Reducing order time from months to days.

Simplifying the ordering of data center infrastructure by mapping the entire service and reimagining it.

Introduction

Due to an increase in business complexity and customer complaints Equinix was looking to modernize and improve their data infrastructure ordering experience. No one anticipated the challenge this would pose.

Equinix is a Fortune 500 brand and leader in data centers. They offer space, infrastructure, and interconnection services to customers.

Client

Equinix

Duration

6 months - 2020

Team

Mattie Alston (Interaction Designer)

Role

Product designer responsible for research, service design, UI and UX design

Our first challenge was to understand the existing system. We quickly learned no one knew how the whole thing worked.

Over 3 months of research Mattie and I spoke with over 20 stakeholders in various departments at Equinix to get a sense of the entire ordering experience. Everyone understood their part of the experience but no one could describe the entire experience. The more we dug, the more we found, and the more complex this challenge became.

10 teams, 8 tools, 30+ siloed processes, and over 1000 configuration options resulted in an average of 4 months from lead generation to order fulfillment.

After speaking with internal teams and mapping the internal process Mattie and I spoke with B2B, B2C, and B2B2C customers to understand their experiences. The results were eye opening, and resulted in a holistic mapping of a very complicated system.

Now that we understood this system we had to transform it to be more efficient, streamlined, and simple.

Mattie and I were the only ones that understood the entire system end to end. We knew that we needed everyone to understand it to transform it so we did a roadshow with all the necessary stakeholders. We followed up with co-creation sessions to help us solve small problems which would stitch together to form a new system.

Co-creation led to buy in from stakeholders, and empowerment to transform this entire system.

We set up workshops to share and workshop the service map. The result was a sense of ownership from teams that will be responsible for transforming their areas. Additionally, it gave leadership a view of the full ordering experience for the first time.

Service design that resulted in business simplification and improved customer experience.

1 self serve tool

Through this process we simplified from 8 distinct tools and endless back and forth between Equinix and customers to a single customer self serve tool therefore improving the customer experience and reducing the operational burden on Equinix.

3 distinct options

As we mapped out the existing experience we uncovered the existance of a 1000+ options customers had to choose from. After speaking with customers we found only 3 mattered - the rest was noise.

2 days from lead generation to order completion

Previously the process of back and forth and choosing between the thousands of options took over 4 months for customers to move through the ordering process. We enabled this complex process to transform and simplify into a 2 day experience.

Design is more than pretty pixels

Through this project I saw how design could be applied to so much more. Understanding systems and collaboration allow designers to wrangle any problem and out creativity allows us to develop a future state that works for users and the business.

"Words can not express the impact this work has had on our business. When we work with Myplanet we want Mattie and Shanil."

Director at Equinix
Our work strengthened Myplanet and Equinix's relationship. Mattie and I went on to work on additional projects with Equinix.