Context

Small business owners rely on their vehicles to keep their companies running, yet fleet offerings rarely meet the realities of running day-to-day operations. Ford Pro wanted a clearer understanding of what these businesses needed beyond the vehicle itself, especially for owners managing small teams, unpredictable job schedules, and tight margins. The project began as a discovery sprint to uncover service gaps and explore new partnership models for an overlooked customer segment.

Challenge

Small business owners were underserved across both product and service experiences. They lacked tools that supported operational oversight, job coordination, and vehicle visibility. Ford Pro had ideas about where they could add value, but no clarity on which needs were most urgent or how to translate those needs into viable software or partnership solutions. This raised a central question:
How might we design a business management experience that supports small business owners with simplicity, clarity, and real utility?

Outcome

The work produced new partnership models, multiple patent pending service concepts, and six digital prototypes. One of these prototypes became the foundation for an in-vehicle business management feature and received early executive approval along with accelerated funding for phase two development.

The project also influenced Ford Pro's internal approach to innovation. Co-creation became a standard practice and small business owners were recognized as a key strategic growth segment.

Approach

The project was designed as a participatory innovation sprint:

1. Embedded research with small fleet owners to capture real operational behaviors, decision patterns, and ecosystem pain points

2. Co-creation workshops where owners shaped service ideas and tested workflow assumptions

3. Rapid prototyping to evaluate needs related to task management, driver visibility, vehicle health, and job tracking

4. Business and product alignment sessions to prioritize value and assess feasibility

5. Synthesis into actionable opportunity areas that connected customer insights to service and product direction

This collaborative model generated meaningful IP, strengthened customer trust, and guided the strategic vision for future small business offerings.

Strategic Levers

Behavioral insight
Understanding how owners actually run their operations revealed opportunities for service and product value that traditional research methods could not surface.

Co-creation as a relationship tool
Working side by side with owners accelerated trust, informed better decision making, and resulted in concepts strong enough to move into patent filing.

Unified customer and business value
Each solution addressed a real customer need while also supporting Ford Pro's goals for retention, loyalty, and ecosystem growth.

Simplicity at scale
The concepts were intentionally built for small fleets and designed to scale into enterprise environments without losing clarity.

Prototype driven alignment
Turning insights into tangible prototypes helped executives align quickly and greenlight the next phase of investment.

For Full Case Study reach out to me.