Bus Uncle chatbot: Creating a successful digital business

• Main Authors: WONG, Yuet Nan, HOE, Siu Loon, ANG, Jovina
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2021
• Subjects: Digital Strategy; Chatbots; Design Thinking; Agile Project Management; Experimentation; Digital Transformation; Databases and Information Systems; Management Information Systems
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cases_coll_all/352; https://smu.sharepoint.com/sites/admin/CMP/cases/SMU-21-BATCH%20%5BPDF-Pic%5D/SMU-21-0004%20%5BBus%20Uncle%5D/SMU-21-0004A%20%5BBus%20Uncle%20A%5D.pdf?CT=1622088507434&OR=ItemsView
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This case study is set in September 2016 to April 2021. It describes how Abhilash Murthy used the Digital Product Management (DPM) framework to create the Bus Uncle chatbot and subsequently, to pivot to a successful digital business. The DPM framework combines Design Thinking, Lean Start-up and Agile methodology. It can be used to develop digital products and solutions in the private and public sectors. There are four distinct stages that correspond to cases A, B, C and D respectively. And there are supporting videos for this case. Case A: How Abhilash created the Bus Uncle chatbot and then rapidly re-architected it to scale after the chatbot went viral. Case B: How Abhilash started monetising the Bus Uncle chatbot through conversational advertising. Case C: How Abhilash built a chatbot agency to develop and implement chatbots for other organisations. Case D: How Abhilash created a chatbots-as-a-service platform called BotDistrikt to scale the chatbot business further. Students will be able to 1) learn about the DPM framework, 2) Adopt the DPM framework for developing digital products/ services, and 3) Understand why chatbots are different from other digital products e.g., mobile apps and learn about how to create a chatbot that customers want to use.