Mahindra & Mahindra is one of the most iconic business houses in India. They run successful businesses across industries such as Automobiles, IT, Aerospace, Retail, Logistics, Renewable Energy, and many more.
In January 2013, the Mahindra group unveiled its new brand philosophy called ‘Rise’.
To ensure the 5000-plus staffers across businesses are on the same page, the Human Resources department at Mahindra Partners (a division of M&M), approached Bitkraft Technologies to create a mobile app.
The Project Brief
The project brief was simple – to create a gamified app that at its heart inspires Mahindra Partner employees, across 8 companies, to strive towards the ‘Rise’ Philosophy. The app would be a social media app where teammates can share ‘Rise Moments’ — special achievements both professional and personal — of their own and of others in their teams.
The Concept of Mobile App
Bitkraft Technologies worked with the Mahindra Partners team to create a concept of ‘Rising up’ through the peaks of the Himalayas when they shared their Magic Moments. Every Rise Moment shared would give them steps up the various peaks of the Himalayas.
Points were also given when users liked or commented on the Rise Moment posts of others. This not only encouraged users to be competitive but also be empathetic and appreciate the work and achievements of their teammates.
The entire ‘game’ was played across a one-year period.
Experience Design
We had various iterations of the design, to get the branding and the graphics right. Bitkraft Technologies created mock wireframes to capture the application features and workflows.
Mockup of various screens to capture functional features and workflow
This stage was critical to get stakeholder feedback and also crystalize the ideas and vision of the Mahindra Partners team towards a final product. This was helpful also to the UI design and Development teams as they were able to visualize the end goal and work towards it.
Rich Graphics & Animations
One of the requirements was to create a cinematic animation of the ‘Rise’ experience on the mobile app start, with a dynamic countdown clock (for two years) to encourage users to participate in the timeframe provided.
To achieve this we created an entire CSS-driven animation that acted as an opening splash animation for the app. It also allowed dynamic content to be part of the animation sequence, which could not be done using a video-based approach.
Showing Progress in Style
The progress on the mobile app had to be shown to users in an encouraging and inspiring way. To achieve this, the design team conceptualized a screen with a mountain face, with campsites as you scroll up.
Users at the same progression level would be at the same campsite. The immersive experience of seeing other teammates on the campsite up the peaks made it exciting and encouraged users to participate.
As users completed each peak the next peak would unlock, the final peak was the majestic Mount Everest.
Leveraging Technology
The MissionRise mobile app was developed for Android and iOS phones using a single code base. To provide the rich graphical user interface and animations as we used the Ionic Framework which is a web-based hybrid framework. This allowed us to push our creativity with animations using CSS and HTML5 and videos to deliver a rich immersive experience.
Real-Time Notifications
To improve user engagement on the app, push notifications were implemented to notify users about important events in real time. Users were notified when there was a Like or Comment on their posts, or when there was a post tagged with the Rise Attribute they were following, or when they were tagged or mentioned in a Rise Moment, and so on.
SMS Authentication
The Mission Rise mobile app was designed for employees across Mahindra Partner companies. Some did not have email IDs. To overcome this limitation, an SMS-based OTP login system was implemented.
User Management and Reporting
User Management and Reporting
Detailed reports for user downloads, app activation, and usage on the app were available on the admin panel. This provided a deeper insight into the usage of the app and allowed the team to make informed decisions on internal campaigns for app adoption drives.
Broadcast Messages and Reminders
The admin panel also allowed sending of broadcast messages that could be ad-hoc or scheduled for a particular time of day. Recurring automated messages and reminders to users to share updates on the app could also be set up.
This enabled the HR team to easily coordinate campaigns and make announcements. The app reminded users to check in on the mobile app regularly so participation was improved.
What the Mahindra Rise Team Had to Say?
The Mission Rise Mobile App built by Bitkraft was a successful campaign for us. It brought the new Rise Philosophy to the team on a day-to-day basis. The gamification, rich graphics, and animations excited the users and the large-scale participation we enjoyed is a testament to that.
What I loved about working with the Bitkraft team was that they always brought fresh ideas to the table during the initial conceptualization that were innovative, well thought through, and executed perfectly. This is something rare to see in a technology partner.
With Bitkraft you are assured that your project will be cutting-edge, beautifully crafted, and fun to work on too!
— Rustom Vesavevala
Next Step
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