Universal Basic Service Standards

As a group, BMMI has a cultural bias when it comes to the web. As identified in the expert digital review, BMMI's divisions and departments largely approach digital in their own way, within their own business silo.

This decentralised approach is clearly demonstrated looking at BMMI's presence across divisions. Each division is at a different stage in their journey towards digital integration with little to no sharing of knowledge and experience across projects.

As it stands, this is costing the group as a whole, in terms of financial output, in time spent and in knowledge development. By aligning each division in BMMI, by further developing individual's skillsets and knowledge whilst also formalising new operating procedures, each division can benefit by leveraging economies of scale.

The world has changed

The world has changed. Digital has changed it. Customers have different expectations from 10 years ago. Our businesses need to adapt if they are to survive. They need to modernise to meet the needs of today’s connected customers. To leverage digital technologies to their advantage. But how?

There is no one size fits all when it comes to making a business competitive in the 21st century. It depends on the state of the business, the sector and the customer. But most businesses travel a similar path. A path consisting sequential steps meeting operational and marketing business streams that have been detailed on the following pages.

Service Standards

BMMI's Digital Service Standard is a set of 14 criteria. Criteria that have been developed to help align efforts to create and run customer centric digital services.

All public facing services must meet the standard. It will be used by divisions and the digital transformation team to make sure a service is fit for purpose and supports BMMI's digital development.

1.Know your audience

The first step for the creation of any service is to know who it's being built for. Is it a mass audience or niche? Can the division identify and match the potential return on investment?

2.Understand user needs

Once it's clear who the service is being built for, the next step is to identify and understand their needs. Research should be carried out to develop knowledge of the users needs and how that impacts the design of the service.

3.Do ongoing user research

A plan needs to be developed for ongoing user research and usability testing. The longer a service exists, the more it can be improved based on continuous feedback from users.

4.Have a multidisciplinary team

Depending on a division's needs, they may need to reach out to vendors or specialist consultants. However, it's important to ensure a sustainable multidisciplinary team of internal staff is identified that can direct and maintain the service over the long term. The team should be led by a suitably skilled and senior staff member with decision-making responsibility.

5.Use agile methods

Building services using agile methodologies means they are more likely to meet user expectations and do so cost efficiently. More information regarding agile is available in the working methodology section of the BMMI Group digital strategy.

6.Iterate and improve frequently

Services should be built with an expectation that it will be iterated and improved on a frequent basis. Before starting, project leaders should ensure they have the capacity, resources and technical flexibility to do so.

7.Evaluate tools and systems

Before starting, the tools and systems that will be used to build, host, operate and measure the service, and how to procure them should be formally evaluated.

8.Understand security and privacy issues

Security and privacy is becoming a topic that can't be ignored. Around the world, governments are taking measures to ensure that it is being treated with due consideration.

Divisions must evaluate what user data and information their digital service will be providing or storing and address the security level, legal responsibilities, privacy issues and risks associated with the service (consulting with experts where appropriate).

9.Test the end-to-end service

Before going live, the service must be tested in an environment identical to that of the live version, including on all common browsers and devices, and using dummy accounts and a representative sample of users.

10.Make it simple

Services should be simple to use and intuitive enough that users meet their objectives the first time, with little to no instruction.

11.Make the user experience consistent

Services should be consistent with the user experience of the rest of BMMI. This is achieved by referencing BMMI's Global Experience Language and using the design patterns and style guides.

12.Learn from others

Each new service should improve exponentially on the last. Services should be built by taking on board lessons from the past and from each of BMMI's divisions.

13.Identify performance indicators

Performance indicators must be identified for every service, across the three mandatory key performance indicators (KPIs) areas:

• Usability.
• Engagement.
• Conversion.

A benchmark must be identified for each metric and a plan made to enable improvements.

14.Collect and analyse data

Tools for analysis that collect performance data must be used. The data that is created can be used to analyse the success of the service and to translate weaknesses into opportunities for improvement.

15.Report and share (the ups and the downs)

Collecting information about a service allows divisions to measure its performance. Sharing the ups and the downs of the service allows everyone to compare data and improve all of BMMI's services.