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SAP présente une série de partenariats mondiaux avec des clients qui accélèrent la transformation

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Diageo, Maersk, Versuni et Fitcoin choisissent les innovations clés en main de SAP pour révolutionner leur business model et accélérer la transformation.

SAPPHIRE Barcelone — Mercredi 24 mai 2023 – Aujourd’hui, à l’occasion du salon SAP SAPPHIRE à Barcelone, en Espagne, SAP SE (NYSE : SAP) a dévoilé une série de partenariats stratégiques avec des entreprises internationales illustrant la manière dont SAP transforme leurs modèles d’entreprise, améliore la qualité de l’expérience client, crée les fondations pour l’innovation et la croissance, et promeut positivement le bien-être physique et mental grâce au lancement d’une plateforme de bien-être en entreprise.

Vous trouverez ci-dessous un résumé des annonces.

 

Diageo réalise son plus gros investissement technologique pour standardiser ses pratiques dans le monde entier 

Diageo, producteur de Guinness, Smirnoff et Johnnie Walker, s’est associé à SAP et IBM Consulting dans le cadre d’un programme de plusieurs millions de dollars. Cela constitue le plus gros investissement de Diageo dans sa technologie et ses services à ce jour.

Le programme pluriannuel aidera Diageo à :

  • Améliorer l’interaction entre les clients et les fournisseurs, grâce à la mise en œuvre de solutions d’automatisation et de flux de travail avancés.
  • Transférer l’organisation mondiale vers une plateforme opérationnelle unique, en améliorant l’efficacité de l’architecture informatique et de son modèle de soutien technologique.
  • Transformer les rapports de performance, afin d’obtenir une meilleure vision pour maximiser les opportunités commerciales.
  • Poursuivre la numérisation de son environnement de contrôle et de conformité, afin de rendre l’entreprise plus robuste et plus résistante.
  • Adopter des modes de fonctionnement standardisés permettant une plus grande agilité et une plus grande flexibilité dans la manière dont Diageo répond aux tendances émergentes du marché.

 

Diageo mettra en oeuvre le nouveau modèle basé sur le cloud, RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, dans 180 pays, en veillant à ce que son infrastructure informatique soit simplifiée et prise en charge de manière unifiée.

Ce programme de transformation positionnera Diageo à la pointe des prestations de services clients et améliorera sa résilience dans un contexte où les attentes des consommateurs mutent et où le contexte économique est en évolution constante, créant les bases d’une entreprise prête à faire face aux défis d’avenir. Cet effort de normalisation et d’automatisation permettra à Diageo de suivre les commandes de ses clients en temps réel à l’échelle mondiale, et d’identifier de nouvelles opportunités commerciales dans les secteurs on trade et off trade.

IBM Consulting, partenaire de longue date de SAP et de Diageo, a été sélectionné pour diriger la mise en œuvre de RISE avec SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

 

Maersk utilise SAP Business Technology Platform pour accélérer sa transformation stratégique

La plus grande société de transport maritime par conteneurs au monde a réalisé des progrès significatifs dans sa transformation numérique en utilisant SAP Business Technology Platform pour accélérer son orientation stratégique ainsi que pour automatiser, accroître l’efficacité et la facilité d’utilisation des processus de gestion.

Avec un large éventail de domaines d’activité, notamment le transport maritime par conteneurs, les terminaux portuaires, la logistique et la chaîne d’approvisionnement, Maersk, dont le siège est au Danemark, exploite plus de 700 navires et couvre environ 343 ports dans plus de 100 pays à travers le monde. D’un point de vue stratégique, Maersk est en train de passer du statut de compagnie maritime à celui de fournisseur de chaîne d’approvisionnement de bout en bout.

