intentionally left unbranded for our stakeholders to engage in conversations with their customers.
STORY PLATFORMS
Leveraging the existing ecosystem to build the modern vending business model.
Understanding key factors such as building layout, trust level and stakeholder needs – vending client, employees, company, 3rd party operator, and creating a business solution that benefit them all
In Single Tenant Building scenario, where there’s high trust level and food service runs the show – the cafeteria own the process to reflects the company’s culture and create a good experience for employees.
The opportunity is to help the cafeteria and the company reach the employees in more ways, such as grab-and-go options or during off-hours.
Approaching vending by solving for stakeholders’ pain points and elevating vending through integrated office snacking
Taking advantage of existing technologies to reinvent vending and integrate into the building and food service infrastructure seamlessly.
For the single Tenant Building scenario, integrated vending unit's system is an adaptable, unmanned food and drink system that is fully integrated into the business through a close link to the cafeteria.
The vending will benefit from the freshness halo of freshly prepared food and increase sales, the business will benefit from the more robust offerings and satisfying experience during off hours; the 3po will be able to reach more customers at more times
Supporting and motivating employees through easy access, smart variety and better vending experience
Meeting employees' primary unmet needs such as access to food or snacking during late or off hours, busy lunch hours, or catering moments
For the single Tenant Building scenario, employees access the units through a digital platform, with purchases adding to the reward / loyalty system.
The system provides personal project accounts with tracking and management, ability to charge a project or team outing, as well as purchasing if not subsidized by the company
Elevating company or building culture through low-key, high-tech hardware that can be easily deployed and returned
Key to hardware is to be able to seamlessly integrate into its surroundings, and a business model that allows for easy deployment, testing and data collection
For the single Tenant Building scenario, we showed flexible and contextual vending units that integrate seamlessly to the company culture and interiors
Conclusion
The project surfaced the complex multi-layered relationships between building owners and tenants, companies, 3rd party operators, office managers, and employees. We created platform solutions that satisfy their needs, by reinventing consumer vending experiences and how vending solutions are placed and maintained in the workplace.
While it was challenging to reconstruct the existing pieces of the ecosystem while not losing sight of the nuances of each stakeholder needs and wants; it was heartwarming to see how each stakeholder is extremely welcoming to change and innovation, and willing to test new systems that can prove themselves worthy of their investment - which makes positive change possible!
