This thesis explores the impact of the European Union’s Right to Repair (R2R) legislation on businesses in the Electric and Electronic Devices (EED) sector in the Netherlands. The research assesses how Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland (RVO) can support businesses in adopting repairability practices aligned with the new legislation. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study combines a literature review with qualitative insights from interviews with key stakeholders, including RVO representatives, businesses and NGOs. The findings reveal that while the short-term impact of the R2R directive on business operations is limited, businesses who want to transition towards repairability deal with various challenges. However, a lack in RVO’s currents instruments for repair support was identified. The study provides recommendations for RVO to enhance its support mechanisms to further support businesses in the transition towards repairability.

In recent years, we have become increasingly aware of the vast impact of the fast fashion and textile industry. Over the years the fashion industry has been abundantly criticised over its limited consideration of social and environmental issues and the widespread impact that these have. By now, textile creation itself has a larger carbon footprint than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. The biggest change can be made within the creation of these textiles. This is where Byborre and the Window of Textile opportunities (WoTO) come into play.
This project is executed in collaboration with Byborre: a frontrunner in creating transparent and responsible textiles and trying to change the way the textile industry operates. As part of their mission they launched WoTO: a platform and exposition that connects Byborre’s transparent textile supply-chain in order to collaboratively solve the industry’s sustainability challenges and aims to educate on responsible textile creation and use. This raised the following question that served as the kick-off for the project:
“How can WoTO educate, inspire and connect textile users, academic and industry professionals in order to drive collaborative, transparent and responsible textile innovation and creation?”
In order to find out, the project took a user-centred approach: the user’s perspective is leading in order to gain insight. User research consisting out of qualitative interviews, user-journeys and persona’s along with literature research on open and networked innovations was performed. The analysis of this research phase shows the complexity of interdisciplinary collaboration and the problems that users experience within WoTO:
The concept of WoTO lacks clarity, resulting in different interpretations and expectations of the platform. The network partners experience a lack of guidance, facilitation and moderation which makes it hard to keep overview and manage expectations. Due to a lack of, - or unsuitable collaborative systems and tools it becomes challenging for the partners to stay involved, connected and aligned. This consequently results in an unclear narrative for the visitors.
Based on ideation, co-creation and evaluation with stakeholders a service design vision for WoTO is created to alleviate this problem:
The service design offers WoTO partners an accessible way to engage with the Window of Textile Opportunities and stimulates and facilitates interdisciplinary working and communication within, and outside of the WoTO network. Decreasing the gap between the textile supply-chain and brands/consumers. By doing so aiming to strengthen WoTO’s primary functions: to forge interdisciplinary connections & educate on responsible creation and transparency.
It does so by offering guidance, orchestration and structure through various touch-points that support the the newly constructed collaborative model and user flow. These touch-points can be attributed to four themes:

Stimulate engagement
Create uniformity in collaboration
Guide towards alignment and change
Decrease the gap between the supply-chain and brands/consumers

To implement the service successfully a roadmap is given to help prioritise activities for the short term implementation. In order to make this possible it is recommended to further develop and test the service and keep the partners involved in this process.
Ultimately, active partner orchestration and community management is essential to WoTO’s operations and interdisciplinary work. If not performed, partners can’t align and the service won’t be able facilitate its purpose.

Flyco is a large airline company who has built its strategy emphasising on operational excellence. Yet, since competitors can now achieve similar results, they have expanded their strategy to offering excellent customer experience too, resulting in the foundation of the Customer Experience (CX) department. Nevertheless, Flyco notices their NPS is not rising above 50. One of the reasons is the silo-driven lay-out a typical corporate as Flyco has, where teams lack knowledge sharing. A way to bridge these silos is by using cross-functional collaboration, where multiple distinct functions come together to tackle complex problems with a multidisciplinary perspective.

This results in the research question: “How can Flyco improve the consistent implementation of customer needs throughout the customer journey through more effective collaboration between the different teams of the CX department?” During the research, multiple perspectives are taken into consideration. At first, the connection between collaboration and customer needs is defined to learn why the stated claim is currently a problem. Thereafter, the current way of collaboration between the different teams is reflected on by means of seven in-depth interviews with employees. Simultaneously, a literature review gives insights into what way effective cross-functional collaboration should be framed and which elements are essential. However, since multiple elements have a considerable effect on cross-functional collaboration, a decision needs to be made for a focal point to realise effective change at one, or a few of these elements. A quantitative analysis, filled in by the CX department, gives insight into where the department believes they could improve. The focus is put where most progress can be made for the CX department. This results in a focus on effective knowledge sharing between the different teams through more effective and open communication to lead the focus within the department towards the group.

