Smule, a San Francisco-based company, offers apps that allow users to sing karaoke, play guitar and piano, rap, and more through their smartphone interface. They also feature a global social network so that users can share their musical performances with friends. Smule’s flagship apps are free to download and use; fans pay for subscription access to its extensive music catalog. Over 300 million people around the globe have used Smule to create, share, discover, and enjoy music. Users post more than 12 million songs and performances each day. However, supporting around 30 million active users a month across all seven continents, and a variety of devices and operating systems comes with its challenges. It vastly multiplied the challenges that come with supporting high-traffic apps on multiple platforms, carriers, and software versions. Pressure was compounded by the nature of the music app industry. Smule was very well aware that with the bevy of music sharing and making platforms on the market, only the best survive. They needed a suite of highly stable, crash-free apps that also met customers’ high expectations for uptime, sound quality, and easy usability. Without additional diagnostic or troubleshooting information, the job of debugging and resolving customer issues was a laborious process. These time-consuming detours took up precious engineering energies that would be better spent developing new features.

News publications are adopting mobile phones and tablets as their primary communication vehicle. Given the transient nature of mobile users and the plethora of news and television app substitutes, however, it is more important now than ever for companies to provide interactive content, improved graphics, and motion-optimized interfaces. With users consuming local news at an alarming rate and location-based services at an inflection point, the time was ripe for Hearst TV to focus on mobile apps to engage with more users and monetize through display ads. Hearst TV brought development in-house and built and deployed over 100 apps for iOS and Android on a variety of devices. Providing accurate, timely news during crisis situations has always been a strength of the company. During the week of the Boston Marathon bombing in April 2013, for example, app traffic for Hearst TV’s station in Boston, WCVB, spiked 247% and the company seamlessly delivered full coverage of the event.

The company developed a wearable device that connects to the company’s mobile app, allowing businesses to set up and track fitness challenges for their workers. The device can measure daily steps, calories burned, distance covered, and exercise time. This can then be synced to an iOS or Android mobile app that makes it easy to track points and activities. The app is also designed to support activities trackers made by other manufacturers. The app and devices are seen as strategic initiatives because of the necessary consumerization of these solutions. The company’s business succeeds by making recurring revenue from the sponsoring companies. If employees don’t use the solution, the sponsoring companies won’t renew their subscriptions. Because of this, the performance of the app and device is key — the overall user experience must be flawless.

The client, a large US public utility, was facing a challenge in identifying which customers on a Time-of-Use (TOU) price plan would switch to an alternate price plan. They needed to understand the factors that predict this switching behavior and create propensity scores for each of the current TOU price plan customers to identify their individual likelihood of switching to a different price plan. The goal was to correctly predict a likely switcher approximately 70% of the time.

Microsoft needed a solution to more effectively analyze the thousands of conversations taking place online about a wide array of the company’s products. These conversations take place globally 24/7 and in huge volume in Microsoft forums, other forums and across social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, blogs) and in more traditional news sources. While the company was already monitoring some of these sources, there was no one integrating the conversations and providing insights into their relevance to improving product quality and the customer experience.

The client, a leading consumer products company, had developed around 50 concept ideas for toothpaste and mouthwash categories combined. They received around 5,000 responses from consumers from a short survey which contained details of what they liked and did not like about each of these ideas. These open-ended verbatims had to be analyzed to arrive at the broad themes and analyzed across demographics. The key challenge was to analyze these 5,000 verbatim responses and create the report only three to four.

The client, a leading consumer products company, wanted to develop an in-depth understanding of the bi-cultural Hispanic segment in the US, which was expected to grow from 13% of total US households in 2014 to 35% by 2030. The aim was to define strategies and tactics to drive current and future growth in key categories such as oral care, home care, and personal care. The existing research included a mix of commissioned research and external partner-led research studies.

In the hyper-competitive eCommerce industry with dynamic business models, Blueocean Market Intelligence’s client needed to understand the costs associated with setting up a new eCommerce website for retail and digital goods. The client wanted to also gain a competitive perspective so that an appropriate solution could be devised based on the scale of the merchant’s business requirements (small, medium or large). The challenge was to identify different types/layers of vendors that a merchant or seller needs to tie up with in order to launch and operate an eCommerce webstore, and to understand the cost structure of identified vendors.

The client, a leading insurance and BFSI company in Asia, was struggling to evolve from their previous platform and migrate successfully to the Adobe Marketing Cloud platform. They wanted to set up marketing channels, traffic performance, and overall site health scorecards for immediate stakeholder delivery. The client also wanted to understand the reasons for deviations between web leads to CRM fulfilled leads, which were caused due to faulty tag implementation and accounting issues.

Asia’s largest Telco, with over 200 million mobile customers and an online revenue of USD 1 billion, was struggling to leverage its vast customer base. The company was using disparate offline data sources to figure bill payments, recharge history, and minutes usage, with no uniquely identified online customers. The key objectives were to identify online users as soon as they land on site and assign a unique ID to them, map the unique online customer ID to offline data using Adobe Audience Manager, create and render custom offers to customers based on various variables, and create opportunities for pushing mobile APP for smartphone users.