Concrètement, Maersk a utilisé SAP BTP pour développer et mettre en œuvre des applications et des solutions dans des domaines tels que :

  • Gestion du crédit client : Auparavant, le processus comportait beaucoup d’activités manuelles, ce qui pouvait entraîner des erreurs et des retards. Désormais, Maersk utilise SAP BTP pour automatiser et personnaliser son processus de gestion du crédit client.
  • Rapprochement des comptes fournisseurs : Maersk a utilisé la plateforme d’automatisation de SAP BTP et l’automatisation intelligente des processus robotiques (SAP iRPA) pour effectuer des actions automatisées telles que l’analyse des courriels et l’extraction des pièces jointes, la conversion des données non structurées en données structurées et l’intégration d’une logique de validation dans les procédures au sein de la plateforme SAP BTP, réduisant ainsi les processus manuels dans les centres de services partagés de Maersk.
  • Garanties de trésorerie : Auparavant, ce processus nécessitait beaucoup de papier et pouvait entraîner des problèmes de qualité des données, ce qui entraînait des retards. Désormais, grâce à SAP BTP, Maersk a automatisé le processus et créé deux rôles spécifiques : le demandeur de garantie bancaire et l’approbateur. La solution comprend également l’intégration avec des banques externes.
  • Libération du fret par le client : Maersk a également des clients qui sont des clients de fret, c’est-à-dire qu’ils paient avant que le fret ne soit libéré. Cela nécessite un processus très délicat pour s’assurer que le paiement ait été reçu avant que la cargaison ne soit libérée. Le processus est déclenché par plusieurs systèmes back-end. Grâce à l’IA intégrée et à l’automatisation des processus dans SAP BTP, le paiement est associé à la facture, au document de transport et aux opérations de dédouanement du conteneur. Maersk a créé un quota de confiance IA qui autorise automatiquement si tout est correct à 100 %.
  • Planification et analyse : L’ensemble de la finance, de la planification et de l’analyse de Maersk est en train d’être transféré vers SAP Analytics Cloud. Cela permet à Maersk de fournir une planification et une analyse financières de bout en bout, y compris la budgétisation et les prévisions.

 

Versuni crée une base solide pour l’innovation et la croissance avec SAP et TCS

Versuni, qui regroupe les marques d’appareils électroménagers les plus renommées au monde, s’est engagé dans la refonte de son architecture technologique en 18 mois. Avec RISE with SAP et Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) comme partenaire stratégique, Versuni a migré vers un environnement SAP complet dans 55 pays et dans les temps impartis, et ce, avec SAP S/4HANA comme base pour l’innovation et la croissance.

Versuni a été confronté à un défi de taille. En l’espace de 18 mois seulement, il fallait créer une base solide – un “minimum viable product” – pour les opérations et la croissance de l’entreprise. Pour y parvenir, Versuni a lancé le programme Exuviate. Il s’agit d’une référence au processus par lequel les animaux tels que les insectes, les reptiles et certains mammifères se débarrassent de leur vieille peau ou coquille trop étroite pour les laisser se développer. Le programme était basé sur les principes “SAP, unless” et “cloud, unless”, et utilisait RISE with SAP pour faire la transition vers l’ERP dans le cloud. L’objectif est de créer une entreprise axée sur le numérique, qui stimule l’innovation et la croissance grâce à une prise de décision fondée sur les données.

Versuni, qui s’appuie sur SAP depuis plus de 30 ans en utilisant la suite d’applications de SAP, a bénéficié de processus intégrés de bout en bout, d’une gestion robuste des données et d’analyses avancées et d’intelligence artificielle. Ces composants sont essentiels pour stimuler l’innovation, l’efficacité opérationnelle et offrir de meilleures analyses.

Le plus grand défi consistait à établir les fondations nécessaires à la gestion et à l’expansion de l’entreprise dans un délai très serré de 18 mois. Versuni a remplacé ou supprimé tous les systèmes, de la messagerie électronique à la comptabilité, du marketing à la production et de la chaîne d’approvisionnement aux services de relation avec les clients. Il s’agissait du plus grand programme de ce type, où que ce soit et dans n’importe quel secteur d’activité.

