Experiencing Helsinki with Team Giosg
Written by: Terence Neo, Tarun Davuluri, Michael LaFramboise, Basim Siddiqui
Big Reveal Day
When we found out who our team was, our client company, and that we had been selected to travel to Finland, everyone in the team was overjoyed. We were already great friends and knew that we would work very well together, we were all interested in the intersection of consulting and tech, and none of us have been to Finland. From the onset, we knew that we were set up for success and that this will be an amazing experience.
Pre-Week 1
Pre-Week 1 was exciting. In the midst of our finals week, we were finalizing up our list of stakeholders whom we will be interviewing in the country. We had managed to schedule in full days of meetings, along with team discussion time in the evenings, and even managed to squeeze in time for three half day workshops that we will conduct for our clients. Our in-country schedule was quickly taking shape and we knew that we were up for a very productive two weeks with our clients. Our various interviews with various stakeholders over the semester have proven very insightful, and everyone on the team was excited about the additional insights we can learn and the various hypotheses we can validate through our upcoming in-person interviews.
Week 1
Our first week in Finland was extremely eventful, even though it was a three-day work week for most staff in the office. We were able to conduct one on one in-depth discussions with almost everyone in the C-suite, and key stakeholders from the various teams, ranging from marketing, customer success, product and so on. We were also able to successfully conduct a workshop with the management team where we went deep and drilled down on the customer pain points and use cases that our product can help solve. It was definitely rewarding to hear praises from the management team on how our workshop was effective and able to leave an impact, so much so that we received a request for us to conduct two more workshops the following week.
The highlight of week 1 was definitely our weekend travels! We hopped on a cruise to Estonia which gave us a solid 6 hours of uninterrupted time to further develop our hypotheses and materials for the next week.
Week 2
Our second week was not less than the first. We conducted another two equally fruitful workshops. In our second workshop, we brought the key stakeholders to a consensus on the Ideal Customer Profile we want to go after with the launch of this new product. This includes the ideal geography, industry, and customer persona. In our final workshop, we brought in the product team and brought everyone to a consensus on the product features we should prioritize to stand out from the competition and capture market share.
The highlight of the week was definitely our final presentation, where we presented in front of the entire company. We had staff attending in-person, and also staff tuning in virtually from other offices. It was incredibly fulfilling to see how our hard work has materialized into something that our client finds valuable in taking the company forward in a meaningful way, and how much we have grown in this process.
IBD has been a blast, and all of us have enjoyed the past 5 months we have spent nurturing and growing this project to what we have today. It was definitely a bittersweet moment when we finally had to say our goodbyes.