The B2B retailer company was looking to increase sales from existing customers by creating customized offers such as discounts and bundled offers. This strategy was aimed at giving them a competitive edge in the market. Additionally, the company wanted to reduce inventory levels of slow-moving SKUs to reduce costs and wastage. The challenge was to analyze past purchase history, identify product associations, and determine appropriate discounts for SKUs for each customer.

The client, a leading global technology company, had over 1000 campaigns running each week on their website. They wanted to ensure automated campaign tracking and classification solutions. Regional stakeholders were working with individual agencies to set up campaigns and track them manually. This led to gaps with the tracking mechanism, and final reports did not portray the complete picture since the attribution quality was poor. The client wanted a consistent and clearly defined process to track campaign performance, ensuring 100% compliance with business logic prior to going live.

The client, a leading money exchange company, experienced a decline in remittance transactions from Country X to Country Y. They identified several factors responsible for the decrease in transaction volume and sought the expertise of Blueocean Market Intelligence to investigate and develop a plan to address these challenges. The client needed to understand the transactional and customer trends by key variables such as age, emirate, and send agent. They also wanted to measure the impact of exchange rate, margin percentage, and competitor pricing on transactional volume.

The client, a US-based property and casualty insurance company, was facing several challenges. They lacked a measurement system to understand the effectiveness of their digital initiatives. This inability to measure marketing ROI was impacting their sales and leading to a fragmented customer experience. The company needed a solution that could integrate data from different platforms, provide real-time analytics, and drive effective data storage practices.

The client, a multinational CPG company, conducts brand tracking around the world and across all of their product categories. These include health, hygiene and home products among others. They wanted to adopt a harmonized brand tracking dashboard for different categories of product. In order to stay ahead in the game, the client wanted a competitive and comparative study for product and brand level performance. The client’s demand was challenging since the company has 120+ product portfolios of its global and regional brands. The primary goal of CPG companies is to maintain long-term relationships with retailers and ensure products are being promoted and sold across all locations. To enable this, the client wanted to understand the different purchase drivers, which are responsible for the sales. This included capturing awareness, familiarity and purchase drivers and barriers.

Drom, a leading fragrance manufacturer, was facing challenges in ensuring product compliance of regulations and industry standards across 43 countries. The company was dealing with disparate regulatory and safety data management and documentation workflows. There was a need for data standardization across global operations and increasing customer transparency into regulatory and safety information. The company also needed to continue meeting the requirements of the International Fragrance Association (IFRA) Compliance Program, which requires “eco-labeling” and bans or restricts the use of 174 chemical substances in fragrance products.

Mercedes-Benz, as part of their Ambition 2039, committed to becoming a carbon-neutral company by 2039 across their entire value chain. This includes not only the emissions produced by their vehicles but also those that occur during the production process. A significant proportion of these emissions occur not at Mercedes-Benz locations, but within its supply chain. To develop a realistic yet ambitious decarbonization strategy, it was crucial to gain transparency about emissions hotspots in the supply chain and quantify possible reduction measures. However, the company faced challenges such as missing emissions transparency in the supply chain, lack of reliable, detailed emissions inventories for steel, aluminum, and plastics, lack of knowledge about the influence of renewable energy and recycled or bio-based materials and their impacts on supply chain emissions, and lack of CO2 reductions potentials for target setting.

Mapei, a leader in the production of adhesives and chemical products for the building industry, faced several challenges. They needed to provide environmental information in a reliable and transparent manner in response to market demands on products in relation to Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). They also needed to assess the performance of products in the design phase, reduce costs associated with the development of EPDs, and create effective communication messaging for the supply chain and consumers.

The consumer appliance manufacturer was facing numerous challenges from increasing global competition. To stay competitive, they developed a strategy centered on R&D and innovation to produce new technology that would satisfy client needs. To preserve the quality of its design from conception to manufacturing, post-market upgrades and productivity changes, the Manufacturer performed Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). This approach helped reduce errors throughout the product lifecycle and avoid costly failures and recalls. However, the FMEA process required many manual hours using standard spreadsheet software to edit, update and format risk reports. The manufacturer was struggling with inefficient analysis of risk, difficulty upholding standards and reactive mitigation of product failures and recalls.

The apparel firm was facing several challenges in managing its chemical compliance systems and processes. The company was using manual systems and processes for managing chemical SDS information, including binder storage and manual label printing at each of their facility sites. This created critical issues in chemical data management, updates, and reporting. The firm was dealing with siloed and limited access to safety data sheet (SDS) documents through a paper-based system. The label-making and formatting were done manually. The company was using a large quantity and variation of chemicals in their manufacturing process. There was also a lack of insight on the environmental impact of these chemicals.