Le programme comprenait la mise en œuvre de 40 nouveaux réseaux, le remplacement de 4 700 ordinateurs portables et de bureau, plus de 60 nouvelles applications dans le cloud, la migration de plus de 300 objets de données, la refonte de 400 rapports et de 3 500 processus. Versuni a réussi à passer à la SAP Best of Suite dans les délais impartis. Le 1er mai 2023, Versuni a mis en service ce nouvel environnement à l’échelle mondiale en une seule fois.

 

Fitcoin lance un projet pilote avec l’Université de Californie

Fitcoin a lancé une plateforme de bien-être développée sur la base de la technologie SAP qui permet de gagner une monnaie virtuelle en pratiquant une activité sportive. Cette monnaie est échangeable contre des récompenses destinées à améliorer la santé de ses usagers. La plateforme de bien-être  Fitcoin business, qui promeut positivement le bien-être physique et mental, démarre un projet pilote avec l’UC Davis, qui fait partie de l’université de Californie.

Le concept de Fitcoin est intelligent et innovant. Les utilisateurs épargnent une monnaie numérique (Fitcoins) via une application sur leur smartphone, accumulable en réalisant des exercices sportifs comme de la marche et du vélo. Les utilisateurs peuvent ensuite échanger les Fitcoins épargnés contre des récompenses saines qu’ils choisissent eux-mêmes dans le catalogue Fitcoin en ligne sur leur smartphone.

 

Christian Klein, PDG de SAP, conclut : “Partout dans le monde, la réussite de nos clients dépend de leur capacité à innover pour surmonter les bouleversements de marché, l’évolution des cadres réglementaires et les pénuries de compétences. Les partenariats que nous avons dévoilés à l’occasion de SAP SAPPHIRE illustrent le rôle que notre technologie révolutionnaire joue chaque jour pour aider nos clients à prospérer. Qu’il s’agisse d’automatisation axée sur la connaissance, de simplification de plateforme technologique, d’amélioration de l’expérience client ou de celle des employés, nous sommes là pour aider nos clients à relever les défis auxquels ils sont confrontés”.

 

Guide des actualités SAP SAPPHIRE 2023

Plus de détails sur les nouveautés, les lancements et les annonces dans le Sapphire News Guide.

Visitez le SAP News Center. Suivez SAP sur Twitter @SAPNews.

FIN

A propos de SAP en France

La stratégie de SAP est d’aider chaque organisation à fonctionner en « entreprise intelligente » et durable. En tant que leader du marché des logiciels d’application d’entreprise, nous aidons les entreprises de toutes tailles et de tous secteurs à opérer au mieux : 87 % du commerce mondial total est généré par nos clients. Nos technologies de Machine Learning, d’Internet des objets (IoT) et d’analyse avancée aident nos clients à transformer leurs activités en « entreprises intelligentes ». SAP permet aux personnes et aux organisations d’avoir une vision approfondie de leur business et favorise la collaboration pour qu’ils puissent garder une longueur d’avance sur leurs concurrents. Nous simplifions la technologie afin que les entreprises puissent utiliser nos logiciels comme elles le souhaitent, sans interruption. Notre suite d’applications et de services end-to-end permet aux clients privés et publics de 25 secteurs d’activité dans le monde entier, de fonctionner de manière rentable, de s’adapter en permanence et de faire la différence. Grâce à un réseau mondial de clients, de partenaires, d’employés et de leaders d’opinion, SAP aide le monde à mieux fonctionner et à améliorer la vie de chacun.

 

Pour plus d’informations, visitez le site www.sap.com.

Contact presse – Sylvie Léchevin – sylvie.lechevin@sap.com – sap@the-arcane.com

 

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This document contains forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and outcomes to materially differ. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties may be found in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to the risk factors section of SAP’s 2022 Annual Report on Form 20-F.

© 2023 SAP SE. All rights reserved.
SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see https://www.sap.com/copyright for additional trademark information and notices.

 

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How to Design an MVP Web Page

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Learning how to design an MVP webpage or website could be one of the best things you can do as a site creator in today’s digital world.

