Design Analysis Strategy For Agendize: Marketing Analysis And Values

Corporate Structure and its Type

Customer acquisition, engagement and retention have emerged into so important aspects of business as well as the very base of revenue generation. Customer retention and management is no longer limited to a mere business aspect. They have grown crucial to such an extent that there are customer engagement companies which offer platforms dedicated to customer acquisition, management and retention. Business organisations from diverse markets like financial services and automobile sectors today hire these customer platform management companies to manage their customer operations. The customer management companies on their part have grown and evolved into multinational corporate organisations empowered with capable corporate structure and business designs. The customer management companies in turn have strong marketing analysis driven technologically developed designs. The aim of the paper is to delve into marketing analysis strategy of Agensdize, the customer management company serving global giants like France, Canada, Mexico and the United States. The ‘About Agendize’ page of the official website of the company shows that Agendize serves companies like Nissan and Allianze itself bears testimony to the strength of its marketing design. The paper would delve designing a strategy of Agendize and its application by the company based on the client expectations.

The corporate structure of Agendize stands on an able team of leaders with the founder and the president, Alexandre at the helm. The important leadership position in the company consists of director of administration and finance, director of human resources, director of marketing, graphic & web designing, digital marketer, digital marketing and communication specialists, directors of projects, customer success manager, VP sales and marketing, director of strategic accounts, director of business unit banks, sales team manager, key accounts manager, VP of engineering & IT, senior developer, web developer, scrum master, UX designer and product director. It is evident from an analysis of the leadership team of Agendize described above that the corporate structure of the company is crystallised around providing customer acquisition as well as customer management services to its business customers. The corporate leadership structure of Agendize draws its support from more than 50 employees from as many as seven countries. Finally it can be inferred considering the pressing needs of customer management and the dynamic business customer demands that corporate structure of Agendize is tall in nature.

The following are the components of design systems of Agendize:

The design ladder is a tool which measures the rate of use of design in product designing in different companies in different stages. The entire tool stands on the hypothesis that there is a strong positive link between supernormal revenue generation of companies and their use of designs at different stages. The ladder or the tool further stands on the convention that design can bring about positive transformations in the overall business SaaS products dependent on its rate of usages.

The following are the four steps of design ladder:

The design is the intangible part of the product in which expectations of clients/customers plays very minor role. The design depend less on technology and more an aesthetics. It can be pointed this step is not for Agendize considering the fact that manufacture of SaaS and customer management software require high use of design. This is first step of the design ladder on which Agendize needs to focus. This is in fact the basic step in which the company can again information of the expectations and requirements of the clients. This would lead to the next step where the software developers of Agendize would give the expectations of clients which is intangible in the first step, a form by incorporating them in the future software versions.

Design Systems

The designs are used to give forms to product or software designed. The companies following this step of design ladder consider the products should have a design which would satisfy the needs of the customers (Doherty et al. 2014). The software developers employed with Agendize at this stage develop the software using using attributes according to the customer expectations unveiled in the first stage. The developers the attributes in order to fulfil the expectations of the clients.

The companies following this strategy use design at the process. Design becomes an integral part of the final product manufacturing part and involves use of experts and engineers. The software developers from various expertise and skill areas at this stage carry out innovation to design a software. This step upholds that design is not a tool but a process which have to be executed using appropriate steps. The second does not attract involvement of other departments. The technological and web designing team while developing software as a process involves the other departments like finance and marketing,. This is because at this stage the development of the software manufacturing takes the form of a project. The apex management of Agendize forms project teams which look into the software product requirement of individual clients.

The companies using this step of design ladder involve design right the strategic level. The core product strategies of these firms include product design and the apex management allocate resources towards acquisition of the designs. This ensures that the design is aligned with the customer expectations which result in manufacturing of more customer oriented products.

The design transcends the status of a process to a part of the core business strategy of Agendize at this stage. The apex management at this stage supervises the entire software designing activity as a part of the core product strategy of the company.

The business organisations should design values which means that the design should create value for the clients. The design manufacturing companies serve multinational companies enabling the latter to manage and use customer data. Thus, here the designing of value refers to manufacturing of SaaS in accordance to the needs of the final consumers which means the customers the client companies serve.

Agendize is the fourth position and use design as a strategy. This is evident from two facts. First, the company being found in 2003 has already gained a permanent client base comprising of Nissan and Allianz which actually suffices the high level customer services of the firm. Secondly, the very leadership team consist of SCRUM or agile experts. Thus, an analysis of these two facts shows that Agendize is in the fourth step of the design ladder.

The design value score card is a tool which enables the company to assess the actual performances of the design. The tool enables the the companies in pointing out the roles the designs actually play in the company against the target value which the company sought to earn through the design. The companies also assess and predict the roles which the designs can play in the business of the company.

Design Value: The Design Ladder

The design value score card below shows that Agendize canehnace the value creation to clients by using appropriate strategies while manufacturing the software packages for the latter. As shown below, points out the functional aspects like contact management and lead addition. The score card should be integrated to other tools like business analytical tools and enable the personnel of Agendize integrate it with sales reports.

