- March 31, 2017
Xiaomi’s Ecosystem Strategy
“Creating an ecosystem of startups (partners) to provide Xiaomi with other internet-connected home and tech products that would draw customers to its stores.”
Starting off analyzing the company’s product strategy, we have discovered an interesting fact; Xiaomi has been leading Chinese domestic mobile market earlier and has recently spent a large amount of capital on its ecosystem business. In the wake of Xiaomi’s recent setback, they concluded that they needed a third leg to their business: offline retail stores + strategic collaboration & partnership.
Strategic Collaboration
As an extension of this strategy, they wanted the offline stores to go beyond selling phones to forge sustainable bonds with customers. Their solution is to create an ecosystem of some 100 startups as partners to provide Xiaomi with other internet-connected home, tech products, and even FMCGs that would draw customers to its stores—this will eventually help build the ecosystem powered by Xiaomi. Partnering with MiJia, part of Xiaomi’s value chain network, its collaboration with Zwilling, a German manufacturer is one of the most fascinating examples. The scope of this project ranges from planning seamless brand experience as well as delivering final design execution/outcome (confidential).
My Role in Research & Design
1. Design sprints alongside with the client
- Stakeholder Interviews — Brand Analysis — Co-Creation — Design Sprint — Prototype Reviews
Inviting the client team to our office, we set up a collaborative space where designers, researchers, strategists, and marketing folks can come around to share ideas and visions so everyone is on the same page before we delve into planning and designing. This has given us an opportunity to reach the initial consensus with the client and eventually get to the point quicker.
Starting from reviewing qualitative data with photos/videos taken and collected during stakeholder interviews, we were able to run sprints based on some initial insights. Since the project is partially embargoed, this is as far as I’m allowed to disclose; we ran sprints with the client team being onsite so as to understand their approach, goals (KPIs), and design intent through co-creation and prototype reviews.
2. Research-Informed Product Design
Zwilling is one of the largest and oldest manufacturers of kitchen knives, scissors, cookware and flatware. With its solid identity that has been built over a long period of time, It was a huge challenge for us to interpret it with Xiaomi’s design language so it blends in with a diverse range of products in Xiaomi’s retail stores. Based on the insights and direction we were given during the sprints and co-creation, we managed to select a few ideas and concepts to develop further.
*The project is still on going under confidentiality.