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As part of the SAP Startup Focus Program, the startup Apaxo was given the chance to work with the SAP UX Design Services to improve the user experience of their targeted newsletter service.
Front: Sascha Wohlgemuth, CEO melovely (Apaxo customer)
Back: Sina Erkenbrecher, CEO melovely (Apaxo customer)
Improving the User Experience
The SAP startup focus program helps startups not only to put their big data products and services on an excellent technological footing, but also to identify new markets and attract customers for their ideas. The startup Apaxo has been part of the SAP startup focus program since 2013 and receives technical support from the SAP Innovation Center. Apaxo utilizes the ground-breaking technology of SAP HANA and offers its customers a service for creating targeted and personalized newsletter campaigns using big data. Manuel Blechschmidt, CTO of Apaxo, feels his targeted newsletter service is well-equipped for the future to react quickly and flexibly to changes in the market. At the same time he also recognizes the need for a user experience that attracts its customers through simplicity, elegance, and smartness. For this reason, SAP’s UX Design Services is accompanying Apaxo through a project phase in order to continually improve the service using iterative customer feedback.
Front: Manuel Blechschmidt CTO Apaxo
Back: Marcus Krug, Topic Lead 'New Applications and Startups' at SAP Innovation Center
Research Produces Best Results
The challenge was to improve the targeted newsletter service of Apaxo in such a way that even users who are not technologically-minded can create and send a newsletter. One of Apaxo’s customers was faced with just this problem: Melovely runs an online shop that sells designer jewelry and sends its newsletter using the service of Apaxo. However this was previously only possible with the help of an expert. By observing the creation of the melovely newsletter at their office, we were able to gain an important insight into the process, the colleagues involved, the functions, activities, and the obstacles. Based on this we developed a new concept for creating a newsletter. We chose to place more emphasis on the editor with which the end user can define, edit, and examine the layout of the newsletter more simply. The quick and iterative cooperation with melovely made it possible for us not only to continually improve the concept, but it also afforded Apaxo an insight into the visual realization of the targeted newsletter service.
Achieving Success Through Collaboration
By the agile collaboration with both the startup Apaxo as well as its customer melovely, we could simplify strongly and efficiently the creation of the newsletter. We achieved a process optimization and removed unnecessary coordination. In addition users who are not technologically-minded can create the newsletter easily in a graphical editor without any HTML knowledge.
“When I see the new design for the Apaxo targeted newsletter service, then I would immediately use the service and would be prepared to pay more for it each month.” - Sascha Wohlgemuth, CEO melovely (Apaxo customer)
“I would like to have a good, secure feeling when I actually send the newsletter at the end. That’s what’s missing with the previous service. With the new concept I can check the newsletter thoroughly and reassure myself that everything will be sent correctly.” - Sina Erkenbrecher, CEO melovely (Apaxo customer)
“Startups work in very small teams in which everyone has to be able to do (almost) everything. Each team usually has strengths and weaknesses – since many of the startups that we work with are technology startups, User Experience design is unfortunately only rarely included in the initial team set.” - Marcus Krug, Topic Lead 'New Applications and Startups' at SAP Innovation Center
“We worked on a new concept with the SAP UX Design Services in a short period of time and we have already been able to realize the first aspects in the software. This project will be the blueprint for future projects. The cooperation with the SAP UX Design Services allows us to improve our internal processes, helps us to maintain better contacts with our customers, and makes it possible to extend the partnership with SAP.” - Manuel Blechschmidt, CTO Apaxo
