3DE 9^th grade students participated in their second case challenge and culminating event to LexisNexis Risk Solutions on October 25, 2019, located, 1000 Alderman Dr, Alpharetta, GA 30005. Students toured the data center, where world-wide information is shared across multiple platforms and heard from an industry leader in cybersecurity, who conducted a variety of real-life scenarios.

LexisNexis Risk Solutions is a leading provider of solutions that assist their customers in evaluating, predicting and managing risk and improving operational effectiveness. The company is a part RELX Group, a multi-billion-dollar global provider of information and analytics for professional and business customers across several industries. Maintaining over 6 petabytes of data (including more than 78 billion records from 10,000+ sources), LexisNexis Risk Solutions uses the power of data and advanced analytics to help their customers make better, timelier decisions. Their innovative solutions enable organizations to manage risks like identity theft, fraud, money laundering and terrorism, and prevent financial crimes, and insurance and government benefit scams.

It also helps those without traditional credit histories obtain access to funds, assist agencies to find uncollected revenue, and research ways to improve business outcomes for healthcare companies. LexisNexis even works with law enforcement to solve crimes. LexisNexis’ solutions are used across a range of industries including: Insurance Solutions, Business Services, Government & Health Care.

The LexisNexis Risk Solutions software is used across a range of industries including: Insurance Solutions, Business Services, Government & Health Care. This challenge focused on the Insurance Solutions segment. The Insurance Solutions are software programs using advanced analytics applied to Big Data that provide insight to benefit insurance companies as they operate their business.

The Challenge

Our 3DE students were tasked to decide which of the three international markets, China, Brazil or the United Kingdom, should LexisNexis Risk Solutions expand its insurance services (home and auto), and provide a rationale to this solution.

The Solution

After reviewing the pros and cons for each country, students concluded that the United Kingdom had more advantages to provide auto insurance than Brazil and China. They examined culture, business profitability, and talent pipeline of each country. Students determined that because the UK has the fifth largest economy in the world and speaks the same language, the stable economy would allow them to adapt well to new policies. Car insurance would benefit LexisNexis because imports/exports would be insured if any incidents would happen during transport and while on UK roads. With LexisNexis expanding to the UK with the new Brexit deal, they could move forward into the UK knowing that they could implement trade with the US without restrictions from the EU. This positively affects LexisNexis because they can trade effectively, business wise, with the U.S. without high tariffs.

10th Grade: NAPA Auto Parts

COMPETENCY: Cultural Agility

This is the ability to assess situations and environmental norms to identify opportunities and threats and determine savvy strategies to address conditions. Individuals intentionally read context clues and identify stakeholder perspectives to swiftly develop or adapt techniques that foster positive relationships and drive optimal performance.

Challenge Theme: Shaping the Customer Experience

This challenge reinforced the importance of all interactions a customer has with a company during the customer lifecycle. Tracking through the customer journey of Attraction, Engagement and Retention, businesses shape the customer experience grounded in their desired brand.

3DE 10^th grade students participated in their second case challenge on November 8, 2019 with NAPA General Parts Company, headquartered at 2999 Wildwood Parkway, Marietta, GA. Students were provided with a tour of the facility, participated in a branding session, and learned of the inner workings of 21^st century car engines.

Formed in 1925 by a group of independent auto parts sellers in Detroit, NAPA has maintained its longstanding reputation as the go-to business for the everyday consumer and local auto retail shops. Its original mission, to improve the distribution of auto parts for the people and businesses who rely on cars and trucks for their transportation needs, continues to be its focus as NAPA adapts to the ongoing changes that time, technology, and growth mandates. Both a wholesale and retail distribution company, NAPA continues to be a competitive source for parts, thus maintaining its premiere status for quality parts, rapid availability, and knowledgeable people.

NAPA is undergoing a rapid digital transformation and wants to revive sales in its physical stores. In order to do so, they underwent a series of extensive customer research to better understand the automotive customers in the market, to expand their customer base, and to understand how to devise a retail strategy that attracts, engages, and retains their current customers and brings in a new customer base. The biggest obstacle is a linear model of the customer journey, one where the customer identifies a problem with their car, visits a NAPA “brick and mortar” or online store, buys the product and leaves.

There seems to be limited loyalty and a general feeling of unhappiness when having to purchase parts and repair a car. NAPA corporate leadership describes these experiences as “pain points” for customers. NAPA needed to find ways to remove those pain points from the car repair customer experience to attract, build and retain its customer base.

As a part of the Customer Experience Design Team, students used the results of NAPA’s extensive customer research and current linear customer journey map to identify ways NAPA can enhance the current touchpoints and/or add new touchpoints that will improve the customer experience.

THE CHALLENGE

3DE students were challenged to enhance (or add new) customer touchpoints to improve the NAPA customer experience for someone whose car has just broken down.

THE SOLUTION

The winning team improved the customer journey map by creating touchpoints that included iPads or tablets in stores to help customers find what they need faster. They suggested placing billboards in locations that had high traffic, which could be seen by a large amount of people. Finally, they developed NAPA T.A.P.P.A. (Tiered Automotive Parts Points App), which allows customers to become involved in a new and improved reward system. Those who are newcomers to NAPA would be given the standard level membership where they would be provided coupons and deals on upcoming products. Premium level membership would be granted for in-store purchases only, for those who repeatedly come to NAPA, by providing 10% off every product and them having access to the newest products at a discounted price. With each new idea, students were able to provide a cost analysis that included risks and rewards of each solution.