Installing the UX function in a postal subsidiary of the bpost group.

Industrial postal. A UX function to install.

At the exit · 76-page Concept Report signed by sponsor · 6 pilot clients validate the direction · 5 MVP Value Props prioritised · Shared Value Proposition Business + IT.

Freelance mission · 12 months · December 2024 → December 2025 · CX / UX / Service Design Consultant

Mandate · lay down the Service Design method, align Business and IT around the user, deliver a sponsor-ready Concept Report and an MVP prioritised in user stories. Technical context · IT in Agile transition, not yet SAFe.

SPEOS, a postal subsidiary of the bpost group. Large-scale document production for key accounts in banking, insurance, telecoms and energy. The UX function did not exist as a dedicated department.

The dedicated UX department pattern, deployed in large Belgian accounts, SPEOS chose to adopt. Catalyst · B2G PEPPOL mandate of 1 January 2026 and competitive pressure of digital-first players.

Two initiatives were under way · Archetype (E2M refactor, Angular) and Communication Platform (out of the Ethias tender, React). Same stream platform back-end. The direction sought a unified product vision · UX consultant onboarding registered in the 21 November 2024 exec review.

How I framed the twelve months.

From Business ↔ IT friction to an MVP everyone signs. Four methodological acts, co-creation workshops as the spine, customer focus as the shared compass.

At the exit: a one-stop platform MVP prioritised in user stories, signed by Project Owners (Business) · Project Managers (IT) · Operations · Sales. Six clients across typologies validated the concept, sponsor go for production. What follows shows what played out at each step.

Listen before drawing.

Management, IT, Operations, Customer Service, Production, Sales, Marketing · 20+ years seniority.

Understand how SPEOS runs its business, and what each role expects of a unified platform.

1. 01

   The CEO

   "We stay leader, but the market is moving. Digital puts us in frontal competition."

   Market vision and competitive vigilance. Wants a product that defends the leadership position before the B2B PEPPOL mandate on 1 January 2026.

2. 02

   The CTO

   "We have platforms per segment. They do not talk to each other."

   Fragmented historical architecture. IT freshly moved to Agile, still far from SAFe. Looks for a maintainable stack, not a patchwork.

3. 03

   Project Owners (Business)

   "I know what my client wants. IT does not listen to me."

   On Business side, owners of the commercial offer. Frustrated by opaque technical cycles.

4. 04

   Project Managers (IT)

   "Business changes its mind every sprint. We deliver fuzziness."

   On IT side, in charge of delivery. Frustrated by fuzzy specs, late feedback and political trade-offs.

5. 05

   Domain experts 20+ years

   "Everything is in our heads. Nothing is documented for a client."

   Tacit knowledge of the postal/print/mailing business. Living memory of the organisation.

6. 06

   Operations & Production

   "We absorb the misses at the end of the chain. Every day."

   The arm of delivery. Direct visibility on what breaks on the end-client side.

Six clients. Three segments.

Build-to-Mail · Easy2Mail · Channel · two accounts per segment · 22 questions, 6 themes

Internal experts read the organisation. Clients read the service as they live it.

The same six return for the final user test.

Three market segments. Three buying logics.

3 segments identified · Large Accounts (Build-to-Mail) · SMEs (Easy2Mail) · Integrators / Resellers · competitors observed in parallel (Easypost, Doccle, European digital mail platforms).

Three distinct buying logics. Large Accounts buy complex solutions with high compliance. SMEs buy standard, low-touch, autonomy. Integrators buy an API and documentation. One platform must serve the three without drifting.

Eight archetypes. Two illustrative personas.

Synthesised from the internal and field interviews. The map that prioritises the MVP, who we speak to and at which point in the cycle.

An end-to-end journey. Ten frictions mapped.

End-to-end journey. Ten pain points pinned where they block. Shared language across departments.

↗ Voir en taille réelle

From pains to chances.

10 pain points reframed as 11 opportunities. Five become MVP Value Props, six placed in MVP++ phase 2.

1. 01

   Enhanced Customer Experience

   Self-service, real-time tracking, personalized dashboards per segment.

2. 02

   Automation & Scalability

   Automate repetitive tasks, API integrations, self-onboarding for SMEs.

3. 03

   Multi-Channel Integration

   Email, SMS, print unified. Automatic fallback if a channel fails.

4. 04

   Data-Driven Insights

   BI reporting, client behaviors analysed, sector-specific insights.

5. 05

   Flexible Pricing Models

   Tiered Basic / Gold / Custom. Pay-as-you-go or subscription for SMEs.

6. 06

   Market Expansion

   Multi-language, multi-jurisdiction, country-by-country B2G compliance. MVP++.

7. 07

   Proactive Customer Engagement

   Predictive analytics, proactive alerts before the client calls.

8. 08

   Standardization with Flexibility

   Reusable templates + modular add-ons for Large Accounts.

9. 09

   Innovation in Product Offerings

   Consent management, drag-and-drop builders, payment integrations.