Ball Corporation, a manufacturer of billions of aluminum cans each year, aimed to improve the sustainability credentials of their products. They wanted to identify the environmental hotspots of the aluminum can and compare it with competing beverage packaging options. The assessment was conducted in Europe, the U.S., and Brazil, considering regional collection/recycling rates, recycled content, weight optimization, and energy efficiency. The challenge was to provide an objective and reliable benchmark to interested 3rd parties, inform and enhance Ball’s sustainability strategy, and compare the regional sustainability performance of aluminum beverage cans with alternatives.

Stiferite, a leading company in Italy in the production of polyiso foam thermal insulation, was looking to improve its market position and create bigger opportunities in public bids and building projects. The company needed to obtain Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) certifications swiftly and autonomously to promptly respond to bid specifications and market requests. They also wanted to generate Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies on their entire product range and improve communication along the supply chain through transparent, credible, and effective messages.

In recent years, sustainability-related issues concerning plastics, such as sourcing from non-renewable resources and end-of-life issues (recycling, reuse, littering, biodegradability), have gained significant attention. The plastics industry is under pressure to provide credible solutions to these problems. To bring about sustainable change in the plastics industry, accurate information in the form of standardized and credible Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) results needs to be made available in a transparent way to as broad an audience as possible, including non-LCA experts.

ista, a sub-metering company based in Germany, had set ambitious sustainability goals and needed to measure their success. For the annual collection of sustainability data, roughly 20 data sets from about 174 sites are collected, involving around 130 people. When the company decided to expand their sustainability initiatives, the existing approach was no longer adequate. Instead of focusing only on data collection and reporting, ista also needed to analyze the existing data to improve future performance. The challenges they faced included extensive and time-consuming data collection via Excel and email, plausibility checks required to improve data quality, and a lack of tools for analytics and advanced planning features.

The operator of one of the Middle East’s largest and most complex oil refineries was committed to adopting best-in-class industrial practices, recognizing international management standards, and ensuring compliance with all requirements regarding quality, health, safety and the environment (QHSE). As part of its commitment, and in accordance with its company standards, the operator is required to complete a turnaround (TAR) every five years. Performing a TAR on a site this large and complex involved substantial operational risks as a result of potentially hazardous work activities. With more than 2,300 separate pieces of equipment, 40,843 separate but interrelated jobs and no historical activity to act as a guide, the TAR required meticulous planning and exemplary execution to mitigate risks and ensure deadlines were met safely and efficiently.

UPM, a global company with operations in 12 countries, faced challenges in maintaining safety standards due to its diverse locations and growth in new business areas. The company had clear priorities and goals for social responsibility at work, including creating a safe and healthy working environment for all stakeholders. However, the various international, national, and local safety laws, regulations, and rules necessitated a global OHS&E solution for all sites and countries. The solution needed to ensure overall compliance with the UPM Safety Standards and assess and mitigate health and safety risks. The company faced challenges as different sites used different solutions for safety and environmental data, there was no common tool and processes for UPM in place, and there was a lack of global reporting for UPM Safety & Environmental KPIs.

Fater, a joint venture between Procter & Gamble and the Angelini Group, is committed to environmental sustainability and is constantly striving to understand and improve the environmental performance of its current and future products. The company faced several challenges in its sustainability journey. These included assessing the environmental impact of existing and new products, embedding eco-design in product development, especially in the choice of raw materials and type of packaging, quantifying the share of the use-phase emissions and providing retrospective guidance for product development, and supporting marketing claims with fact-based but easy-to-understand environmental indicators for transparent consumer communication.

Yara International ASA, the world’s largest fertilizer company and a leading chemical manufacturer, needed to enhance its Safety Data Sheet authoring capabilities to comply with higher requirements from REACH, CLP, and other mandates. The company also needed to establish a new integrated chemical compliance system compatible with its corporate IT environment. The goal was to drive continuous improvement of SDS work processes and core business operations.

Naturata, a leader in the sale of organic and biodynamic foods, is committed to sustainability and considers it its duty to use organic products and sustainable packaging. However, the ongoing debate and tension between their use of packaging and ecological responsibility are particularly crucial for Naturata. In addition to the quality of their goods, food safety and shelf life are of vital importance to them. Packaging designers and developers, therefore, must consider many different criteria to implement the ideal packaging solution. The challenge was to align packaging solutions with the company’s values and products, integrate sustainability criteria in the demanding processes around the packaging life cycle, identify relevant environmental aspects for comparing different packaging solutions, and cater to increased consumer preferences towards sustainable packaging solutions.

ConocoPhillips, a major player in the oil and gas industry, was facing operational inefficiencies, long wait times for frontline work teams, unplanned downtime and potential process safety losses. The company was also grappling with the challenges of the Digital Age and how it could be leveraged to transform their operations. The oil price downturn five years ago forced the industry to make major adjustments and consider how emerging technologies like data analytics, robotics, automation, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and cloud technology could be used to improve efficiency and reduce costs. The company also had to deal with the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and a global supply glut.