Case Study: How a Switchgear Manufacturer Gained Investment Security Through an 8-Hour Workshop

At a Glance (Executive Summary)

Client: Leading manufacturer of switchgear / industrial equipment
Challenge: Digitization of customer service. Uncertainty whether customers would accept a planned service app and automatic fault notifications at all.
Solution: An intensive 8-hour strategy workshop with key stakeholders, creation of storyboards, and development of a static prototype within 2 weeks.
Result & ROI: Validation of real customer demand at a trade fair before writing code, avoidance of expensive misdevelopments missing the market, and building a tailored internal development team based on sound workshop assets.

1. The Initial Situation: Risk of Software Developed Past the Market

A large switchgear manufacturer was planning to realign its service organization. The goal was to make service processes leaner through a digital app. Planned features included forms for commissioning service work as well as functions integrated into the switchgear for automatic problem reports (predictive maintenance / IoT).

However, management was uncertain:

Will our customers and service technicians accept this app at all?
Are we risking expensive misinvestments in features that nobody uses in practice?

2. The Turning Point: The 8-Hour Strategy Workshop

To put assumptions to the test, I conducted a focused 8-hour strategy workshop.

The Composition of the Group:

A decisive success factor was the interdisciplinary composition of participants:

Head of service organization: Strategic & organizational business perspective
Experienced service technician: Operational practical experience and real user pain points
Business/process partner & UX strategist: Commercial view, user centricity & moderation

The Workshop Procedure:

1. As-Is & To-Be Value Stream Mapping: Recording current value creation and information flows on the flipchart (as-is state) in direct comparison to the desired target picture (to-be state) to break down silos and make media discontinuities visible.

2. Contextual Interviewing & Clustering: In-depth interview with the service technician in the room. Using affinity diagrams, problems were collected and translated into precise “How Might We” questions.

3. Storyboarding: Visual sketching of interactions on flipcharts to prioritize the real core functions.

3. The Insights: Making Practical Hurdles Visible

The workshop revealed two essential hurdles that had remained unconsidered in the original concept:

1. Communication gaps: The information transfer between customer and service organization showed significant interface problems.

2. Time loss on site: Service technicians often lost a lot of time during customer visits on huge factory premises just orienting themselves (“finding the switchgear”).

The course correction: Instead of overloaded features, the team focused on two essential core functionalities:

Transparent status display: Both customers and technicians can view the switchgear status live in the app.
Hall / location plan: An integrated orientation plan in the app immediately shows the technician the exact location of the switchgear on site.

4. The Experiment: Prototyping & Trade Fair Test in Just 2 Weeks

Instead of programming code for months, the new idea was immediately treated as a hypothesis:

Within just two weeks after the workshop, I developed a static prototype (click dummy) together with a software developer.
This prototype was presented to real customers and trade fair visitors at an industry trade fair.

The trade fair feedback: Customer reactions were consistently positive. This proved: demand and market value are real.

5. Sustainable Impact & ROI

After the trade fair, a development order for an MVP was requested. When it became apparent that an external development order would exceed the budget, the client used the assets developed in the workshop (storyboards, value stream maps, and prototype) as a direct blueprint to build internal development resources.

The Concrete Return on Investment (ROI):

Absolute investment security: The company gained certainty in the shortest possible time that customers would accept the solution and future investments would pay off.
Avoidance of misinvestments: It was prevented that significant budgets would flow into unused or wrong app features.
Clear development blueprint: The 8-hour workshop delivered sound specifications with which the company could purposefully develop its own MVP independently.