Do you go ahead and partner with Mobile Dynamics and participate in the Crop-2-Cup upcoming agency review

MANAGEMENT ISSUE: PLAY OR STAY

Crop-2-Cup, a DC&H agency client that operates 270-boutique coffee stores in major urban areas across four (4) states.Crop-2-Cup’s is known for its ethical and fair-trade practices in procuring coffee beans, a classic roasting process that takes place in each location and offers the purchase both bulk bean, specialty food and drink, and coffee “peripherals” in each of its retail locations.Crop-2-Cup is having tremendous success in it retail locations, however, the success comes with a price:during peak hours of operation, the speed of service (i.e. the customer “wait” time) is impacted negatively.

You’ve just returned to the agency from a meeting with the C-2-C marketing team, wherein they announce they want to begin developing and eventually test a mobile “app” that will allow C-2-C customers to “pre-order” and “pre-pay” their orders up 15 minutes in advance of their arrival at a C-2-C store. This will address the peak hour “speed of service” issues the company is currently facing and provide customers with a better brand experience.The C-2-C marketing team indicated they were going to begin testing the “app” in 40 stores in about six-to-nine months depending on development time and the outcome of beta testing in approximately eight of their retail locations. The client team also indicated that while they would be opening up the development of the new Crop-2-Cup mobile ordering “app” to three firms that specialize in mobile marketing program development and back-end operations, they want to include DH&C in the review given the strength, value and tenure of the C-2-C/DC&H relationship.

Given the agency’s current client base, DC&H has had plenty of on-line and social campaign development projects for clients, but very few in the mobile space. And what experience the agency has had in mobile has been limited to several “one-off” scope of work projects for clients where DC&H has partnered (on a “third party” basis) with Mobile Dynamics to meet the requirements of the various client projects. As a partner, the agency’s experience with Mobile Dynamics has been good, but not great.

So now you need to make a decision: play or stay.You know that DH&C does not have currently any staff that has direct, hands-on mobile/e-commerce experience and that you would once again need to rely on Mobile Dynamics as the agency’s partner on the Crop-2-Cup mobile app development project.

Do you go ahead and partner with Mobile Dynamics and participate in the Crop-2-Cup upcoming agency review for their mobile application project? Do you decline the opportunity to participate?What are the implications for DC&H in either case?

case_study_requirements_ management_issue__play_or_stay