Plenty literature has been written in knowledge management including multiple tools and methods. Nevertheless, earlier attempts in implementing a new knowledge management method have failed due to unacceptance of implementation by the employees. Therefore the behaviour of the employees needs to change. Consequently, literature in behaviour change is reviewed, resulting in four behaviour change techniques most appropriate for this problem. Five concepts are established through combining cocreation insights on the behaviour change techniques with knowledge management tools and methods. These concepts in unison form a system for a profound knowledge management, which ideally are all developed and applied. However, for the purpose of this thesis, the concept ‘Community of Practice (CoP)’ is chosen for further development.

The concept focuses on knowledge sharing through a group, sharing a domain/passion, a practice, and a community, coming together to discuss a question or statement stated by one of the teams of the CX department. People can apply when they are interested to learn more or have gained expertise in this area. The group of employees form a community group where they run through five steps to get an agreement on the topic. The results will be shared with the department for knowledge sharing.

Recently, Deloitte, Nibud and ING conducted a study on financial health in the Netherlands. As a next step, the involved parties have taken the initiative by creating the Financial Health Index (FHI), a tool to measure people’s financial health via fifteen questions. Deloitte is searching for new channels that they could use to stimulate the usage of the FHI and other initiatives that could create a positive impact on the financial health of the Netherlands. The retail channel is an important financial health channel were customers make the actual financial spending decisions, and could therefore be a promising new direction. This lead to the initial research question of this project: ““Is the retail channel a feasible and impactful way to reach end-users for the FHI, in order to help them improve their financial health?“

Because of the newness and abstractness of the topic, a qualitative research study was conducted. Nine highly experienced professionals in the retail industry were interviewed, giving an understanding of retailers attitude concerning customers’ financial health, as well as a possible implementation of the FHI and other interesting initiatives. This showed that in order for retailers to contribute, the FHI might not be the best solution, mainly due to the privacy constraints, the lack of use cases and missing business case. It was found that in order to get retailers to contribute, it might be better to offer more generic financial health solutions, that do not include the profiling of customers.

Other existing initiatives were identified and analyzed, in the financial health domains “to loan”, “saving”, “spending”, “income” and “planning”. After a selection process and re-clustering, interesting clusters appeared. The requirements and wishes gained through the research showed that the area of “saving” seemed most promising to leverage the retail channel to improve customers’ financial health. In order to generate the biggest impact, it was chosen to focus on a retail saving program for Christmas, as “a lot of Dutch citizens struggle with financial health which increases in January, because they are not prepared for the extra retail expenses in December”. This was the problem statement starting the design phase.

In the design phase, a research into the simulation of saving behavior was done. Next, two design iterations were conducted. The first iteration included a user research, through two user questionnaires. The second iteration included co-creation sessions with retailers. The focus of the design phase was on gaining insights into the options and best solutions for the four most important design choices for the retail saving program. These were the “saving goal”, “user journey channel”, “business model” and “user saving process”.

The outcome is the “CareFree Christmas” initiative. This initiative allows customers to save for a specific retail product, while gaining a reward for their positive financial healthy saving behaviour. For retailers, this allows them to create a social impact by helping customers with their financial health, while at the same time increasing customer loyalty, purchase guarantee and a better cashflow.