In a fast-paced landscape, where customer preferences and technology are constantly changing, most companies don’t have time to dedicate months or years to each web project. The longer you take to complete your website, the more likely your creation will be outdated by the time you hit “publish.” That’s why countless creators are beginning to take a different approach.

To avoid wasting time, money, and effort on something that doesn’t deliver a significant return on investment, designers are now building “Minimum Viable Products,” or “MVPs.”

Here’s what you need to know about creating your MVP webpage.

What is MVP Web Design?

Typically, the “MVP” development process is most common in the app or software creation world. It refers to when a developer builds the simplest version of a technology capable of achieving specific goals. For instance, if a company wanted to create an ecommerce app, they would design a simple tool capable of listing products, enabling payments, and tracking orders.

After launching the MVP product, the company or developer would check to ensure it had the right impact on the target market and generated positive results. Using feedback and analytics, the developer would then begin to add new features one at a time.

MVP design aims to ensure you’re developing the best, most valuable product for your audience while getting your solution to market as quickly as possible.

The same strategy in MVP app and software design can also apply to website creation. Rather than building a highly complicated website with multiple features straightaway, the designer would focus on creating a single page equipped with the essential elements.

For instance, instead of building an entire site for your online course, you may develop a single-page website where customers can learn about the system, sign up, and pay for their membership. The great thing about an MVP web page is it allows companies to start advertising their solution, product, or service quickly, with the minimum initial investment.

How to Create an MVP Web Page

Creating an MVP web page is similar to designing any Minimum Viable Product. Throughout the project, the focus will be on keeping the development process simple while collecting as much feedback as possible.

Here’s how you’d get started with an MVP web page.

Step 1: Planning

Planning is an important stage in any web design project. It’s particularly crucial in the MVP landscape, where you need to define the most critical features of your webpage or website to ensure it’s “viable” for your needs. The initial planning stage can sometimes be the lengthiest part of the process, depending on the amount of research you need to do.

For the most part, web designers and companies will begin by conducting market research. This means examining crucial concepts intended to drive your strategy, such as:

  • Your target audience: Who are you trying to target with this web page, and what will they need from your site? A user persona can be helpful if you don’t already have one.
  • Competitors: Who are your main competitors in this space, and what do their web pages offer? Which features do you need to replicate or avoid?
  • Goal setting: What is the main objective of this web page? What do you need it to do, and what might it need to accomplish in the future?

The key to MVP web page planning is ensuring you look holistically at your project without thinking too far ahead. The site you create should be capable of scaling and expanding in the future, but it shouldn’t have too many features from day one.

Step 2: Creating Your Feature List

Once you’ve done your research and formed the foundations of your plan, it’s time to list all the features your MVP web page needs to have. Unfortunately, this is where the process can get a little complicated. It’s easy to start adding capabilities and components that aren’t necessary to make your site more exciting or competitive.

As worrying as it can feel to release a very basic web page, remember your focus is on rapid growth and development. With this in mind, concentrate on narrowing your feature lists down into:

  • Initial must-have capabilities: First, decide what your web page can’t thrive without. If the primary goal of your page is to sell software subscriptions, then you’ll need to implement tools for collecting member information and payments.
  • Next stage functionality: Consider the features you might add once you’ve confirmed your webpage is effective. This will allow you to ensure you’re creating a platform that can expand to suit future needs.
  • Possible future requirements: You can also list features that might be helpful in the future but don’t necessarily need to be implemented immediately. For instance, if you’re selling an online course, you might create a separate page where people can sign up to learn about future lessons.

Step 3: Finding the Right Software

Next, you’ll need to decide how to build your web page. There are several options available to today’s designers. An open-source solution is usually the best route for designers who need to create something specific from scratch. However, if the factor that makes your solution “viable” is unique, you may need access to code to bring your idea to life.

Alternatively, if you’re building a basic webpage capable of something like collecting customer email addresses or facilitating transactions, you might be able to use an off-the-shelf tool. CMS services for web designers can reduce the work and expense involved in creating a minimum viable product.

