Coastal Empire Moto
Mapping Business Ecosystem
Service Design > Group Project > 6 Weeks
We were given the opportunity to map the business ecosystem of a vintage motorcycle shop, Coastal Empire Moto (CEM) located in Savannah, GA.
For this project we worked closely with the CEM team to study and create an "As-Is" and "To-Be" ecosystem map for their business.
My Role: Design Researcher, Service Designer, Documentation Compiling and Filtering Data, Client Interactions and Presentations and Poster Design.
Coastal Empire Moto is a full service shop specializing in vintage Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha, Suzuki, Triumph, Harley and BMW motorcycles. The shop only works on bikes that are ‘84 and older and mainly does service, restoration, and custom builds.
The shop originally had three founders but one left the business, leaving Mike Garcia and Aaron Reed to take care of the shop, resulting in a major backlog. Now that they have overcome this hurdle, they want to focus mainly on creating custom builds and in turn offer very selective service.
‘As-Is’ Ecosystem Map Guide
This map shows the ecosystem as it was when we entered the business.
When viewing, start in the middle with the two founders, Mike and Aaron. The lines from their icons lead to their individual tasks and collaborative tasks.
Surrounding them are the individuals that are also considered direct influencers and their jobs. The inner gray ring of shapes are the indirect influences.
The identified pain points are highlighted in white.
The colorful lines indicate the individuals connected to the indirect influences.
The gray circle behind all of the direct influences connects to moto-family at the top of the map since all of them are part of the “moto-family”. The owners are directly connected to every part of the business.
The red dots in the corner of each indirect influence also help to show the connection to Mike and Aaron.
We worked step by step with the CEM team to co-create the business ecosystem map and to identify the pain points.
After discussing the pain points, we identified an opportunity to develop an area of revenue by building on a concept of starting a coffee service within the CEM business frame.
Moto Go-GO
We scoped their location and recognized a potential to start a service like a coffee shop or restaurant. This concept would help alleviate the financial stress by providing a new source of income without taking away more time from the team’s working hours.
Honk For Coffee
In order to validate the shops desire to sell coffee, we conducted a survey of sorts. On 4 different occasions we stood on the road in front of the shop, where roughly 10k cars go by every day, holding a sign that asked viewers to honk their car horn if they were interested in coffee.
The purpose of this exercise was to find out if people passing by were interested in coffee along their commute. After doing research and polling we saw the potential for them to open a partial coffee shop.
With the implementation of new and improved signage, Coastal Empire Moto branded merchandise and the ‘Moto Go-GO’ concept we created the ‘To Be’ Map.
‘To-Be’ Ecosystem Map Guide
This map remains similar to the ‘As-Is’ Ecosystem Map. “Prior Commitments” and “Ronnie” have been removed as they no longer affect the business. The colorful lines connecting individuals and their areas of focus have been removed on the basis that the business is evolving in a direction that may result in the rearrangement of key positions.
This is also intended to allow the owners to plan and redistribute the work environment as they see fit on a day to day basis.
This map has new extensions to the categories of “Services Offer”, “Events”, and “Store Appearance”. These extensions represent potential solutions that could be implemented while explaining their value.
For more details about this project please take a look at our process book.