A step forward for digital innovation in Brazil

Abstract

Sonae Sierra Brasil set its sights on becoming a pioneer in digital innovation in the shopping centre sector. Following the creation of several successful projects, we wanted to engage consumers to provide us with inspiration and support to tailor our digital strategy to best suit their needs.

With this in mind, we created Step-9, an open innovation platform that aims to create a network of digital entrepreneurs who want to help us build the shopping centre of the future. Through Step-9, we have engaged visitors and other stakeholders to come up with promising ideas that we can develop to improve our shopping centre services. Furthermore, the interest generated by the platform has enhanced our shopping centre brands, whilst Step-9’s recognition by the ABRASCE Awards as a unique project in Brazil distinguishes Sonae Sierra Brasil at the corporate level for our inclusive and forward-thinking business approach.

Introduction

Modern consumers are more informed and digitally-active than ever before. Spurred on by the rapid expansion in mobile technology, e-commerce continues to grow, and the prolific use of social media networks makes customer service excellence paramount. In this context, Sonae Sierra Brasil has been investigating potential digital solutions that could help us to drive additional sales and bring even better experiences to shopping centre visitors.

Background

Back in 2013 we launched our Digital Experience Project, which was designed to connect consumers with Sonae Sierra Brasil’s shopping malls through a series of technological innovations. The project brought to fruition several new initiatives, including our “Services Mobile App”, “No More Queues” app, “WhatsApp Advisor” and “#BuyTogether” pilot project. Besides bringing real benefits to consumers, through these actions we aimed to build closer relationships with this stakeholder group.

Challenge

We wanted to take the project further by developing more advanced levels of digital innovation in direct collaboration with consumers and other stakeholders. Indeed, we set ourselves the goal to be recognised as a digital pioneer in the Brazilian retail sector. As a first step to achieving this, we wanted to get consumers to help us answer the following challenges:

1. What shopping service would you like to have on your cell phone? Or how can the shopping centre be at your side 24/7?
2. How would you like to be shopping in a shopping centre 10 years from now?
3. What would your ideal shopping list look like?
4. How would you shop and have fun in a connected shopping centre?

Solution

We created Step-9, an open innovation platform which invites digital entrepreneurs to collaborate with Sonae Sierra Brasil as part of a connected network to respond to these challenges. Step-9 allows the network to listen to stakeholders’ views and generate and test ideas focused on improving the service and experience provided by our shopping centres.

After the platform had been successfully publicised and the network had established itself, we invited participants to help us tackle our four challenging questions.

And they did!

Each question received between 1,035 and 2,709 views, and they generated a range of ideas which we will now evaluate as we look to create new products and services. The three most popular ideas included:

• A food court app allowing visitors to order a meal from a restaurant in advance.
• A virtual online shopping app for shopping centre products.
• A personalised app with hints and tips on how a visitor can make the most of their time in the shopping centre based on their preferences and user profile.

Closure

Step-9 is helping us to shape the future of Brazilian retail and it enables us to understand what digital initiatives we should focus on in the short-, medium- and long-term. It is a simple project that is easy to implement, and by broadcasting it through a range of social media we have established a good network which gives us greater access to consumer trends and helps build our intellectual capital.

We have found that it is essential to have a skilled moderator on board to get people thinking and create links between challenges and responses. As a pioneering project – the first of its kind to be launched in Brazil – we also discovered that Step-9 brought greater visibility to Sonae Sierra Brasil and its shopping centres. Last but not least, the project received national recognition as the winner of an ABRASCE (Brazilian Council of Shopping Centres) Gold Award in the marketing campaigns category.