Level of design org maturity	Attributes	Aesthetics	Functionality	Connectors	Integrator	Strategy and business models
5 Optimized	Process proactively, continuously Improved	Improve niche marketing attributes of customer management software packages	The company should increase the functional aspect of the software packages. The software should incorporate features like contact management and sales team access.	The company should increase the connector aspect of the software packages	The software package should be integrated with the existing products of the company. The sales team should be able to optimize the client details with new requirements and changes like change in delivery dates.	Optimized with the business model
4 Managed	Process  modified/varied based on feedback	The marketing department supervises the aesthetic attributes of the product and their value addition to customers	The web designing department should manage the entire system of software manufacturing. The software should enable addition of new leads generated	The web designing department should manage the entire system of software manufacturing	The software manufacture is integrated with the entire business requirement. It should be integrated to the other tools like business intelligence and sales analytical tools	Optimized with the business model
3. Defined	Process standardized	The standard quality of the product should be unhampered	The functional features of the software packages should be well defined by the apex management	The connectors features of the software packages should be well defined by the apex management	The features of the software packages should be well defined by the apex management	Optimized with the business model
2. Repeatable	Basic project management	The aesthetic features should run on all the copies of software	The functional features should run on all the copies of software	The connector features should run on all the copies of software	The integrator features should run on all the copies of software	Optimized with the business model
1. Initial/Adhoc	Heroic efforts	The aesthetic features in the initial phase may be superficial	The functional features in the initial phase may be superficial	The connector features in the initial phase may be superficial	The integration features in the initial phase may be superficial	Optimized with the business model

Agendize should seek to create value beyond the strategic design. The value creation design would consist of creation of value of end customer as well. The questionnaire show about 50 percent of the respondents opine that Agendize is a creative organisation and about 57.1 percent of the clients opine that company is strong in design thinking. This means that the apex management should integrate the aesthetics as well as functional aspects while designing software

It has become very important to involve design thinking in organisational systems in order to maximise revenue by serving clients more satisfactorily. The organisations can incorporate design thinking more closely with their business requirements by considering the business attributes of the clients for which they make the design right at the inception phase. The below is the recommended steps which business organisations like Agendize can consider to install design thinking in their operations. The below activities or steps would take only the business requirements of Nissan, one of the most important customers of Agendize.

The key assets of Agendize consists of its leadership team supported by the employees spread across the three markets. The other assets of the company consist of fixed assets and currency. The immense technological power along with its immense customer database are also important key assets of the company.

The network structure of Agendize consists of managers, consultants, administrators, engineers, technicians, key partners and vendors. The entire network structure of Agendize crystallise around the apex management of the organisations under the leadership of founder and the president of the company. The following are the elements of the network structure of Agendize:

The managers play a very important role as far as networking activity in Agendize is concerned. Smith (2014) mention that managers in large business establishments play a significant role in ensuring decision making in different spheres of business. As far as Agendize is concerned, the firm operates in several sectors ranging from financial sector to automobile. The firm in addition have offices in France, the United States of America, Mexico and Canada. An analysis of the leadership team of the company reveals that the company involves several technology based operations like development of SCRUM and user experience design (UX design). This means that the company has several managerial posts each overseeing important business aspects. Further it can also be pointed out that the designing of customer experience software is dependent on the type of customers being served. For example, Agendize serves Orange Business Services, Allianz and Nissan (Agendize.com. 2018). Orange Business operates in the information and communication technology market while Allianz operates in the financial sector. Nissan on the other hand operates in the automobile sector. It can be also be pointed out that the customer segments of these three clients of Agendize are also different. Graham, Harvey and Puri (2015) mention that companies in order to serve customers satisfactorily have to map the total customer experience map in order to create appropriate experiences and ensure retention of the customers. This means that these companies while hiring services of Agendize require the latter to take into consideration their specific customer requirements. This brings into the light the immense role while managers at Agendize play in ensuring customer satisfaction and generation of revenue for the company. First, the dedicated managers communicate with the clients to gain information about their specific requirements. The managers in the organisations thus function as important points of communication between the company and the clients. Second, the managers communicate the directions of the upper managers like senior developers to the subordinate employees. Thus, the third role of managers is to carry out the decisions of the leadership team and to ensure efficient implementation of the strategies (Bolman and Deal 2017). The fourth role of the managers as far as the business network is management of the global business. Xie, Batra and Peng (2015) opine that in case of global business managers located in the different locations enable implementation of the central business strategy in accordance to the local market conditions. This brings into light the fifth role of the managers which is management of the global business. The managers of Agendize located in the mentioned market provide the apex management the information related to the specific markets the specific customer design requirements of the clients based in these markets. Thus, the apex managers are able to form strategies to design customer management software which result in client satisfaction in these different markets. Thus, it can be inferred that the managers play a very significant role in the global business network of Agendize.

