One freelance year to unify eCatcher, M2Web and Talk2M under one experience. On exit · €2M unlocked for production, and the sponsor moves up a grade.
Scroll · l'histoire
In 90 seconds
The problem
Ewon sold industrial routers. IXON arrived with a cloud-native platform on the same IIoT segment. Three legacy apps (eCatcher, M2Web, Talk2M) to reunify without breaking the worldwide installed base.
The tension
R&D, product, business, after-sales, support · five departments, five readings of the customer. Five voices to bring into the same room.
What I did
Twelve months. All department heads around the table in Customer Journey workshops. Nielsen Heuristic Evaluation on the screens. 8 machine builders tested across 5 time zones.
What came out of it
The sponsor brought the Concept Report to the executive committee. €2M budget unlocked for production rollout. The sponsor moves up a grade. Leader position defended against IXON.
The brief
Global Industrial IoT. eCatcher, M2Web, Talk2M to unify.
On exit · Prioritised Concept Report sponsor-validated ·design system ready for production·€2M unlocked for production.
Ewon by HMS Networks. Entity based in Nivelles, Belgium. Subsidiary of a Swedish industrial group (Halmstad), European leader in industrial communication. Four brands in total · Anybus, Ewon, Ixxat, Intesis.
Three legacy platforms to unify · eCatcher (desktop), M2Web (web), Talk2M (cloud SaaS). Platforms built for IT back-office, with no self-onboarding and no design system in place. UX, UI and user-centric culture to install in parallel.
Mandate · install Design Thinking, user culture and digital transformation into a historically IT-first organisation. Bring all department heads to the table · R&D, product, business · and produce a prioritised Concept Report that the sponsor could defend to the board.
The proposed roadmap
How I framed the twelve months.
From Business ↔ IT friction to an MVP everyone signs. Four methodological acts, co-creation workshops as backbone, customer focus as shared compass.
Research
Internal interviews · CEO, CTO, 20+ years experts
External interviews · large accounts + small accounts
One-stop platform MVP prioritised in user stories. Signed by Project Owners, Project Managers IT, Operations, Sales. 8 machine builders validate. Sponsor go prod.
The antagonist
While Ewon was selling routers, IXON was selling a platform.
Ewon has twenty years of loyal key accounts and the industrial promise that comes with it · supervising and controlling machines remotely, anywhere in the world. IXON, a Dutch cloud-native startup, had neither the history nor the technical debt. And the benefit of that absence of past · a product experience designed user-centric from day one.
Ewon (industrial legacy)
Three legacy platforms to talk to each other · eCatcher, M2Web, Talk2M.
Zero self-onboarding · manual start driven by sales.
No design system, no Angular front library.
Twenty years of customer loyalty, but SME segment eroding.
IXON (cloud-native)
One unified platform, cloud-native from day one.
Automated self-onboarding · the customer starts alone.
Freemium to capture the End-User Plants left aside.
Persona-driven · product designed per usage segment.
The gap to close was not business · Ewon machines run in production on every continent. The gap was UX, UI and user-centric culture. That diagnosis justified, at the end of the mandate, the €2M secured in steering committee to bring the concept into production.
R
Discover · Observe & UnderstandPhase 01 · ResearchYou are here · Diamond 1 · left half · 4 milestones
Phase 01 · Discover · 6 expert interviews
Listen first, then design.
Six department heads · R&D, product, business, after-sales, support.
01
The CEO
"We remain leader, but the market is moving. Digital puts us in direct competition."
Wants a product that defends the leader position against a cloud-native IXON.
02
The CTO
"We have platforms per segment. They do not talk to each other."
IT freshly moved to Agile. Looking for a maintainable stack.
03
Project Owners (Business)
"I know what my customer wants. IT does not listen to me."
Owners of the commercial offer. Frustrated by opaque technical cycles.
04
Project Managers (IT)
"Business changes its mind every sprint. We deliver fuzziness."