In 2020 our lives have been turned upside down by the outbreak of COVID-19. Working from home became the new standard, forcing the whole world into the biggest remote working experiment ever. The already existing remote working trend caught wind and changed the future of work to hybrid working in an office ecosystem. With a large number of companies and employees being inexperienced with hybrid working, new challenges and unfulfilled needs came to light. Literature research and more than 50 interviews with people from 31 companies were done to identify these challenges and develop a deep understanding of them. The three problem categories are asymmetrical communication, disconnected office ecosystem and unprepared companies. The decision was made to focus on asymmetrical communication in hybrid meetings. Hybrid meetings are meetings with both online and in-office participants. These types of meetings make the online participants feel invaluable. This is caused by them not feeling involved and struggling to give input. In the long term this can lead to a decrease in employee satisfaction. Communication science helps explain why hybrid communication is hard, especially for the remote attendees. We humans collect countless information points from each other, which we unconsciously process and use for smooth and natural conversation. With video communication crucial information is filtered out, with eye contact and (selective) gaze, body language and life-sized scale being the most impactful ones. The goal of the project is to develop a product that enriches hybrid communication by supporting previously lost information. The technology developed in the design phase is coined artificial eye contact, which is based on the science of eye contact and selective gaze. Through validation experiments artificial eye contact was found to be successful in establishing similar effects. These effects are involvement, group dynamics, trust and convincement for eye contact, and more attention towards online participants, better group dynamics and a higher turn taking frequency for selective gaze. The retail price is 300 euros, but an additional data driven dashboard with a subscription model will still be validated. The product will form the foundation for a Startup, called Be There, with the mission of enabling natural and equal communication between meeting participants from different locations in the office ecosystem. Raising capital and patenting the technology are the next steps in the company planning. To conclude the project, validate the problem solution fit and partially validate the product market fit a pilot was done with Delta Capita, a technology consultancy from Amsterdam. The Be There One proved its value and collected the first Letter of Intent.

The research was performed in order to design a roadmap for transforming the departure hall, by researching the way KLM could improve the customer departure journey. Hall capacity needs to grow to accommodate for an expected increase in passenger numbers: for welcoming, waiting, check-in, and baggage processing. Design roadmapping methodology is used for performing initial context research, and for mapping user value drivers, new ideas for departure, and pathways to a future vision. 

The company context is researched by discovering KLM values and by mapping stakeholders in departure. Passengers are the primary stakeholders who interact with staff at the airport, and perform check-in and bag drop tasks in the departure hall. By mapping flow, user routing in the journey is made clear. By combining these insights with literature on waiting, passenger behavior, the perception of waiting, and an action mapping exercise, a journey overview is created. In order to truly understand customer journeys, interviewing with passengers was arranged in the live environment. Journey mapping yielded a journey experience overview and four personas in departure with specific service requirements, motivations for assistance, and needs. Market research in the form of a competitor analysis and DEPEST research provides the trend patterning needed for future visioning. A problem definition of current departure at the airport is established by reflecting on the airline's ambition to be most customer-centric, efficient, and innovative. 

Most important in design roadmapping are user value drivers; the unmet needs of future customers. Understanding these needs allows forward-looking enterprises to transform processes and services in time to create new value. By introducing the analogous customer experience of upcoming seamless grocery shopping, the design team engaged in a value mapping exercise yielding five key user value drivers: convenience, comprehension, choice, confirmation, and care. An envisioned future departure interaction is explained by imagining the functional and emotional benefits of future solutions according to these five value drivers. A three component future vision statement is provided. While the first half of the research focused on doing research and envisioning an improved future departure, the second part is dedicated to designing the roadmap. At this halfway point of the research, a switch from journey touchpoint research to changed strategic processes for new business development is made. Here, a roadmap offering a strategic pathway to the future is needed. 

As the five user value drivers were found, what remains is mapping of new ideas for departure, and mapping of pathways to the future vision. For idea mapping, a tech scouting is performed in order to see what technology is available and to learn how these are relevant in reaching the vision. An integral ideation day yielded eight idea concepts spread over three horizons. The ideas aim at simplifying touchpoints, offering journey guidance, providing departure certainty and facilitate purchasing, shortening touchtime, and offering true care and recognition. Implications of horizon developments for a Staff of Tomorrow, and Operations of Tomorrow are explained. 

These five themes in the mapped ideas shape the pathways to the three component future vision, or alternatively: the roads to follow to achieve the ambition. Here, the decision is made to construct two roadmaps for flexibility in creative dialogue: a strategic roadmap which quickly communicates vision outlook and strategic themes, and a tactical roadmap displaying full background information and concept idea information. 
The two roadmaps are introduced and the approach and design choices are explained. A reflection on requirements set at the halfway point of the research is provided.

Finally, the research is concluded by means of a discussion which provides a brief summary of the work, states the implications of the research, and suggests four follow-up projects, as well as future design sprint HCWs for moving forward with Departure of Tomorrow. 

The thesis concludes with a reflection on the value of creative dialogue and roadmapping at KLM, and a personal reflection on the project. 

A strategy for Quooker to change its business model from offering a product to offering an outcome.