OBOS: – Multidisciplinarity is absolutely fundamental

Since 2018, Forte Digital has worked closely with OBOS on several major digitization projects. Warloe currently has overall responsibility for the teams building OBOS's new content platform.

– The best thing about my job is that I can work broadly with different business areas and try to stitch this together into something that makes sense for the end user. It is incredibly fun to be involved in creating the next version of OBOS in digital surfaces. Understanding user needs and translating this into solutions and services, has been a common thread throughout my career, says Warloe, who has experience from both banking and grocery retail.

"OBOS is one of the largest house builders in the Nordics with over half a million members. A lot has changed since OBOS was established in 1929, but one thing remains constant: The main goal is to build good homes for our members," is a quote from OBOS's new website, which Forte Digital has helped build.

Creating better digital member services is one of the most important goals for OBOS, explains Warloe.

– Together with Forte Digital, we work on digitizing the entire purchasing process. This means that members can buy a home completely digitally and that we have control over the data that flows into the back-end systems. This was previously a manual and cumbersome process for the end user and employees. Now, for example, submission of purchase intent is fully automated. It has obviously resulted in a better and seamless customer experience for our members, says Warloe.

When OBOS began their partnership with Forte Digital back in 2018, the aim was to design an overall concept and technical architecture for web and app, as well as create an updated and more functional publishing solution.

The result is a completely new content platform that will provide better user experiences for members across OBOS's various digital surfaces.

– The overarching goal is to gather everything in one place and work according to headless principles. With our new content platform, which is built based on these principles, we can present the same content in different channels. In practice, this means that we can create seamless, good customer journeys that convert better across different digital channels.

The content platform is only one of the solutions being built. Warloe explains that OBOS is also working on developing a digital service platform as a central link in the digital transformation. She highlights speed as one of the most important advantages of the platform.

– The content platform and the digital service platform give us a new speed, so that we can quickly launch new services for our members. Along the way, we have seen that it was appropriate to replace the CMS, from Epi to Sanity. This type of change in the technical solution is easier when we have a good underlying architecture that enables us to introduce new modules gradually and phase out old ones. The digital service platform is also absolutely essential for collecting data for personalization.

At Forte Digital, we believe the development of digital services and products is best done in interdisciplinary teams consisting of designers, technologists and business developers who share a common goal and desire to create the best solutions for our clients and their end users. Interdisciplinary product and service development is an approach that OBOS has also adopted.

– With an interdisciplinary team, we can solve a problem in its entirety. It is absolutely fundamental. With us, UX, developers, content advisors and business developers work closely with the product owner to solve the challenges we face. The consultants from Forte Digital are part of this team. They are simply extremely skilled, knowledgeable and take initiatives that pull us in the right direction, concludes Warloe.