In charge of delivery. Frustrated by fuzzy specs and late feedback.
05
Domain experts 20+ years
"Everything is in our heads. Nothing is documented for a customer."
Living memory of the industrial organisation.
06
Operations & Production
"We absorb the misfires at the end of the chain. Every day."
Direct visibility on what breaks at the end-customer side.
Workshops hybrides · in-person + Teams remote. Six experts internes, huit clients dans cinq fuseaux horaires. Tous autour du même mur.
Phase 01 · Discover · 8 international customers
Eight customers. Five time zones.
Machine builders in Europe, US, Asia · all equipped with Ewon · 22 questions, 6 themes per session.
The six internal experts read the organisation. The eight customers read the machine as it lives at their site. Double listening that reveals the real journey.
None knew something was missing. All described it without naming it. The Customer Journey workshops put those words on the wall.
OEM Machine Builders integrate Ewon at order, high compliance. End-User Plants buy standard, workshop autonomy. Integrators buy API and docs. A single platform serves the three.
Klaus pilots 200 machines distributed across DACH. Sven holds the uptime over 5 time zones. Same anxieties, same phrases in the room. Both serve as a compass to prioritise the MVP.
01
Klaus · 48 years old
Plant Manager · OEM Machine Builder DACH
"When a machine drops at 3am in Atlanta, I need to see the Talk2M tunnel, not hunt for which login works."
Three logins · eCatcher, M2Web, Talk2M
Silently broken tunnel · the Flexy gateway loses the connection without alerting
Multi-site multi-timezone · 200 machines, no unified fleet view
02
Sven · 55 years old
Field Service Engineer · End-User Plant Operator
"My job is to hold the uptime of 200 distributed machines. If the monitoring tool does not speak to me, I am in the dark."
No fleet view · 5 industrial protocols, no cross-protocol dashboard
No audit trail · IEC 62443 obligation, nothing in the UI to produce the evidence
Slow onboarding · two weeks to activate a new site on Talk2M
R
A
Discover · DefinePhase 02 · AnalyseYou are here · Diamond 1 · right half · 4 milestones
Phase 02 · Define · Customer Journey wall
The wall replaced the PowerPoint.
Every department around the same table. Frictions are no longer debated · they are pinned.
Customer Journey Phoenix · novembre 2021. Personas au centre, frictions posées par tous les chefs de département.
Shared language. In the workshop, not on a canvas.
Two workshop regimes. Small focused workshops with IT Project Managers, at the whiteboard. Large Customer Journey workshops with Business, IT, Operations, Customer Service around the table. Four formats, four deliverables. The VP came out of there.
01
Cross-department empathy mapping
Project Owners and Project Managers at the same table. Each builds the empathy map of a persona, then confronts their reading. We discover we are talking about the same user.
Output · 6 consolidated empathy maps.
02
Customer Journey workshops
Rebuild the end-to-end journey with sales, ops, support, IT. Every touchpoint is validated by the person who owns it. Pain points pinned on the wall.
Final workshop · condense the outputs into a single VP statement. Each defends, adjusts, signs.
Output · VP in 1 sentence · signed alignment.
End of diamond 1
Everything converges on a single VP.
Everything converges on one sentence, not on a canvas.
12Expert interviews internes
10Personas testés terrain
10Pain points cartographiés
4Ateliers cocréation
Une seule VPÀ découvrir juste en dessous.
A
VP
Diamond 1 · crystallisationValue Proposition · pont
Not one platform per segment multiplying entry doors.A one-stop host, with onboarding driven by industrial persona, API-fied capabilities, seamless monitoring and diagnostics, ready for tomorrow's IEC 62443 / NIST / CRA compliance requirements.
Project Owners → self-service portal per persona·Project Managers → controlled IT back-office
The value contract
A platform is not five doors. It is an orchestration tuned to each machine builder persona.
