Crafting a design strategy for
a new team, and a mature product.
PC Express 2024
In 2024 the PC Express product and engineering team was overhauled, making way for new leadership, along with new product + development managers. Despite this overhaul my design team remained intact, which positioned us to help shape the ways of working and culture of the new PC Express experience team.
As I set out to work through a design strategy for 2024-2025 there were team issues that needed to be addressed to help ensure that the delivery squads felt a level of engagement in the work they were producing.
The PCX design and product team…
To paint a picture of a better future it was important to acknowledge the past state of the team and assess the present. Only after this kind of self reflection can you effectively address what a future state should look like.
Past
An insular team struggling to keep on top of incoming requests and immediate product needs.
A reactive, and overwhelmed squad.
Present
A team with clearer priorities and a better relationship with the wider org.
A team that is establishing some stability in the things we work on and how we work through them.
Future
An organized and flexible team that can work seamlessly with the wider org.
A team that has agency and capacity to discover and uncover opportunities for the business.
The team anchors
There’s corporate values that are set by the organization as a whole, but I' believe the core team needs its own set of values that they can rally around. Principles that can anchor their thinking, guide their processes and give team members a sense of pride in the work they do everyday.
To get the team to that future state we needed to start finding and defining our identity.
A good set of values help to define our mission, but also guide the team’s actions instills a sense of purpose.
The PCX Customer
Ensure that we continue to solve customer needs in the most crucial parts of the journey.
Business Enablement
Ensure that our solutions are solving business needs and driving quantifiable revenue.
Leverage our competitive advantages, PCO + Convergence. And map everything we do to the OKRs.
Innovation and Adaptability
Encourage innovation and adaptability. How can we enable teams to respond to changing market dynamics, emerging technologies, and evolving user needs.
Align with the business
The business leadership crafted a strategy memo to help guide all the team’s responsible for the success of PC Express. It was important to align to this memo and understand how design could effectively contribute to the business’s success. There were three notable quotes from the lengthy memo that set strong themes that we could use are our goals from a product and design perspective.
“Offer a flexible experience, surfacing the right choices at the right time to the right customer.”
While the definition of flexibility can vary by person and by context — true flexibility exists on a continuum, from streamlining planned weekly shops, to addressing unplanned needs. We need an intimate understanding of where individuals are on that continuum.
“Help customers spend intentionally.”
This speaks to probably the biggest threat we face as a business this year and next. People are stretched and brand perception is low. How can we double down on surfacing value and deals, and helping people stretch their budgets.
“Offer consistency & reliability of experience across Canada.”
With any mature product with a multitude of features comes the burden of technical and UX debt. PC express needs to work properly for our customers, which means we need to spend time paying down our technical and UX debt
Research Insights
After doing a lot of thinking on how to create better conditions for the teams future success it was time to craft a strategy for product and design that could help drive the business goals from a tactical perspective. Diving into Mintel’s grocery landscape reports helped guide some of the strategic thinking and uncovered potential opportunities.
-
Online is here to stay, but as one part of a broader picture Online grocery shopping may have been sparked by the pandemic, but it continues to be relevant even after shopping behaviours have returned to normal.
However, it's still just one small part of the industry – even for those consumers who use it. Some 30% buy groceries online, but five times as many do most of their shopping in-store and some online.
-
A big reason why 70% of grocery shoppers do all their shopping in-store is because they enjoy those trips. It's not that they particularly dislike online shopping, it's that they like doing it in person.
This is an advantage for retailers with a physical footprint, since online retailers cannot replicate it. However, it also complicates strategies around the shift to online; a brick-and-mortar retailer culd diminish its competitive advantage if it encourages its customers to shop online.
-
Consumers are generally reluctant to change, but are open to innovations that make their lives easier. Retailers that can integrate technology that improves the shopping experience will have a competitive advantage.
Looking ahead, half of shoppers are interested in AI that helps them find discounts on groceries and 37% are interested in AI that makes their grocery trips quicker. The retailers that can seamlessly integrate those types of innovations will be able to take advantage of consumers' comfort and familiarity with digital tech – and their gravitation towards tech that tangibly improves their lives.
-
Digital technology isn't the only thing causing change in this industry – so too is Canada's increasingly diverse population. For instance, South Asians are more than twice as likely as average to follow a meat-free diet and two thirds of them regularly buy natural/organic groceries; three quarters of Chinese shoppers regularly buy groceries from international- focused stores.
Product Themes
With all of that context in place we came together to settle on product themes that could act as a north star for discovery as well as an enabler for the business goals and changing customer demands.
-
PC Express knows me, and makes useful predictions on my weekly and monthly needs.
-
PC Express helps me plan and get the things I need, as well as the stuff I never knew I needed.
All while stretching my budget.
-
PC Express helps me complete my weekly shop faster and is there for me if things go wrong
Priority segments
Working closely with research we also determined some key customer segments that if focused on could be large revenue drivers for the business.
-
Navigating grocery shopping for the first time in Canada, among many other ‘firsts’ - trying many different grocery brands, in store and online
Familiar with international retail brands (Amazon, Walmart), unfamiliar with LCL brands
English or French is likely a learned language
-
Rarely goes in store, relies on online for almost all groceries
Accessibility need may include: hearing, seeing, mobility, flexibility, dexterity, developmental, mental health, memory, learning or pain
Accessibility need may be temporary or long term
-
Shops PCX for their Routine shop, may go in store for one offs, top ups, or special occasions (e.g. buying steak for dinner party)
Buys mostly the same items each shop.
Has learned how to navigate the PCX system - service, points etc
Design Pillars
And finally a set of pillars to help the design team approach their work. A set of fundamentals that we could commit to as we worked on features and ideas that supported the product themes and our key priority customer segments.
Joy
PC Express is a joy to use, and a delightful companion to my weekly shop.
Consistency
PC Express is familiar no matter where I use it.
Responsiveness
PC Express responds to my inputs and gives me feedback for my choices.
Accessible
PC Express is here to help all Canadians across our wide spectrum of diverse abilities and disabilities
Omnipresent
PC Express is available throughout the entire grocery shopping journey, online or in store