For instance, you might use a tool like Wix or Squarespace to edit a pre-existing template and simply drag-and-drop the features you need into the right places. On the other hand, if you’re planning on adding more functionality to your site down the line, it’s worth checking if any builder you will use has the right level of flexibility. Many tools will allow you access to code, advanced features, and essential module-based building functions.

Step 4: Implement Your Analytics

One of the essential parts of an MVP workflow is feedback. When you roll out your MVP, you’ll be looking for insights, guidance, and analytics to help you decide what your next steps are going to be. As a result, MVP workflows are based heavily on experimentation.

This means you’re going to need the right analytical tools in place to track crucial information. You can implement tools for collecting customer feedback directly. It’s also worth having a system in place for tracking metrics like:

  • Conversion rate;
  • Traffic numbers;
  • User behavior;
  • Most used/least used features;
  • Technical site performance;
  • Bounce rate;
  • Average time spent on the page.

While Google Analytics is one of the most popular tools for collecting insights in the MVP website design world, various other options are available. You can even find tools with in-built heatmaps to see how people navigate your site more effectively.

It’s also worth having A/B testing components in place. This will allow you to test the different “new” features you add to your web pages over time and examine how they influence your conversions and support your goals. For example, you can use A/B testing to explore the impact of everything from CTA button colors to webpage copy and offers.

Creating Your MVP Web Page

In the fast-paced web development and design world, the old-fashioned and slow approach to designing web pages is growing increasingly less common. Instead, an MVP strategy may be the best bet for companies looking to go to market faster, collect insights from their target audience, and accelerate growth.

Though getting used to this design strategy initially can be challenging, it can save you significant time, resources, and money in the long term.

 

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What is the “Minimum” in Minimum Viable Product?

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“Minimum Viable Product,” or “MVP,” is a concept of agile development and business growth. With a minimum viable product, you focus on creating the simplest, most basic version of your product, web application, or code possible.

Minimum viable products include just enough features to attract early adopters and validate your idea in the early stages of the development lifecycle. Choosing an MVP workflow can be particularly valuable in the software environment because it helps teams receive, learn from, and respond to feedback as quickly as possible.

The question is, how exactly do you define the “minimum” in MVP? How do you know if your MVP creation is basic enough while still being “viable”?

Defining the Minimum Viable Product: An Introduction

The concept of “Minimum Viable Product” comes from the Lean Start-up Methodology, introduced by Eric Ries. The purpose of MVP is to help companies quickly create versions of a product while collecting validated insights from customers for each iteration. Companies may choose to develop and release minimum viable products because they want to:

  • Introduce new products into the market as quickly as possible;
  • Test an idea with real users before committing a large budget to product development;
  • Create a competitive product with the use of frequent upgrades;
  • Learn what resonates with the target market of the company;
  • Explore different versions of the same product.

Aside from allowing your company to validate an idea for a product without building the entire concept from scratch, an MVP can also reduce the demand on a company’s time and resources. This is why so many smaller start-ups with limited budgets use the MVP and lean production strategy to keep costs as low as possible.

Defining an MVP: What your Minimum Viable Product Isn’t

When you’re building a Minimum Viable Product, you’re concentrating on developing only the most “essential” features that need to be in that product. For instance, you might be building a shopping app for a website. For the app to be “viable,” it would need to allow customers to search through products and add them to a basket or shopping cart. The app would also need a checkout feature and security components.

However, additional functionality, like the ability to send questions about an item to a customer service team or features that allow clients to add products to a “wish list,” may not be necessary straight away. Part of defining a minimum viable product is understanding what it isn’t. For instance, an MVP is not:

  • A prototype: Prototypes are often mentioned alongside MVPs because they can help with early-stage product validation. However, prototypes are generally not intended for customers to use. The “minimum” version of a viable product still needs to be developed enough for clients and users to put it to the test and provide feedback.
  • A minimum marketable product: An MVP is a learning vehicle that allows companies to create various iterations of an item over time. However, a minimum marketable product is a complete item, ready to sell, with features or “selling points” the company can highlight to differentiate the item from the competition.
  • Proof of concept: This is another similar but distinct idea from MVP. Proof of concept items test an idea you have to determine whether it’s attainable. There usually aren’t any customers involved in this process. Instead, companies create small projects to assess business solutions’ technical capabilities and feasibility. You can sometimes use a proof of concept before moving on to an MVP.