An orchestrated host, two recognised personas, ten pains translated into five MVP deliverables, six more in MVP++.
01
The posture
Not one platform per segment. One orchestrated platform.
Source · Strategic Process Proposal HMS 2021 · Relevance · Simplicity · Consistency
02
The 2 personas who decide
10 personas tested on the field · 8 archetypes synthesised. Here are 2 of them, illustrative.
01
Klaus · Plant Manager · OEM DACH "See the Talk2M tunnel, not hunt for which login works."
02
Sven · Field Service Engineer · End-User Plant "Hold the uptime of 200 machines. If the tool does not speak, I am in the dark."
Three jobs-to-be-done · regain control of the fleet, reduce cross-protocol blind spots, hold IEC 62443.
03
10 pains → 11 opportunities → 5 MVP VPs
5 deliverables scoped for MVP, 6 placed in MVP++.
10 Pain Points
5 MVP VPs delivered
1. Time-to-Market
VP 01 Onboarding
2. Automation
VP 01 Onboarding
3. Customer Autonomy
VP 02 Monitoring
4. Fragmentation
VP 03 Audit Trail
5. Proactivity
VP 02 Monitoring
6. No Design System
VP 03 Audit Trail
7. Rigidity
VP 05 Support
8. IXON Pressure
VP 02 + VP 05
9. SLA Reporting
VP 04 SLR
10. Expansion
MVP++
5 MVP deliverables. Market Expansion and Marketplace API scoped to MVP++ phase 2.
Project Owners, Project Managers IT, Operations, Sales share the same sentence. Arbitration shifts from the "what" to the "when" and the "how".
Logical next step →Ideation · Develop · 2 directions explored, one retainedIdeation · 2 directions explorées, une retenue
VP
I
Develop · co-creative workshops · explore directionsPhase 03 · IdeationYou are here · Diamond 2 · left half · Develop
Prototype · first drafts
Two directions explored. One retained.
On the left · keep each platform in a silo. Fast, but reproduces the fragmentation. On the right · one-stop host, onboarding by persona, API-driven functions. Silo delivered in six months, one-stop doubled the dev time. The sponsor accepted · it closes the door IXON was leaving open on End-User Plants.
One door per product
Silo as-is
eCatcherM2WebTalk2MAnybusFlexy
5 logins · 5 back-offices · 0 vue globale
eCatcher
M2Web
Talk2M
Anybus
Flexy
Five apps, five logins, five supports. The customer juggles, IT maintains five stacks. The fastest solution, but reproduces the fragmentation surfaced in interviews.
1 gateway Flexy en fallback cellular, action requise.
Rapport SLA mensuel prêt à valider.
The platform recognises Joseph, his role, his segment. KPIs and notifications framed by his goals. One stack for IT, one platform for Business, one home page per persona.
Not a suite of products. An orchestrated host, driven by persona.
Phase 03 · Develop · Cloud Revamp
Three platforms, a single experience.
eCatcher, M2Web, Talk2M · three interfaces, one user. The Cloud Revamp brings them to converge around the machine.
Five Value Props · a machine builder loop. Flexy pairing, fleet observability, signed audit trail, reconciled invoicing, in-app diagnostics.
MVP++
6 OPPORTUNITÉS
Market Expansion · Marketplace API
Industrial connectivity · industries adjacentes
Phase 2 · roadmap horizon 2026-2027
VP 01 · Onboarding
Start without going through IT.
Value Proposition · verbatim Strategic Process Proposal HMS
Our industrial self-onboarding helps Plant Operators and machine buildersconnect a new machine without calling IT · accelerates commissioning on Flexy gateways.
01
Self-service Flexy connection
The machine builder configures gateways himself, no IT ticket.
02
Persona-driven dashboards
Tailored views for OEMs, End-User Plants, Integrators. The wizard knows who is in front of it.
03
Self-onboarding End-User Plants
Simplified process for plants without a dedicated IT team. Closes the door IXON leaves open.
