Helping a sportswear giant become customer-obsessed
Since 2017, Livework has partnered with adidas to place the consumer at the heart of everything they do – from budget priorities to creating a shared language and mapping meaningful customer experiences. This transformation has contributed to remarkable growth in online-originated sales.
When most people think of adidas, they picture iconic three-stripe products. But adidas hasn’t been merely a manufacturer for years. The rise of e-commerce has evolved adidas into a service organisation with direct relationships with both consumers and business customers.
Livework guided this journey through a six-year partnership – from initial explorations into cross-channel services to implementing a comprehensive integrated retail vision. We established adidas’ internal service design capability, creating an enduring ‘consumer obsession’ mindset powered by customer-centric journey operations.
“We have achieved great things together and we are only here with an internal team and established Customer Centric practice due to your expertise, support and guidance over the past years.” – VP Business Transformation
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Challenge
Positioning the customer experience as the common denominator
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To deliver exceptional services worldwide, teams need to collaborate across traditional boundaries and work towards a single, cohesive end-to-end experience–not just fragments owned by IT, Sales, Digital or Logistics departments.
Over several years, we supported adidas in developing a systematic approach to placing the customer at the core of everything they do. It began with a visionary leader seeking ways to transform an abstract customer-centric strategy into tangible daily practices for product owners.
“This project enabled us to bring in empathy and customer-focus into everything we do in the wholesale domain.”
Siddhi Saraiya- Senior Director Digital Wholesale
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Approach
From outside service design consultants to a permanent in-house team
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This transformation began as a grassroots movement, with Livework serving as external advisors focused on introducing service design through training, coaching and proof-of-concept projects within one department.
Over the years, we expanded our work outward (to different departments) and upward (from operations to strategic levels). This demonstrated the tangible and intangible value of customer centricity across diverse projects.
To ensure lasting impact, we embedded customer centricity into critical organisational routines, practices and structures – including recruiting and onboarding a permanent in-house service design team.
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Outcome
Turning strategic vision into lived reality
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We delivered over 20 service design projects, developed Customer-Centric strategies for both B2C and B2B areas, embedded Customer Centricity in business routines, and coached more than 200 employees—from product owners to change managers and senior leadership.
We’ve witnessed customer centricity evolve from a strategic imperative to something practised across teams every day. It has become woven into the organisation’s cultural fabric. In a recent company-wide strategic meeting, the customer took centre stage in all presentations, appearing in customer north star visions, journey maps, and even in the language used by presenters.
“Livework has been able to speak the language of our employees. They help us translate our strategic dream into operational reality in a very pragmatic way”
Peter Brook – VP Business Transformation
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Impact
From concept to delivery
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Today, most teams understand how and where they contribute to the customer experience, however indirect their role may seem. These teams are equipped with design tools to uncover unknown and unmet customer needs and integrate those insights into developing new services, roadmaps and strategies.
At the organisational level, we established systematic integration of the customer perspective in key change frameworks, decision routines and management tools. This included designing a customer journey architecture – a living library of customer journeys that serve as a single source of truth across the entire organisation.
“This project enabled us to bring in empathy and customer-focus into everything we do in the wholesale domain.”
Siddhi Saraiya- Senior Director Digital Wholesale
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