Finding the Minimum in your MVP

When finding the “minimum” in a minimum viable product, the primary challenge is ensuring the right balance. Ideally, you need your MVP to be as essential, cost-effective, and straightforward as possible so that you can create several iterations in a short space of time. The simpler the product, the easier it is to adapt it, roll it out to your customers, and learn from their feedback.

However, developers and business leaders shouldn’t get so caught up focusing on the “Minimum” part of Minimum Viable Product that they forget the central segment: “Viable”; your product still needs to achieve a specific purpose.

So, how do you find the minimum in your MVP?

1. Decide on Your Goal or Purpose

First, you’ll need to determine what your product needs to do to be deemed viable. What goal or target do you hope to achieve with your new product? For instance, in the example we mentioned above, where you’re creating an ecommerce shopping app, the most basic thing the app needs to do is allow customers to shop for and purchase items on a smartphone.

Consider the overall selling point of your product or service and decide what the “nice to haves” are, compared to the essential features. For instance, your AR app needs to allow people to interact with augmented digital content on a smartphone, but it may not need to work with all versions of the latest AR smart glasses.

2. Make a List of Features

Once you know the goal or purpose of your product, the next step is to make a list of features or capabilities you can rank according to importance. You can base your knowledge of what’s “most important” for your customers by looking at things like:

  • Competitor analysis: What do your competitors already offer in this category, and where are the gaps in their service or product?
  • User research: Which features or functionalities are most important to your target audience? How can you make your solution stand out from the crowd?
  • Industry knowledge: As an expert in your industry, you should have some basic understanding of what it will take to make your product “usable.”

3. Create Your Iterations

Once you’ve defined your most important features, the next stage is simply building the simplest version of your product. Build the item according to what you consider to be its most essential features and ask yourself whether it’s serving its purpose.

If your solution seems to be “viable,” you can roll it out to your target audience or a small group of beta testers to get their feedback and validate the offering. Use focus groups and market interviews to collect as much information as possible about what people like or dislike.

Using your feedback, you can begin to implement changes to your “minimum” viable product to add more essential features or functionality.

Understanding the “Minimum Viable Product”

Minimum viable products are evident throughout multiple industries and markets today – particularly in the digitally transforming world. For instance, Amazon might be one of the world’s most popular online marketplaces today, but it didn’t start that way. Instead, Jeff Bezos began purchasing books from distributors and shipping them to customers every time his online store received an order to determine whether the book-selling landscape would work.

When Foursquare first began, it had only one feature. People could check-in at different locations and win badges. The gamification factor was what made people so excited about using the service. Other examples include:

  • Groupon: Groupon is a pretty huge discount and voucher platform today, operating in companies all around the world. However, it started life as a simple minimum viable product promoting the services of local businesses and offering exclusive deals for a short time. Now Groupon is constantly evolving and updating its offerings.
  • Airbnb: Beginning with the use of the founders’ own apartment, Airbnb became a unicorn company giving people the opportunity to list places for short-term rental worldwide. The founders rented out their own apartment to determine whether people would consider staying in someone else’s home before eventually expanding.
  • Facebook: Upon release, Facebook was a simple social media tool used for connecting with friends. Profiles were basic, and all members were students of Harvard University. The idea quickly grew and evolved into a global social network. Facebook continues to learn from the feedback of its users and implement new features today.

Creating Your Minimum Viable Product

Your definition of a “minimum viable product” may not be the same as the definition chosen by another developer or business leader. The key to success is finding the right balance between viability – and the purpose of your product, and simplicity – or minimizing your features.

