Caterpillar Fabric Digital Strategy | Role: Design Director, Client Relationship Lead
The Caterpillar Fabric digital strategy project aimed to help the organization envision and create a unified, holistic customer experience as a starting point for transforming Caterpillar into a customer-first organization.
Practicing human-centered design, creating digital experiences, and becoming a customer-led organization.
Caterpillar has a rich history of building great machines. This project focused on transforming the organization's mindset to create great customer experiences associated with those machines. In other words, Fabric ties all experiences with the Caterpillar brand together. To do this, we crafted digital experiences for various personas known to be core Caterpillar customers. Several are shown below, along with the benefits that the Caterpillar digital fabric offering provides them and Caterpillar.
Mateo: The Operator
Key moments for Mateo include setting up the perfect job, preparing for the job, and receiving seamless payment for services performed.
Value For Caterpillar: Once we connect operators to jobs, we’ll have visibility into patterns and trends in the construction market. We can also understand how machines are used to make product enhancements and deliver targeted training. Understanding financial transactions at the job site level gives us visibility into customers’ business operations.
Kate: The Foreman
Kate utilizes the Fabric digital service to put the right people on the job and track job site progress. Fabric rewards Kate at certain milestones with performance bonuses and empowers her to do the same for team members as they accomplish tasks. Overall, cash flow is also easy to view.
Value For Caterpillar: Once a line of sight into financial transactions is achieved, Caterpillar has real-time visibility into aggregate demand, enabling tracking of market shifts, prioritization of investment, and offering deals, financing, and investment to help customers reach their full potential.
Rod: The Fleet Manager
Rod uses the service to tell him what is most important. It helps him take effective action and gives him choices in managing his fleet. Finally, Fabric provides progress updates regarding fleet operations and service.
Value for Caterpillar: Once Caterpillar understands what Rod values and how he thinks about the trade-offs, the company can start to offer more personalized solutions. Knowing what Fleet Managers value, Caterpillar can have more meaningful conversations that address larger business priorities.
Bo: The Technician
Fabric helps Bo prepare for a given job. It streamlines communication and handles transactions, making things like task approvals seamless.
Value For Caterpillar: Once Caterpillar has both the machine and the employer’s evaluation of a technician, guidance of service and training can begin. Having a line of sight into service transactions allows a better understanding of which parts have the highest demand, which can optimize our production and improve our supply chain.
Tommy: Dealer Salesman
Tommy’s relationship with customers grows richer through the use of Fabric. The service advises him about who to reach out to, how to approach them, and what to recommend to them regarding Caterpillar products and services.
Value For Caterpillar: By empowering the dealer and enabling more meaningful conversations, Caterpillar can keep and strengthen the dealer distribution network. Caterpillar keeps the human touch-point by facilitating these conversations while using its best intelligence to personalize the deal.