Strategy & Innovation · Power Management
A generative-research and future-casting engagement for a global power-management client. We surfaced verbatim customer insights from generative interviews with clients across the US and Canada, mapped current-state journeys, and gave leadership a bold future-state vision — and the case for investing in building their own IoT cloud service. Today this client sits at the top of the Fortune 2026 World's Most Admired Companies List for the ninth consecutive year.
The Ask
Power management is a mature, engineering-heavy industry. IoT and cloud computing were reshaping the customer expectation — but nobody inside the executive team had a clear read on what customers wanted, how they'd use it, or whether building an owned platform was the right bet versus buying or partnering.
Leadership needed more than a market report. They needed a felt understanding of the customer, a compelling future to point at, and a case sharp enough to unlock the investment.
The Approach
Small, cross-functional team. Multi-city trip. In-person conversations with the client's actual customers — no proxies, no summaries. Verbatim insights broadcast each day so the whole team could react in near-real time.
Current-state journey maps grounded the strategy conversation in what customers were actually doing today — the friction, the workarounds, the moments of opportunity that would justify the future state.
Workshopped key stakeholders and leaders through the insights so the vision wasn't handed to them — it was arrived at together. That co-authorship is what turns a "nice deck" into an executive commitment.
The final readout wove together two narratives — a bold, compelling future-state vision, and the business logic behind it. Executives left the room understanding not just what to do, but why it was worth doing now.
The best strategy decks don't argue. They put the customer in the room.
Our operating principle for executive research readouts
The Outcome
What Made It Work
A fast-moving, cross-functional team — business analysts, engagement managers, executives, our design leads — all needed up-to-the-minute updates to stay aligned. Broadcasting verbatim insights from each day of research kept everyone anchored to real customer voice as the unified strategy took shape.
Executives flew in from across the country to participate in a working session. Rather than briefing them on our findings, we engaged them directly — walking them through current-state insights, then collaboratively ideating on the future state. A vision built with stakeholders in the room is a vision they defend when they're not.
Our team worked arm-in-arm with a production company to produce two animated shorts — films that brought the strategy to life by painting a vivid picture of what the client could accomplish by investing in building their own new IoT cloud service. Strategy you could see, hear, and want.
Selected Artifacts
