DISCOVERY & STRATEGY
Plan For Clarity.
Build With Confidence.
Most digital projects fail because they begin with assumptions rather than facts.
Acro Commerce's 4-step Discovery & Strategy Framework gives you a proven way to uncover buyer needs, align teams, and create a build-ready roadmap before you commit budget, time and effort.
Why start with Discovery & Strategy
"Most digital projects miss because planning is thin:
47% of unsuccessful projects fail due to poor requirements."
Our framework replaces guesswork with a structured process that ensures your investment delivers:
- By identifying friction for staff and customers
- By aligning IT, operations, and sales around shared priorities
- By validating concepts before building
Stakeholder and User Interviews
- Understand priorities and goals
- Identify pain points
- Gather perspectives
- Uncover assumptions
- Align expectations
Discovery Exercises
- Conduct a technical audit
- Draft a content inventory map
- Review brand guidelines and design references
- Website analytics review
- Conduct market research and competitor analysis
“Discovery & Strategy gives our clients the clarity to move forward with confidence. By mapping priorities, risks, and opportunities first, we create a foundation that makes every build more effective and every investment easier to measure.”
— Charlee Eason, Acro Commerce Account Manager
User Personas
Identifying user needs to establish project requirements.
- Humanize the audience
- Expose different user types
- Align the team
- Guide decision-making
- Support user-centred design (UCD)
Sitemap Diagram
A sitemap provides an essential blueprint for website development projects. It's a foundational tool that brings value to every stage of a project.
- Clarify structure
- Align stakeholders
- Support user experience (UX)
- Guide design and development
- Identify gaps or redundancies
User Workflows
Identifying the path users will take to achieve a certain outcome.
- Understand user goals
- Expose friction points
- Clarify step-by-step journeys
- Improve conversions and usability
Systems Overview
A high-level view of the project systems, used to guide the project team through development.
- Identify required functionality and integrations
- Plan for scalability, security, and performance
- Identify dependencies and risks
- Facilitate maintenance and onboarding
- Guide development
Technical Architecture
A technical architecture provides the blueprint for a system's underlying structure, outlining its technologies, components and interactions.
- Map data model
- Plan development of custom features and functionality
- Define user roles and permissions
- Plan for the digitization of business processes
- Define a data migration plan.
Prototyping
Prototypes enable early concept testing and validation with stakeholders, providing a tangible vision that improves communication and alignment.
- Design iteratively
Facilitates rapid design refinement based on feedback, creating a more user-centred product. - Reduce risk & cost
Catches flows early, preventing expensive changes and rework later in the development process. - Enhance user experience
Focuses on user flows from the outset, leading to more intuitive user flows.
User Interface Design
Creative design concepts are used to establish the overall look and feel of the site's user interface.
- Establish a cohesive visual identity
- Prioritize user experience (UX) and user interface (UI)
- Design a responsive website layout
- Integrate innovative, engaging elements
- Create a visual guide for development
“The roadmap showed us exactly what to build and what to leave for later. That alignment was worth the investment on its own.”
— Mark Alvarez, Director of Digital Strategy, Northern Supply Group
Project Roadmap
This foundational work is vital for minimizing risks, maximizing efficiency, and delivering a successful website.
- Identify MVP and go-to-market requirements
- Prioritize features and functionality to guide development
- Determine project scope and contingency
- Estimate timeline and budget
- Plan future site optimizations and maintenance
Commerce packages
I want a commerce solution that fits my business.
Functionality packages
I want to extend the capabilities of my systems.
Experience packages
I want to improve our buyer experience.
Discovery & Strategy is a fixed-scope, predictable package, so you know exactly what’s included.
Interested, but would rather start small?