Investment strategy changed to aquisition after research showed the legacy software had low adoption.
A global company was about to heavily invest in rebuilding software when data showed almost nobody used.
A global company believed their legacy software was widely loved and were preparing a significant investment to rebuild it. They wanted to understand what users valued before making changes. The research told a very different story.
Approach
Executives and customer-facing teams believed the software was widely loved, while the product team held the opposite view. This conflict shaped the research design: users were segmented into heavy, light, and past users to test both beliefs against actual behavior, rather than relying on either side's assumption.
Users were segmented into heavy, light, and ex-users. 1:1 interviews explored their experiences and behaviours
Multi-year usage data was analysed to validate and quantify what the interviews revealed
What the data showed
7%
of users were frequent users of the software
50%+
used the tool once and never returned
100%
of interviewees said the dated design almost made them quit
Outcome
A company-wide assumption overturned: With every user reporting the difficult design almost drove them away, and usage data showing only 7% of all users frequently using the tool, the results directly contradicted the company's belief that the software was popular and well loved. Faced with this evidence, the company accepted that the software was not the asset they had assumed.
Costly rebuild avoided: Armed with this evidence, the company chose to retire the software and acquire another company instead. This was a cheaper and faster path than rebuilding the legacy system.