Elevating Ambitions: Schindler’s Global Value Proposition

Manufacturing

The Challenge

Schindler had to reinforce its competitive advantage and effectively communicate its ambitious value proposition to strengthen its position.

The Opportunity

Schindler partnered with Vivaldi to develop a brand value proposition that will act as a catalyst for growth and unify Schindler’s business units.

The Outcome

This collaboration allowed Schindler to differentiate itself from its competitors and optimally position itself for exponential growth in the future.

The Ups and Downs of the Elevator Business

Schindler, one of the largest elevator companies in the world, sought Vivaldi Partners’ advice on developing a global, relevant, differentiating and ambitious value proposition. The aim was to develop a strategic business compass for the executive team that would strengthen Schindler’s position in the market.

Two similar projects had failed in the past, so the stakes were high. The challenge was to develop a solution that would support both of Schindler’s business units, Existing Installations and New Installations. Both units had shifted towards a more customer-centric approach to business and their particular business environments and customer needs needed to be assessed and taken into consideration. The existing service naming structure also had to be aligned according to the new value proposition in order to enhance its global applicability and establish its reputation within the industry.

Ready for an Upward Ride

To develop the new value proposition, Vivaldi Partners started by assessing the existing value proposition and conducting a comprehensive inside-out and outside-in analysis of the company and brand.

The team analyzed customers’ needs and pain points, competitive mapping, and general market trends based on comprehensive market research. To highlight the strategic nature and importance of the project and to ensure stakeholder and management buy-in, numerous executive and board member interviews were conducted over the course of the project. This holistic approach allowed us to derive impactful and global insights to match the inside-out (company) with the outside-in (customer) perspective.

The initial assessment of the current value propositions and their related brand values revealed that Schindler was not positioned on relevant customer value drivers and differentiators. Instead, the value proposition was based on hygiene factors similar to much of the competition. Through several workshops, we collaboratively identified twelve different value proposition platforms based on the initial analysis. We worked to exploit the identified sweet spots, derived brand values, and value drivers, and eventually conducted a deep dive into three value proposition platforms.

Based on these insights and the fact that both business units shared similar value drivers, Vivaldi Partners developed common brand values and one overarching value proposition platform – “Schindler. Your first choice.”

Reaching the Top Level

The global cross-functional collaboration with Schindler’s management team and its board members was extremely efficient and successful. As a result of this collaborative project approach, a common global value proposition was developed that optimally supported Schindler’s future growth plan. Additionally, a customer-oriented and globally applicable service naming structure was elaborated, which reduced complexity and helped customers more easily navigate through Schindler’s service portfolio. We helped the Schindler project team prepare their board presentation, and both recommendations – the global value proposition and the service naming structure – as well as the implementation roadmap were successfully approved by the CEO, the executive team and board members at Schindler’s global strategy meeting.

With the introduction of the new value proposition, Schindler positioned itself in a distinctive manner to strive for growth and distinctively differentiate itself from its main competitors in the competitive world of urban mobility solutions. Schindler successfully launched the new service naming in 2015, following its new strategy of customer-centricity and customer service excellence.