Start by figuring out what your product simply can’t be without, and gradually add more features as you learn and gain feedback from your audience. While it can be challenging to produce something so “minimalistic” at first, you need to be willing to release those small and consistent iterations if you want to leverage all the benefits of an MVP.

Suppose you can successfully define the meaning of the words “Minimum” and “Viable” simultaneously with your new product creations. In that case, the result should be an agile business, lean workflows, and better development processes for your entire team.

 

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How to Get Started with the MVP Workflow

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Few things are more important to a web designer or developer’s chances of success than having the proper workflow. The term “workflow” applies to the set of standardized steps you or your company uses to create, test, and deploy designs or products.

Over the years, as development processes have evolved, so too have the workflows experts use to bring their ideas to life. The MVP workflow, or “Minimum Viable Product” strategy, is one of the most popular options in 2022.

Here’s what you need to know about the MVP workflow and how it differs from some of the other standard workflows developers may be used to.

What is the Designer/Developer Workflow?

As mentioned above, the designer/developer workflow is a series of steps used by experts in the web design world to achieve a creative goal. The process includes the steps taken to start a project, evolve it, and finish it. Since software is never developed without tools, the technology you’ll access throughout the development process is also considered in most workflows.

An example of a standard development workflow might look like this:

  • Scaffolding: This is the stage wherein you start your new web project, creating a git repo, downloading libraries, preparing file structures, and completing other tasks to make sure your product is ready to roll out into the world.
  • Develop: This is where you’ll spend most of your time writing code for your application or website. The development process may include various specific tools and support from other staff members.
  • Test: In this stage, you examine the functionality of your code to determine if everything works as it should. If there are errors or issues, you can go back and develop fixes to the potential problems. Your code may go through the development/test process several times before you can move to the next stage.
  • Integrate: This is when you merge the code for your part of the development process with the rest of the team. You can also integrate your code into websites and existing apps at this point. If you’re working solo, you can skip this process.
  • Optimize: You prepare all your assets for use on a production server during the optimization stage. Files are generally optimized to ensure your visitors can view your site easily or access your applications with ease.
  • Deploy: In the deployment stage, developers push code and assets up into the server and allow for changes to be viewed by the public.

What is MVP? (Minimum Viable Product)

Now you know what a developer workflow looks like, you can begin to assess the concept of the “MVP” workflow. The term “MVP” stands for Minimum Viable Product.

The idea of “Minimum Viable Product” applies to a range of industries, from education to healthcare and government entities. This term comes from lean start-up practices and focuses heavily on the value of learning and changing during the development process.

When you adapt your workflow to focus on an MVP, you’re essentially adjusting your focus to a point where you can create a stripped-back version of something new – like an app or a website. The MVP is built just with the core features (the minimum), so you can bring the idea to market and test it as quickly as possible.

For instance, if your goal were to create an attractive new website for a client, an MVP would focus on implementing the crucial initial tools, and nothing else. While you may create checkout pages, product pages, and other aspects of the site, you wouldn’t populate it with content or start experimenting with bonus widgets and apps.

So, how does this offer a better alternative to the standard workflow?

Simply put, an MVP workflow is quick, agile, and easy. The idea is you can validate key concepts with speed, fail quickly, and learn just as fast. Rather than having to build an entire app and almost start over from scratch every time you find an error, you can race through the iteration and development process.

MVP workflows are also highly appealing to start-ups and entrepreneurs hoping to validate ideas without a massive amount of upfront investment.

Examples of MVP Workflows

Still confused? The easiest way to understand how an MVP workflow works is to look at an example.

Let’s start with a conceptual example. Say you were building a voice transcription service for businesses. The desired features of this product might include the ability to download transcription, translate them into different languages, and integrate them into AI analytics tools.

However, using the MVP approach, you wouldn’t try to accomplish all of your goals with your software at once. Instead, you’d focus on something simple first – like the ability to download the transcripts. Once you confirm you can do that, you can start a new workflow for the next most important feature for the app.

One excellent example of a company with an MVP approach is Airbnb. The entrepreneurs behind this unicorn company, Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky, didn’t have a lot of cash to build a business with at first. They had to use their own apartment to validate the idea of creating a website where people could share their available “space” in a home or apartment with the public.

