Introducing New Rain Data : A Case Study of Value Proposition Development for Ericsson Weather Data

Sammanfattning: A rapid development with many innovations has happened in recent years. Nevertheless, more than half of all innovations fail, why it is important to understand the customers: their demand, their needs and their benefits. Hence, the purpose of this study is to develop a value proposition for a high technological product in rain measurement, called Ericsson Weather Data (EWD). Since it is a technology-driven product, it is necessary to understand the potential customers to determine the product's market potential. Therefore, semi-structured interviews have been conducted with potential users in Sweden. The purpose has been to understand how they use rain data, which challenges and improvement opportunities there are with current rain data and which the most prominent value drivers are. Our empirical findings show that most of rain data in Sweden is free and published online by public entities. However, the current measurements are one-point measurements, which leads to information losses. This complicates the assessment of rain damages, why there is a great desire for increased spatial resolution. In addition, there is a need for better information regarding local cloudbursts. We have developed a value proposition, matched to the customers’ needs. EWD measures rainfall using the existing mobile network, which is more deployed and achieves a better spatial resolution than the traditional equipment. In addition, EWD measures rain data with an interval of ten seconds, generating tighter (more) information about local cloudbursts. As cloudbursts and spatial resolution were highlighted as the most important factors, a value proposition with resonating focus has been developed, meaning that we focus on these two factors.