Pivoting In-Field Research For A Telecoms Brand In Africa: Launching A 'Super-App'

The Challenge:

A global telecoms brand wanted to launch a 'super-app' in Africa. They developed a series of use cases for the app, but they needed to develop a new proposition across their main focus areas of financials, content, IM, security and after-care.

What I did:

This research project coincided with the onset of the Covid-19 travel ban, therefore as a project team we had to pivot from in-field research to relying on local partners.

Working with local partners:

• We couldn't be in-field due to travel restrictions. We relied on local partners to give us valuable local market knowledge. In order to understand the market I first conducted desk research on the main competitors in both Morocco and the Ivory Coast. I used the resulting SWOT as a stimulus for the local markets to react and build on.

I designed and conducted the following:

Pre-task:

• I chose to do a pre-task with all participants in both local markets in order to discover and map the main points in participants day where they used their smartphone and why. This smartphone mapping task also allowed participants to share their high and low points of smartphone use, which was invaluable to me as I could then preliminary understand their pain-points. The secondary task within the pre-task was focused around understanding general market behaviour and market context as understanding these external forces was one of the limitations of this study. To combat this, I created and designed a task where participants had to describe to an alien what it was like to use a smartphone in their country.

Tele-Depths:

• In total 20 tele-depth interviews were conducted by local partners in both Morocco and the Ivory Coast. I chose tele-depth interviews instead of Skype interviews because of the variability in internet connection in both markets. As English was not their first language or even a widely spoken language in either markets, the tele-depth interviews also included simultaneous translation.

Post-task:

• The post-task element of this research project and design was extremely important because of the limitations of time that we had in order to conduct the previous tele-depth interviews. I chose to use the post-task to dig into participants' perceptions both negative and positive of the telecoms company's existing six super-app use cases.

Analysis:

• Analysis was one of the most challenging elements of this research project as Covid-19 restrictions meant that everyone was working from home, therefore the traditional bubbling up and analysis sessions were not feasible in person. I got around this by running multiple Mural sessions remotely.

Reflections:

• One of the issues I confronted through all stages of this research was that I was trusting in far away local partners instead of conducting all stages of the research ourselves. If I did this project again, I would factor in more briefing calls with local partners to set clearer expectations.