confidential client
Circular Product Development Case Study: Innovating Sustainable Solutions with Interactive Scenario Maps
Our client is a global pioneer and leading manufacturer of critical technologies for white goods. With a solid commitment to becoming carbon neutral and taking active responsibility for future generations, the company wants to create its first circular product. INDEED Innovation accompanied and guided the client to create the first circular product that provides a competitive advantage for their sustainable business success.
The project was organized into three segments:
- Define Challenges
- Explore Circular Interventions
- Map Opportunities
Systems mapping option
To figure out how a component manufacturer can close the loop on its products in a highly price-aggressive market, a multidisciplinary INDEED team conducted a three-stage opportunity assessment directly with the market and product experts to explore the following:
- What are the challenges? And which are the turning points to address in short to medium term?
- What opportunities arise from the challenges, and what might the respective solution look like?
- Are the identified solutions economically feasible in the ecosystem of materials, customers, and users? And what steps must be taken to achieve this?
Over the course of several sprints, we defined, together with the client hubs, links, and gateways for circular interventions.
Creating impact variables
The INDEED team and the client’s specialists created an in-depth analysis of the product value chain on-site, including energy and waste management. This identified the critical variables for closing the value chain loop and set them as a benchmark for further development and verification.
Crucial for this project was the stable profitability of the product business and repairability within the value chain. Customer participation and incentivization, as well as length and distance of loops, were determined by B2B constraints.
Technical, multi-compound, installed component for white goods (B2B segment)
Representing a significant market share since the 1980s
Around 15 years of product use cycle
Global distribution and supply chain
Interactive Scenario Creation
The core factors logically correlate with other business-relevant factors such as delivery distances, packaging requirements, process steps, market size, customer segmentation, and availability. Therefore, the logic framework developed is based on the cycling ecosystem previously designed. This ecosystem is based on the value chain with considerations for the new stakeholders from procurement, production, logistics, distribution, retail, customers, and recycling institutions.
The interactive scenario represented in data sheets, grids, and visuals enabled the INDEED team to test cost, price, and C02 emissions in a logic framework. Seven alternative scenarios were developed for the client to help identify a profitable and sustainable future opportunity in their competitive market. The scenarios included the following aspects relevant to this specific client: 2nd life, regional loop, local for local, refurbished for 50% discount, global loop with the same price, a global circle with raised price, and incentivized spare parts. We await implementation within the following months.
The result of our 12-week collaboration was one impact opportunity described in a circular buy-in presentation conceptualizing the business model for the best prospect and a company-wide understanding of the business activities behind all conceptual presented ideas.
