Data-Driven Strategies Supported by Cloud Enable Digital Growth

For Brazil-based Alelo, a financial services company specialised in the management of corporate in benefits, incentives expenses for SMEs, leveraging the cloud and using a data-driven methodology to develop digital products proved essential in scaling up its digital growth. 

The Meu Alelo (My Alelo) project focused on developing a self-service platform to facilitate the daily lives of Alelo card holders. The goals of the project were to increase user satisfaction and save on operating costs with Alelo’s digital channel, working with their partner Cinq to develop the product.

Cinq worked with Alelo on the product development using a data-driven growth methodology that provided the space to create and test in small packages and leverage features as needed. 

“The data-driven approach enabled us to leverage the digital product to achieve business results in terms of conversion rates, retention and self-service expansion. It meant we had access to analytics and were supported with statistical consulting on the digital product metrics,” says Wilson Wistuba, Systems Engineering Superintendent at Alelo Brazil. The use of machine learning and natural language processing supported the development process and informed the user journey mapping.

“In the current context, products must be smart, and we need to have the technology stack, the data, and the people to make this happen” — Wilson Wistuba

“The approach has helped to support our digital transformation,” Wistuba adds. The digital product development combined the technology, business, and marketing components to enable Alelo to develop a product that really targeted the needs of their users at scale.

“In the current context, products must be smart, and we need to have the technology stack, the data, and the people to make this happen,” says Wistuba. 

Using this data-driven methodology enabled the company to use its knowledge cardholders’ behaviour to understand the kinds of features they might need. For example, Meu Alelo was able to translate the discounts from the Alelo cards into the app by understanding how cardholders were using these benefits.

The methodology informed the choice of tools for development too. “We use the features offered by the cloud to run our app. The benefit is that we are able to leverage the features without needing to run the system ourselves.” Wistuba cites the examples of Alelo’s use of image recognition, geolocation, and artificial intelligence, which are all driven by the cloud. The cloud provides the elastic computing needed to be able to upscale and downscale the environment as needed.

These technologies can then be integrated into the digital product seamlessly. For example, Meu Alelo’s crashlytics automates the process of reporting app crashes without users having to report it themselves. Cloud services like these support the broader development process and allow the product to be fully realized once they have been refined through the data-driven approach. Adopting the right methodology with the right partner and tools can play a significant role in the success of such digital growth, as was the case for Alelo.

Of the 4.2 million users of Alelo’s services, 70% used the Meu Alelo app. The project had significant results, increasing engagement with features that also generated revenue for Alelo. The project has also played a part in supporting Alelo’s change in business model to be able to better compete in a changing market.