Cloud8

A new business model & a best-in-class employee benefits platform

Overview

Client: Employee Benefits Provider for SMEs

Industry: Employee Benefits, Rewards & Communication

Activity: Vision & Product Strategy, Product Discovery, Prototyping, UI Direction, UI Design & Front End Design System

Date of engagement: 2017 - 2021

Challenge Overview

Cloud8 enlisted us to launch a new, market-leading platform that would also redefine their service to SMEs. To secure investment, Cloud8 needed to communicate how their vision would create a true disruption of the marketplace.

Our Engagement

As well as dedicating time to overhauling the architecture and experience of existing platforms, we worked with Cloud 8 to visualise their ideas to create solutions which would support SMEs with providing better communication around financial well-being to their employees.

Having worked with them for sometime to understand their business, their partners, clients and end users, we were able to leverage this deep understanding of the context to rapidly move their digital ambitions forward. Then, in 2021 this involved taking senior leadership through our Product Vision Accelerator framework, which enabled them to rapidly conceptualise the art of the possible for their business.

The outcome of this process was a tangible Vision Prototype that Cloud8 were able to use to communicate their strategy to key partners and prospects, thus validating their vision as well demonstrating the powerful impact they could make to investors.

During our collaboration, we were able to work with a broad range of stakeholders and began to inform their product management practices. We introduced product and technology employees to best product design and user research practices to support key members in evolving their roles within the business.

We also seeded a scalable UI design system to ensure their ongoing development of the product could be achieved in an operationally efficient way, while supporting a consistent approach to their user experience.

Results & ROI

Following our collaboration, Cloud8 were able to make the difference they had hoped for and launched an easy-to-use product which changed the way employee benefits and related communications are accessed by small business employees.

We helped the Cloud8 team create a framework to enable collaboration, where users’ needs could directly influence development. In doing so, we were also able to help Cloud8 shift focus from BAU and disparate yet bright ideas to a prioritised roadmap where they could bring new ideas to fruition faster. These operational efficiencies also allowed the team space to focus on customer centricity, learning and growth as a new company.

The Product Vision Accelerator enabled Cloud8 to develop and validate its business strategy and support their acquisition of £2.75M in investment. It’s no wonder they have been identified by Tech Nation as a Rising Star in the South West.