John Deere Internet Strategy
In 2008, John Deere was struggling what to make of the Internet. With over 400 websites, dozens of ideas for new connected farming products, and too many teams with independent “digital” budgets, I led an interdisciplinary Sapient team to define the strategy to help the CMO and CTO get the most out of everything the Internet had to offer. As one of the few companies at that time who were truly “global” in nature, the project required a level of global customer research and stakeholder management that was rare at the time and continues to be so now. Core to the effort was understanding how to gather global research in a fashion that was both deeply customer-centered, yet drove the Deere business. As such, I used a combination of website information and their annual reports to create a map of their major geographies and business lines to drive the highest value research agenda.
That primary research spanned three continents and scores of primary interviews in farms, forests, golf clubs, and dealerships around the world, in addition to macro-trends research, subject matter expert interviews, and global workshops for regions which did not have primary. This authoritative fact base enabled us to define a strategy to help the myriad customers, the dealer channel, and Deere themselves over the next 3-5 years. Working with the Deere CMO and CTO every other week, we iterated an approach which was both visionary, but which would allow a company that thought in decades to accelerate.
Core to this complex problem was articulating an experience model for how to cluster customers and customer activities in a way which could be served with the same touchpoint and platform. Core to this approach was understanding customer types not by their industry (agriculture, forestry, construction, government. etc.) but by their needs and behaviors. The consumer or hobbyist farmer needed guided and educational content while large farming corporations or governments needed direct feeds (APIs) into their own systems to buy and request service. Their needs couldn’t have been anymore different but the platforms needed to support this full range.
The roadmap was both simple yet powerful. Great roadmaps aren’t complex plans, but a story for what would be accomplished with customers and internally. These phases were never intended to be purely consecutive, but highlighted where the priority investment would flow. One of the best days of my career was walking in the halls of the amazing Deere HQ (designed by Eero Saarinen) and hearing people who I had never met talk directly in the terms of the roadmap we had developed.
Our first phase suggested the Internet (and Deere.com) would be the number one Informational Resource to Deere customers. This was important as product information was often lacking timely accuracy and many times in the wrong language. This first phase would allow anyone around the world to get the most up to date information in their native language, with the right contacts with dealers to move forward. The second phase–Transactional Assistant–introduced direct dealer integration where configuration, shopping of product and parts could all be done digitally with Deere financing. The final phase–Business Platform–recognizes Deere’s unique potential relationship in their customers’ lives. Between what they offer globally, what their machines do for individual customers, and the opportunity of the Internet of Things, John Deere is absolutely someone who could help individual operators manage their business.
This is exactly what happened.