Enabling a legacy energy company to embrace a digital future
People
Reduction in front-end bugs, whilst streamlining communication across teams
Planet
Sustainable design system fully integrated, aligning with the company's goals
Profit
Reduced costs through reuse optimisation, adoption, and process improvements
How we helped develop the world’s most sustainable, award-winning design system, enabling the swift creation of world-class products, at scale.
Big picture
One of the world’s four largest energy companies, our client has a market capitalisation of approximately $100 billion and annual revenues of double that. Operating in over 80 countries with approximately 250,000 employees, the company’s vast size created a complex, change-resistant environment.
As the world shifted toward digital and carbon-neutral futures, transformation was essential. We stepped in to help the organisation prepare for a more agile and sustainable future through design.
Hurdles
The client’s intricate web of codebases, patterns, templates, and elements spanned over 200,000+ interfaces and more than 100 tech stacks. Design inconsistencies and disparate technologies were prevalent throughout the organisation, as global teams and the company’s international brands developed bespoke solutions in silos.
Furthermore, unique digital delivery processes within these siloed teams made operations and ways of working complex, complicating the embedding of standard to in-flight projects.
This created significant standardisation challenges and impeded the company’s ability to meet its net-zero goals. Simply put, a new digital approach was crucial.
Game plan
To support the organisation’s design-driven digital transformation, we mapped their technological landscape to gain a full understanding of their capabilities and challenges. By combining these insights with extensive research and leadership consultations, we developed solutions that addressed tooling, tech stack, governance, and a cohesive design system.
The result was a comprehensive library of reusable elements, designed, coded, and tested to the organisation’s standards, with sustainability at its core. This library promoted a structured delivery process that informed new ways of working and was complemented by a change management program to ensure continuous support throughout the transition and adoption phases.
The win
The design system was strongly backed by the leadership, paving the way for seamless implementation across a complex organisation.
Forming a blueprint for optimising design and business processes throughout the digital portfolio, it instilled sustainability into every project, measurably reducing carbon and decarbonising future business propositions. Designers and developers are now able to build rapidly and at scale, while ensuring quality, cost efficiencies and circularity.
To date, the design system has supported over 300 work-streams, reduced front-end bugs by 85%, and saved over $50 million through streamlined processes and improved efficiency. These benefits will continue to grow as the design system’s rollout progresses.
“It's incredible to see collaboration and innovation in action within an agile environment at this scale. I’m excited to see this ripple through our organisation.”
- Innovation & Engagement Leadership
Hurdles
The client’s intricate web of codebases, patterns, templates, and elements spanned over 200,000+ interfaces and more than 100 tech stacks. Design inconsistencies and disparate technologies were prevalent throughout the organisation, as global teams and the company’s international brands developed bespoke solutions in silos.
Furthermore, unique digital delivery processes within these siloed teams made operations and ways of working complex, complicating the embedding of standard to in-flight projects.
This created significant standardisation challenges and impeded the company’s ability to meet its net-zero goals. Simply put, a new digital approach was crucial.
Game plan
To support the organisation’s design-driven digital transformation, we mapped their technological landscape to gain a full understanding of their capabilities and challenges. By combining these insights with extensive research and leadership consultations, we developed solutions that addressed tooling, tech stack, governance, and a cohesive design system.
The result was a comprehensive library of reusable elements, designed, coded, and tested to the organisation’s standards, with sustainability at its core. This library promoted a structured delivery process that informed new ways of working and was complemented by a change management program to ensure continuous support throughout the transition and adoption phases.
The win
The design system was strongly backed by the leadership, paving the way for seamless implementation across a complex organisation.
Forming a blueprint for optimising design and business processes throughout the digital portfolio, it instilled sustainability into every project, measurably reducing carbon and decarbonising future business propositions. Designers and developers are now able to build rapidly and at scale, while ensuring quality, cost efficiencies and circularity.
To date, the design system has supported over 300 work-streams, reduced front-end bugs by 85%, and saved over $50 million through streamlined processes and improved efficiency. These benefits will continue to grow as the design system’s rollout progresses.
