Smart Office
Mobile Application
A global management consulting firm needed a sleek, intuitive, and useful mobile app that allows their employees to connect and the firm.
Increase employee collaboration & efficiency
Our Client
A global management consultancy firm approached Dom & Tom with a request for a suite of best-in-class, forward-thinking, mobile Internet of Things (IoT) applications that would revolutionize their brand new office located in Manhattan, New York. The firm sought to redefine what a truly connected and collaborative modern office can be by unlocking the best part of their company, their employees, and their culture. The vision was to facilitate and foster collaboration across groups, locations, and business applications.
The Goal
The client knew that opening a new space would be a challenging endeavor, with primary concerns revolving around their employees’ use of the advanced technology in the new location, employee collaboration and culture, and the efficient use of the new space. The new office brought with it a suite of new technologies and processes, with which many employees were unfamiliar, and they wanted to make the transition as easy as possible for their team. Dom & Tom’s challenge was to alleviate these pain points and streamline the transition to the new space while providing increased employee collaboration and efficiency.
In addition to the goal of creating an iPhone application, Dom & Tom built an iPad application which works in conjunction with the iPhone app. By simply tapping their iPhone to the workstation iPad, a user can instantly claim the desk as their workstation for as long as they need.
Once checked in, the iPad’s function as digital signage, showing the name of the employee at the desk, and even a slideshow of the employee’s favorite photos – simultaneously providing both utility and delight. Employees can reserve desks, workspaces and conference rooms, access a technology guide for the office, and quickly learn about their colleagues’ interests, skills, and hobbies all from both the iPhone and iPad applications.
Our Plan & Process
Dom & Tom’s plan was to build a product that would be minimally intrusive to the user’s current process and workflow while providing maximum benefit. The process began with an in-depth discovery period, during which user interviews were conducted. The user interviews allowed Dom & Tom to gain insights to users pain points and the overall goals of the executives.
The application uses the Internet of Things (IoT) for the connected employee lockers which are activated using the iPhone application. Within the iPhone application, employees are empowered to find each other across the multiple floors of the new office. Users can check to see if their colleagues are currently in or out of the office, as the application incorporates geographical region monitoring. As users check in to their workstations, they will appear on a map of the office which is accessible in the iPhone application. Using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) users can check into any workstation by tapping their iPhone to the iPad at the convertible desks.
The Results
The Dom & Tom team successfully built an iPhone application that was deployed to all 500-plus members of the clients New York office, as well as an iPad application that is available at every workstation within the expansive six floors of their NY headquarters.
The iPhone application plays a significant role in the daily lives of the 500 New York-based employees by unlocking their culture and creating natural and organic collaborations. The client’s office is located on six floors and takes up 193,295 square feet of space. With features like mobile access to in-office lockers, meeting room and workspace reservation and check-in, locating and connecting with co-workers, and location-based contextual messaging.
Dom & Tom is actively collaborating with the client to continue gathering user feedback and working on further updates to the iPhone and iPad applications and additional integrated products that will steadily add functionality and increasing overall value to the culture and community at the firm.