OoBI started as an experiment in the labs of IDC, IIT Bombay and then grew to a pioneering company in New Media for Real estate domain.
I along with my class mate and co-founder Atish Patel, founded the company, designed and developed products suited to Indian market and consumers. The products spanned from Enterprise dashboard innovation to Multitouch Multiuser Hardware and software suite.
RealiT Surface was our flagship product catering to Real Estate sector. Surface enhanced the Customer Experience at property site office, by providing seamless conversation between home buyers and sales executives.
My Role
Tech, Product, Design, Operations, Team Management (HR), Finance (in sequence of priority and ownership) were handled by me. My prime objective was to make sure that we deliver out of the box experience every time, on time and with minimum over head cost. This meant that I had to understand the customer requirements clearly, translate them so that the entire team is on same page and achieves it with minimal effort and cost over runs. Employed a monthly self and peer reviewed model of monitoring company and team performance, which maximized productivity, while enjoying the work and reducing operational costs.
Have played instrumental role in mentoring team members (fresh out of college from remote areas) to deliver a world class product.
Designed company and tech processes to take care of repetitive jobs and reduce manual effort thereby reducing unnecessary mental strain and enhancing team joy.
Below is sample of work (all about Surface product) worth talking about
OoBI Surface
OoBI Surface was designed and developed in India with the aim to provide better Property Visualization and Presentation tool to real estate domain. The final product comprised of a Multiuser Multitouch Screen hardware along with software suite to browse and discover property details. The hardware was designed keeping erogonomics, interior of property site office, portability, and post deployment servicing requirements in mind. Hardware was provided in different format to suit the location of its use viz. site office, property expo, Head office or Sales Booth. Later, management portal was developed to allow management users keep tab on quality and quantity of customer conversations at site offices. Cloud based deployment allowed devices deployed across location to be in sync with the data with unique local copy, in case internet is an issue. More information and live photos can be seen on the website oobi.in
OoBI Surface Product Configurator
Some of the configurations visible on left side of the UI
The Problem
By the end of 3rd year of OoBI we were working with approximately 100 builders pan India, hosting 1000 projects and done close to 110 deployments. With change in geography the requirement for different types of Surface hardware casing and product offering increased. These ranged from different screen size, stand accessories, Package features. Though we started with custom casing and feature design for each customer, we found it operationally challenging and not so profitable.
Hence, we introduced customization by combination of standard parts. By combining 4-5 different parameters of the hardware casing and software features each customer were able to get a product unique to their brand.
The sales team however was finding it difficult to explain this to clients and also in creating a profitable pitch which was addressing the needs of client and increasing our revenues too.
Legal and Finance department wanted a thorough documentation of order cycle and delivery milestones for budget and compliance. The paper work was mostly manual and gaps in communication lead to descrepancies in Audit and compliance towards the end of the year. There was a dire need of smooth process design and automation.
Solution
This lead to Design and Development of Surface configurator. A one stop solution for sales team to make quick configurations of the hardware and software features and give it to client as PI.
Results
Rreduced the turn around time of getting an order from 15 days to a week while also taking care of Finance, Legal, Operations, and on time Delivery. Going forward the idea was to open this to end customer to configure and place an order online, taking off the sales channel and thereby automating the complete sales process.
My Role
Understanding the pain points, stakeholder requirement gathering, product vision and roadmap, Design and technical guidance to working with teams for product adoption.
OoBI Surface App Configurator
The numbers in the screenshot are dummy and for illustration only.
The Problem
With increase in sales the complexity of ordering and maintaining hardware components, managing timely assembly and deliveries, content production, and management of AMC became complex. Different departments of the organization like Sales, Finance, Legal, and Admin were involved in the complete lifecyle of OoBI product since. Hence, it was important that a singular process and tool be designed to take care of requirements of each of these departments while making sure the delivery is done on time and error free.
The Solution
A backend tool for operations and delivery team to keep track on new orders and subscriptions. Tha dashboard allowed to delivery and operations team to work in sync with Sales team. The proposals created by sales team for different customers were visible in terms of anticipated number of order as per the hardware configuration, which allowed operations team to place order of components before hand.
The Results
The portal reduced delivery time from 30 days to 10 days. This also made delivery team proactive in terms of assembling the final product testing them and making them ready for an error free delivery. By introduction of these tools lot of manual work which was done on Google sheets, became streamlined giving customer and stakeholder successes.
My Role
Understanding the pain points, stakeholder requirement gathering, product vision and roadmap, Design and technical guidance to working with teams for product adoption.