Nominated for New Product / Service Launch Strategy of the Year – The Drum Award 2021

Project Overview

Sainsbury’s, the UK’s second largest grocery chain, collects enormous amounts of daily consumer data both online and offline.
We created Pollen, the data analysis experience used by analysts from both Sainsbury’s and suppliers.
Using Pollen, Sainsbury’s can maximise store efficiency and product placement, construct data-backed promotional initiatives, reduce waste, infer trends and measure their triggers. Above all, Sainsbury’s can reinforce relationships with partners and clients through profit generation. People I had the pleasure to collaborate with on this project were Alan Offord, Alessandro Pintus, Christian Contemori, Steven Chen.

My role and contributions

I was involved since the initial workshops, in which I helped to frame the problem and to deliver a proof of concept that showcased our ways of working.
Subsequently, I was working as part of a multi-disciplinary team who tried to merge UX, visuals, and data analysis to deliver great experiences. We worked following agile delivery methodologies.

The Challenge

We undertook the challenge of redesigning an internal software used by Sainsbury's employees to analyse the enormous set of data that the Nectar group collects.

The software was 15+ years old but had an overall satisfaction of 95%. When dealing with such established tools the challenge is to take into account the mental models that such software has established in its users.

The Discovery Phase

We kicked off with a discovery phase, where, through several workshops, we identified strengths and weaknesses of the product. We did that through several exercises such as As-is experience mapping, Ideation, Interviews and Focus groups.

Video Preview of the Final Product

The initial success of Pollen (later re-named as Sainsbury's Insights Platform) motivated the Sainsbury's team to launch and expand the solution to all other brands in the group. Hence, the arrival of a better reporting experience for the world of general merchandise at Argos.

Conversational AI

Oh look! All the way back in 2019 we designed and built a concept for Sainsbury's that then became called 'Ask Pollen'.

The main Pollen tool had a mixed user base:

• Experienced Data Analysts: Who would want to dig deep into the data and understand the why behind it.

• Senior stakeholders: Who were only after quick answers (eg. How did Pepsi can performed during the last quarters?).

This back then was a very new initiative and 'Ask Pollen' resulted in outstanding increase of productivity and confidence by the Senior leadership at Sainsbury's.