The first major issue for all the businesses was the question of where to hold meetings. Micro-business offices are often short of space, so their employees find it difficult to meet clients there, while the alternative of meeting in coffee shops, restaurants or other public spaces is unsatisfactory because of noise and space problems.
At one of the brainstorming sessions, the team came up with the idea of a list of local cafes and restaurants receptive to the needs of small businesses and willing to provide a space for them to hold meetings, give presentations or host networking events.
Other problems were met with more hi-tech solutions. The six businesses now ‘meet’ regularly via a secure online business networking forum after agreeing they would benefit from pooling their knowledge and resources.
Each member of the team made sure this virtual meeting venue would provide the right sort of service experience to encourage them to use it. Their Fabrium Network, an online forum helping small business to exchange services, has secure instant messaging so they can contact each other quickly if they want to solve a problem through team input. There’s also a discussion forum, event listings and a space where businesses can swap information, share resources, create partnerships and generate work. With this sort of easily accessible online space on offer, the businesses think others are more likely to want to join them.
Finding staff
The New Work team also came up with a solution to the problem of finding and keeping the right staff, especially for those situations where a business needs an extra pair of hands but can’t afford a full-time member of staff. Helen Kerrigan says: ‘Two of our companies would like to use the service they designed. They’re really different companies - a software developer and a bicycle shop. They sell completely different products and have different ways of working, but the thing they both needed was somebody to work for them part-time. ‘
‘The bicycle shop needed somebody to work near Christmas, when it sells a lot of bikes. And the software developer needed someone at certain times of the month to help with sales increases.’
The designers found that businesses didn’t always want to use recruitment agencies. ‘They resisted it. And they didn’t want to just get somebody who would come in, do a few hours and then go elsewhere. They wanted somebody with commitment to the company, but they couldn’t pay them full-time,’ says Kerrigan. ‘Now they know each other through the New Work project, they can trust each other to share a member of staff.’
Presentation skills
Another service idea, called Pimp my Presentation, was developed in response to an insight from the osteopath, who wanted to identify the strengths of her business to make a good promotional presentation, but said her loyal clients might not give her an objective view. Kerrigan says: ‘She has a lot of clients who think very highly of her, but she needs to present what she does to new customers and she doesn’t know how to make a presentation.
‘When she met us all of we thought, we could do with that help too. We promised that, when we get together, although we can be friends we can also be honest and say: “That doesn’t really work”. We can help each other – and that’s a service. Work like this shows how collaborating to identifying problems can result in a collaboratively delivered solution that works all the better because of the team’s combined strengths.’
Kerrigan is optimistic that this co-design approach would work for other small businesses across the UK. Some of the service prototypes the New Work team developed have been put into action by the businesses that designed them. Sharing staff and presentation skills have helped make life better for the six micro-businesses from the North East.
Service design ideas
‘I have a sales role, an investment role, a toned down coding role… hell, I even change the toilet roll,’ says Ross, from Rozmic software developers.
Service design idea: Share the right person – a skilled person is shared by two or more businesses
Fiona from The Wellness Centre says: ‘We need to improve the presentation we give to potential customers – but we don’t have the skills or the time.’
Service design idea: Pimp my Presentation
A social event and workshop at which professionals help each other to improve their presentation skills and materials.