Role

Building a research function

With no research discipline in place within the Farfetch Platform Solutions team, decisions lacked user insight. As UX Research and Service Design Manager, I built the function from scratch. The three examples below show what it took: shaping research around a commercial need, building the team and its practice, and turning research into a service we could offer partners.

Role: UX Research and Service Design Manager
Company: Farfetch Platform Solutions
Dates: 2020 to 2022
Remit: Research and service design, reporting to the VP of Product

A grid of Farfetch Platform Solutions partners: a Browns store front, partner websites, a connected retail mirror in store, sneakers, and a luxury shoe department

Examples of the work

Diagram of FPS Optimisation sitting between Consumer Products and Platform Products, made up of data analytics, UX research, product design, product management and experimentation, with UX research highlighted across both

The business need

Shaping research around a commercial need

Farfetch Platform Solutions gave luxury brands, retailers and technology partners access to Farfetch's ecommerce capabilities to build their own channels. By 2020 the business unit was growing fast and wanted to broaden its offer with Optimisation, a package of services to help partners improve their ecommerce offering. I was asked to join and build the research function to support it. I started by assessing current practices and setting clear objectives. The aim was for research to improve our own product decisions and become something partners would pay for.

Framework titled When UX research adds value, mapping four types of research onto the double diamond: exploratory, evaluative, tactical and operational

Building the practice

Growing a research team

Within a year, I'd grown the function into a team of five. I owned the budget, from headcount to research tools and participant incentives. The work also covered hiring, onboarding, training and mentoring, and advocating for the team across the business. A research framework set out where research added value across the product lifecycle, from exploratory work that shaped the problem to operational work that improved what was already live. With the product team, we brought in shared tools and standard practices, set up research operations, tightened data compliance and guidelines, and created channels for sharing what we learned.

Connected Journey health check: a man using a connected retail mirror in store, over a service map of a style advisor's work across the shop floor, WhatsApp, the in-store app and the web

Research as a service

Turning research into a service we could offer partners

Research became part of the commercial offer. As a research-as-a-service package, it helped partners keep improving their consumer channels and digital experiences. Across 28+ projects, the work ranged from exploratory studies, such as why customers shopped at Browns and how they understood its loyalty programme, to operational health checks, such as how Farfetch's connected retail tools changed the relationship between style advisors and their clients. The research refined the Optimisation package and its revenue stream.

Outcomes

A research function grown to a team of five within a year
28+ research projects delivered for FPS partners
Research sold as a service, refining the Optimisation offer and its revenue stream

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