Value Proposition · verbatim Strategic Process Proposal HMS
Audit Trail & Diagnostics help Compliance, Operations, Engineeringtrace every session and stay compliant · signed Talk2M logs, IEC 62443 and SOC 2 evidence.
Service Level Reporting
Service Level Reporting centralises Flexy uptime reports and connectivity evidence per site.
01
Audit-ready by default
Every remote session generates signed traces. Compliant with IEC 62443 and SOC 2.
02
Transparent tiered pricing
Basic / Gold / Custom by volume. Pay-as-you-go for End-User Plants.
03
Uptime ↔ SLA reconciliation
Every billing line points to the Talk2M logs. No more CSV reconciled by hand.
Value Proposition · verbatim Strategic Process Proposal HMS
Our integrated support platform gives more autonomy and fast resolution to machine builders and end-user plants on critical Flexy gateways · self-service portal, tickets, SLA, direct access to Halmstad Engineering.
01
Self-service portal
Tickets, live tracking, knowledge base by persona. The user resolves first.
Two capabilities identified in Discovery, placed outside the MVP. They only wait on the consolidation of the host to activate. Source · Concept Report · Opportunity 6 (Market Expansion) + Opportunity 11 (Competitive Differentiation).
01
International expansion
Multi-language, multi-region, industrial compliance by jurisdiction · IEC 62443 (EU), NIST (US), CE / FCC. The API stack and freemium pricing make expansion economically viable, where dependence on the DACH market used to cap it.
02
Marketplace API · Integrators
The 3rd Concept Report segment, Integrators and Resellers, embeds the Value Props into their own offer. The marketplace exposes the APIs, the docs and the partner pricing. Growth through leverage.
Roadmap 2026-2027 horizon · post-MVP rollout
Phase 04 · Deliver · 8 machine builders · 5 time zones
Eight machine builders validate. Klaus and Sven score the detailed grid.
Validates API. Reproducible across his SCADA/MES customers.
"For the first time, we had a customer signal before development. The sponsor was no longer asking whether the direction held, he was asking when the rollout starts."
I
CR
The sponsor's tipping pointConcept Report · livrable
Nothing more to imagine.The sponsor sees where he's investing, and six clients tell him it's worth it.
À gauche · ce que les utilisateurs ne savaient pas nommer. À droite · ce qu'ils ont reconnu instantanément.
AS-IS · audit NielsenTO-BE · design final
Phase 04 · Deliver · Heuristic Evaluation Nielsen
Vingt-neuf écrans. Vingt-neuf vérités à dire.
Le Cloud Revamp, audit feature par feature. Chaque slide nomme un AS-IS, une recommandation, une décision. Pas une intuition · une grille appliquée à toute la plateforme.
Two workshop formats bridged it. Small focused workshops with IT Project Managers to lock down technical trade-offs. Large Customer Journey workshops with all stakeholders to put the customer at the centre, not the org chart.
01Product Owner · Ewon Nivelles
« We're losing SMEs to IXON. »
Friction · cloud-native IXON was capturing SMEs with self-onboarding and freemium while Ewon was selling routers. The Customer Journey workshops on three industrial personas put the customer back at the centre of trade-offs, from field technician to plant director.
02Project Manager · IT · HMS Halmstad
« Three platforms, three roadmaps. »
Friction · arbitrating budgets between Anybus, Ewon, Intesis and Ixxat with a legacy Angular IT stack. The Heuristic Evaluation Nielsen scored on eCatcher, M2Web and Talk2M established the quantified gap that justified the catch-up.
03Project Lead · freelance
« Hold the mandate over twelve months. »
Friction · keeping R&D, product, business and after-sales around the same table without drifting. The AS-IS friction per platform, the measured TO-BE gap, and Agile sprint story mapping produced a prioritised Concept Report · €2M secured in committee by the sponsor.
