Co-design
Bringing ideas to life, collaboratively
You know your business the best, but sometimes you might just need someone to shine a light along the way. We share skills and knowledge for organisations to be empowered to solve their own problems, ongoing. We’re natural problem-solvers. We’re resourceful and we support you to take the action necessary to make an impact. So whether it’s as a workshop facilitator or co-design convener, we’re here to support you and set you and your team up to connect and succeed.
Case Studies
Launching a new luxury brand into the Australian marketplace
Vertically integrated hospitality investment and asset management company, Pro-invest Hotels (Pro-invest), in collaboration with InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), launched a new international hotel brand into the Australian market in 2022: Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants. The launch required a robust commercial strategy integrating sales, marketing and revenue to enable the hotel to successfully enter an already cluttered tourism market and succeed in an industry heavily affected by COVID.
OUR APPROACH
Pro-invest’s objective was to reposition an underperforming hotel from the luxury to the luxury-lifestyle category. This included improving the average daily rate and bringing it in line with other five-star luxury hotels in the market.
The goal of this project was to develop a commercial strategy and pre-opening plan that both the Pro-invest and IHG’s opening teams could advocate for and evolve. We did this by adopting a balanced approach to marketing, sales and revenue and taking both teams on a co-design journey.
We knew that the traditional model of hotel commercial planning wasn’t going to get us the results we were looking for. Instead, we co-designed and facilitated a number of planning workshops around hotel and restaurant design, brand positioning and development. Key to this was the partnership model we designed – one that identified and negotiated collaborations with key brand partners across each touchpoint of the guest journey. In this way, we were able to leverage and amplify the project’s reach.
IMPACT
The project was foundational to the successful opening of Kimpton Margot Sydney. One of the key elements of the project’s success was its partnership model which allowed us to position the hotel and deliver a high-return channel strategy. We identified these vital partnerships across all aspects and guest journey touch points.
For example, with a strong focus on restaurants and bars, Pro-invest partnered with world-renowned chef, Luke Mangan, to lead the culinary portfolio. This partnership built immediate culinary credibility which also drove the booking of rooms and events in addition to restaurants and bars.
By working with established brands like Luke Mangan, Egg of the Universe (wellness), Georgia Norton-Lodge (consumable art and design) and Mr Smith (award winning hair and beauty), and leveraging their brand strength and influence, we were able to significantly enhance the direct customer channel which was achieved 35% faster than industry standard.
Together we co-designed and launched a unique combination of luxury-lifestyle offering and highly curated partnerships. This collaboration has given Kimpton Margot Sydney the edge in a competitive marketplace and driven higher performance. These partnerships and brand associations have also played an integral role in driving the hotel’s distribution strategy with web (direct) being the leading conversion channel.
Designing the research needs for future farming systems
Sparrowly Group was engaged by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries QLD (DAF) to design and facilitate a co-design day for their smart farm precinct in Emerald - the Central Queensland Smart Cropping Centre (CQSCC). The objective of the day was to identify and design research themes to support the needs of future farming systems.
OUR APPROACH
Working with DAF, we set core objectives for the session. There were two - begin a long-term strategy of fostering a spirit of collaboration with stakeholders, and to identify the gaps and opportunities for research supporting agriculture in Central Queensland.
The co-design day was structured around three team-based sessions: ideation, qualification, and assessment. Instructional slides were developed along with team resources in the form of large activity posters.
A total of six teams were formed for the co-design day with mechanisms for continual shuffling to reduce the risk of groupthink and to optimise the allocation of expertise to the relevant problems teams were tackling. Each team was led by a facilitator that made use of a facilitation guide that we also developed.
IMPACT
The workshop was well received by participants and was acknowledged for successfully bringing together the latest information, technology and practices from government, industry, AgTech providers, producers, supply chain businesses and researchers.
The workshop output is currently being used by DAF to develop the future plan for the CQSCC.