To begin, Airbnb only created a very basic website, published photos of their property, and waited to see the results. After discovering people were genuinely interested in renting another person’s home, the company was able to begin experimenting with new ideas to make a site where people could list their properties for travelers.

The Pros and Cons of an MVP Workflow

There are a lot of benefits to the MVP workflow – particularly when it comes to gaining agility and developing new products quickly. However, there are downsides too.

Pros

  • With an MVP approach, you can maximize your learning opportunities and create a more innovative, successful product at speed. You get to test every step of the way.
  • You release iterations or versions of your product quickly, which means you discover problems faster, allowing you to quickly solve these issues.
  • You build on the benefits of customer fans, “evangelists” in the marketplace who are keen to help your product or service grow.
  • An MVP gives you more freedom to try out unique ideas and “risks” you might otherwise avoid with a traditional workflow.
  • Because you’re focusing on creating only the “minimum viable product,” you don’t have to spend a fortune on initially setting up your workflows.

Cons

  • Agile work with an MVP flow requires a lot of effort in collecting constant feedback from customers and releasing iterations.
  • You’ll need to dedicate yourself to releasing many small and frequent product releases on a tight schedule.
  • You might have to revise the functionality of your product or app a number of times.

Creating Your MVP Workflow

If you believe an MVP workflow might be effective for you, the first step is defining your “Minimum Viable Product.” The app, website, or product you design needs to align with your team’s strategic goals, so think about what your company is trying to achieve at this moment – before you get started. If you have limited resources, or specific purposes, like improving your reputation as a reliable company, now might not be the right time to develop a new MVP.

Ask what purpose your minimum viable product will serve and what kind of market you’re going to be targeting. You’ll need to know your target customer to help you test the quality and performance of each iteration of your MVP. Once you know what your ideal “product” is, ask yourself what the most important features will be.

You can base these decisions on things like:

  • User research
  • Competitive analysis
  • Feedback from your audience

For example, if you’re producing an AI chatbot that helps companies to sort through customer inquiries, the most important “initial feature” may be the ability to integrate that bot into existing websites and apps owned by the company.

MVP Approach Guidelines

Once you have your hierarchy of most valuable features for your minimum viable product, you can translate this into an action plan for development. Remember, although you’re focusing on the “minimum” in development, your product still needs to be “viable.” In other words, it still needs to allow your customer to achieve a specific goal.

  • Review your features: Reviewing your prioritized product requirements and the minimum level of functionality you can deliver with each of these “features.” You need to ensure you’re still providing value to your customer with anything you produce.
  • Build your solution: Build your minimum set of features for the product or service. Remember to build only what is required. You can use methodologies like the agile or waterfall method to help guide your team during this process.
  • Validate your solution: Release your offering into the market, and ensure you have tools in place to gather feedback from early adopters. Use beta programs, focus groups, and market interviews to understand how your solution works for your customers and where you can improve on your current offer.
  • Release new iterations: Based on what you learn from your target audience, release improvements to your product quickly. Use your validation strategies to collect information from your audience with each release.
  • Review again: Go back to your product requirements and desired features and start the process over again, this time focusing on the next most valuable functionality. Over time, the value of your minimum viable product will increase.

Using the MVP Workflow Approach

While the MVP workflow approach might not be the right solution for every development or design team, it can work very effectively in the right circumstances. The MVP approach doesn’t minimize the importance of understanding market problems and delivering value. Instead, the focus is on delivering quick value that gradually increases and evolves over time.

As many developers and designers know, the most useful form of product validation in most cases is real-world validation. When your customers have had an opportunity to use a product on a day-to-day basis, they can provide much more effective feedback.

Just keep in mind that committing to the MVP approach also means changing your workflow and committing to iterations – otherwise, other features may never be completed. You’ll need to be willing to work quickly and in small bursts without getting too heavily caught up in one feature or functionality.

 

Featured image via Pexels.

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