04UI & UX · Ewon internal
« No design system, no library. »
Friction · three interfaces that had never spoken to each other · desktop eCatcher, web M2Web, cloud SaaS Talk2M. Unified prototyping and user tests scored across the three platforms validated the components to transfer to the production Angular library.
When the four roles saw the same machine builders at the centre · not the abstract customer, but the technician the Project Owners had observed across three time zones · the project became everyone's platform. Vision aligned. No more debate on the « if », a structured debate on the « when » and the « how ».
The arbiter of every decision
Customer · Business · Tech. The triangle that rejected false leads.
The platform only held if the three vertices won. An idea that made two win and one lose was rejected. No compromise, no average. Three criteria, not an average.
01Customer · 3 segments
One door, not five.
OEM Machine Builders, End-User Plants, Integrators. Three segments, three entries into the same platform. Onboarding driven by industrial persona, self-service autonomy, audit-ready by default. The customer stops juggling between eCatcher, M2Web and Talk2M.
02Business · Ewon by HMS Networks
New segment captured, position defended.
The cloud-native freemium opens the End-User Plants segment left to IXON. The unified portal across eCatcher, M2Web and Talk2M frees Ewon from legacy fragmentation. The IIoT leadership position against cloud-native pure players consolidates as a decade of industrial IoT growth approaches.
03Tech · IT & Engineering
One stack, not five.
Orchestration replaces the legacy silos. Layered API-fication, observable pipeline, automatic fallback between channels. IT maintains one platform, not five inherited debts.
Any idea that did not validate the three vertices was rejected. Three criteria, not an average.
At the end of the journey
Not just another report. €2M unlocked for production.
One year of engagement closed with a prioritised Concept Report, a production-ready design system, and all flows and prototypes tested and scored. The sponsor who hired me presented this work to his leadership. Result · €2 million in additional budget to take the concept to production, and a personal promotion.
01
Prioritised Concept Report, defensible before the sponsor.
All future services prioritised via story mapping. Cross-functional reading Business + R&D + after-sales. The document the sponsor took to the executive committee to defend the investment.
02
Production-ready design system.
Tokens, components, interaction patterns. All flows and prototypes tested with real customers, scored on Simplicity, Usefulness, Relevance, Reassurance, Quality. Not a design system intent. The material that goes into sprints.
03
Market leadership defended.
Against IXON, the Dutch cloud-native player targeting the same industrial IoT segment, Ewon established a defensible user-centric posture. The toolkit moved from supplier of technical tools to platform editor. Position consolidated, not eroded.
Integrity note. Production rollout ran in Agile sprints on the Ewon side after my departure.
What Ewon taught me
Three levers I would replay.
Three methodological choices still hold one year later. Mission held, budget secured, user installed as compass.
01
The toolkit, not the school.
Strategyzer, Customer Journey, Heuristic Evaluation Nielsen, Service Blueprint, Design Sprint, story mapping are tools of the same Design System. Mastery isn't choosing one. It's knowing which, when, with whom in the room. At Ewon, Customer Journey workshops + Heuristic Evaluation Nielsen + Relevance/Simplicity/Consistency framework had the right narrative-to-precision ratio to make three legacy platforms converge.
02
All leaders at the table, not one.
A pure IT company doesn't listen to a consultant talking only to the Product Manager. What tipped Ewon over · the Customer Journey workshops brought together R&D, product, business, after-sales, support — all department heads in the same room. The Value Proposition wasn't imposed by leadership. It emerged at the table where each one recognised their customer.
03
Test and score. Not test to reassure.
All flows and prototypes were tested with international customers and scored. A test that produces no number is not a test, it's a reassurance workshop. Scoring makes trade-offs defensible in committee, and that's what allowed the sponsor to carry the work all the way to the production budget.
Postscript · references
References available on request for a real project. The Ewon managers from the different departments — R&D, product, business, after-sales, support — know what happened during those twelve months. That's the material of Service Design: people who call you back.
2021 · 2022
