Co-developing the product customization services for Aida Impact

Abstract

The current environment is immersed in a rapid and continuous change, where companies have to develop or innovate services in order to satisfy the user needs. To reach this requirement, it is important to make the services understandable and easy to purchase. The topic of this master’s thesis revolves around evaluating and developing the existing services offered by Aida Impact. The company produces handmade jewelry manufactured from precious and semi-precious materials by immigrant women in its Helsinki based studio. Along with exclusive jewelry, Aida Impact further offers various interactive workshop events and product customization services. These events were designed with an effort to promote social inclusion, brand identification, and overall brand experience. The study focuses on the core elements of an offered service, which is product customization, value co-creation, customer experience and service design process. The research methods used during the thesis project were a blend of literature study, contextual and in-depth interviews, preparatory research, co-design workshops, brainstorming, prototyping, and piloting. Service design processes and methods have been used to bring a customer-centric view to the service/product. Through the study, I am hoping to confirm that the product-oriented company can develop a profitable business model and promote its mission via co-creative brand services. The outcome of the project is a new service concept, which the company could continue to keep in the assortment or further update it to a final improved version after successful testing.