10. 10

    Unified Client Portal

    Tracking + billing + reporting + ticketing in one portal. Open API marketplace.

11. 11

    Competitive Differentiation

    Advanced analytics, fallback mechanisms, "One Stop Shop" positioning. MVP++.

The shared language. In workshop, not in canvas.

Two regimes · small targeted workshops with IT Project Managers for technical trade-offs, large Customer Journey workshops with Business, IT, Operations and Customer Service. Four formats, four deliverables.

1. 01

   Cross-department empathy mapping

   Project Owners and Project Managers at the same table. Each team builds the empathy map of a client persona, then confronts its reading. Immediate effect: people discover they talk about the same user, not the same contract.

   Output: 6 consolidated empathy maps · shared user language.

2. 02

   Customer Journey workshops

   Rebuild the end-to-end journey with the real internal actors (sales, ops, support, IT). Each touchpoint is validated by whoever owns it. Pain points come out in conversation and get pinned on the wall.

   Output: 5-phase journey · 10 pain points mapped · clear ownership per step.

3. 03

   "How might we" sessions

   Each pain point is reframed as an opportunity. The teams vote on the "how might we" worth an MVP. No debate on the canvas, focus on the prioritised action.

   Output: top 12 HMW · impact / effort scoring · VP backlog.

4. 04

   VP synthesis workshop

   The final workshop that condenses previous outputs into a single VP statement. Everyone defends, adjusts, signs. Out of the room = VP shared by IT + Business + Innovation.

   Output: VP in one sentence · alignment signed · go for Diamond 2.

Why these tools, here.

At SPEOS I didn't start with a Lean Canvas. I started with a Stakeholder Map and a Customer Journey AS-IS. Context dictates the tool, not the other way round. An early-stage organisation in digital transformation needs to see before it imagines. A Value Proposition crystallises after observation, not at the start of a session.

Two directions explored. One retained.

Two paths out of the workshops. Silo · each product with its own login, shipped in 6 months but reproduces fragmentation. One-stop · orchestrated host, persona-driven onboarding, API-ised capabilities, dev time doubled. Sponsor picks the second · tiered pricing opens the SME segment left to competitors.

Not a suite of products each with its own door. One orchestrated host, driven by persona and need typology.

From the document pipeline to the 5 Value Props.

Canonical pipeline · ingest → compose → distribute → archive. Five priority Value Props on that skeleton · Onboarding · Monitoring · Reports & Archives · Billing · Support.

Five Value Props forming a single experience loop. The client enters through onboarding, monitors continuously, archives proofs, pays for what they consume, and resolves incidents in self-service. The cycle loops back on the next product, the next volume, the next channel.

Six clients. Three segments. A pre-validated go.

6 / 6 validate the one-stop direction · Combined score 4.03 / 5 · NPS 9 / 10

Concept Report presented to the six pilots. In parallel, two Energy personas · Moustafa and Bogdan · test three prototype scenarios.

• 6/6 Clients tested across 3 segments
• 4,03/5 Validate the one-stop direction
• 9/10 Luminus reference · sponsor go production

The six pilot clients in directional validation

Six clients out of six validate the direction before development. The sponsor decides go-production based on the Concept Report and the SUPERQ test — combined score 4.03/5, NPS 9/10.

How Business and IT ended up speaking the same language.

Business Project Owner wanted sellable features, IT Project Manager a maintainable stack, Project Lead arbitrated the schedule. Two workshop formats bridged it · small IT workshops, large Customer Journey workshops.

Customer · Business · Tech. The triangle that rejected the false leads.

The platform only held if all three vertices won. An idea where two won and one lost was set aside. No compromise, no middle ground. Three criteria, not an average.

Any idea that didn't validate the three vertices was set aside. Three criteria, not an average.

Not an intention. A platform ready to scale.

Concept Report signed by sponsor. Six pilot clients validate. Prioritised Value Props roadmap, ready in SAFe sprints. Written production decision.

1. 01

   No longer dependent on the rent alone.

   The seamless print and digital multichannel frees SPEOS from paper-volume dependence. Pricing per channel and per typology becomes manageable, where the structural 8 percent yearly drop in Belgian mail would have made it untenable.

2. 02

   New market segment captured.

   The easy2mail tier (SMEs, pay-as-you-grow) and the marketplace API (Integrators) open two segments left to agile competitors. The PEPPOL mandate on 1 January 2026 catalyses demand on the Belgian mid-market.

3. 03

   Market leadership defended.

   Against digital-first players targeting SMEs and international players targeting line-of-business SaaS, SPEOS remains a B2G compliance pioneer and scales through API leverage. Position consolidated, not eroded.

Integrity note. Concept Report delivered and validated. Rollout moved into Agile sprints on the SPEOS side. What I claim stops at the exit: 76-page deliverable, six aligned clients, Customer · Business · Tech triangle in the green.

Three levers I would replay.

Six months after delivery, three choices still hold. Nothing to replay differently. Design found its place in the workflow and in the org chart.