The Design Value

The consultants play a very significant role in the business network of Agendize. It has already been pointed out that Agendioze serve various clients from diverse industries like real estate and automobile technology. Zhang, Levenson and Crossley (2015) opine that consultants provide advices to companies in specific areas. This fact is very applicable for Agendize. For example, the leadership team of Agendize is composed of positions like Scrum Master and senior development. DaSilva and Trkman (2014) mention that Scrum is an agile process. Seethamraju, (2015) points out that development of software as a service (SaaS) plays a very important role in serving customers. It can be pointed out that out both Agile and software development are subject to changing market trends like customer preferences and technology. This fact can be applied to the network designing of Agendize. The software development experts employed with the firm hire consultants to advice the firm on the latest development in SaaS design. Thus, it can be inferred that the consultants firm play a very significant roles in the designing network of Agendize.

The administrators oversee the entire network of software designing and marketing. Kumar et al.(2016) point out that administrators come into play when business organisations need to manage large customer data on their knowledge management system. The business organisations capture, manage and share immense amount of data on their KMS and cloud communication systems. Further, the managers and the staff using those pieces of information require to accede to them on several hardware like laptops, smart phones and tablets. The administrators at Agendize ensure continuous up gradation of the software systems to ensure access to the cloud by managers and all the other technological experts. Thus, it can be inferred that administrative experts

The engineers play a very important role in the networking structure of Agendize. As pointed out in the questionnaire, the company initiatives projects in which it incorporate the value design to form appropriate software package for its customers. The calls for the involvement of engineers with specialisation in diverse fields like web development, agile and information and communication technology. Rai, Agrawal and Khaliq (2017) mention that development of software requires efficient operations by engineers. As far as Agendize is concerned, it makes software as a service (SaaS) which clearly mentions that the company involves web designing. This means that engineers form an important part of the entire core operations of the company. This predominant position of engineers in the operations of the company is evident from engineers as important members of the central leadership team in the positions of VP of engineering & IT and UX director. The design ladder clearly shows technology plays several roles like as an element of customer service strategy and as a process (Simeonov et al. 2017). This clearly means that engineers play significant roles in both at the strategy making level as well as at the process level. Thus, it can be inferred that engineers play a very important role in the network structure of Agendize.

The Current Position of Agendize on the Design Ladder Including Analysis

The technicians play a very important role in the network since the entire operations of Agendize is very much based on use the cloud computing. The technicians play a very important role in the operations of the Agendize. This is why technicians play a very important role in its value creation network (Borchert et al. 2018). The entire creation of value of Agendize is based on software application which is very complex. This complexity of the design creation requires technicians to use their skills, knowledge and experience to ensure that the software are created as per the expectations of clients. Thus, it can be inferred that technicians play a very important role in the network of Agensize.

The key partners refer to the stakeholders both individuals and groups which the firm serves. The key partners consists of the government bodies at the three levels which form the laws which the company has to comply with while manufacturing the software. For example, as far as France, one of the main markets of Agendize is concerned, The Online Privacy Law obliges the business organisations holding customer information to protect the privacy of the customers (Loc.gov. 2018).  This means that Agendize should comply with the law in two ways while designing the software. First, in the capacity of serving the multinational clients and second in the capacity of serving the end customers indirectly through its customers. The second partner which forms a significant part of the network of the company are the banks. The company manufactures real-time analytics reports for its business customers which is driven by software. Development of new software design to serve each customer satisfactorily requires launching of new projects. These projects require continuous inflow of financial resources which necessitates involvement of banks. The multinational banks provide gateways for inflow and outflow of cash (Lam 2014). The other important partners which form significant part of the value design creation of the frim consist of suppliers of computer components like chips and hardware. Thus, it is evident that the partners like suppliers of ancillary parts and banks form significant parts as value creation network of the firm.

The vendors or distributors which partner with Agendize consist of firms which pave ways for the firm. It is mentioned in the official website of Agendize that it manufactures user friendly real time apps to manage customers. This means that the company is use services of several vendors maker of the apps, the firms actually owning the apps and the digital platforms. These firms enable Agendize to distribute its service products (Agendize.com 2018). For example, companies like D&B Hoovers provide sales lead on Agendize. Thus, the former is a vendor which the company use to serve its clients like Nissan and Allianz (Hoovers.com. 2018). Thus, it can be pointed out that the vendors use the portal of Agendize to provide sales and sale intelligence related related, thus forming very significant part of the data creation process of the Agendize.

Agendize creates value for customers by creating software as per their expectations. Aaen and Gjerløff, (2015) while explaining value creation process in SaaS manufacturing companies describe that the value creation in these companies are dependent of ongoing products designed to keep on making and upgrading the customer management infrastructure of the client companies. They mention that development of SaaS requires use of Agile development process which involve small and dedicated groups of experts. This means that the development of software involves not only some steps but networks common known as value creation network (Ojala and Helander 2014). The experts use the network design ladder which means design functions both as process and as a strategy in creating value for clients.

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