Braskem – Design Thinking Framework for Petrochemical

Braskem, through its digital innovation hub Cazoolo, faced challenges in digitalizing sustainable petrochemical products (green packaging). Development teams without established UX standards caused:

• High rate of rework on sustainable project interfaces
• Inconsistency in B2B experiences between engineering and operations
• Risk of delays in launching critical green innovations
• Absence of common language between designers, devs, and business stakeholders

Sacrificed: Individual technical depth and vertical specialization for each trained professional.

To gain: Massive organizational reach (40 professionals) with horizontal competence in consistent UX and scalable practices.

Reasoning: In the context of heavy industry digital transformation, it's more valuable to have many professionals with basic-intermediate UX competence than a few isolated experts. Shared framework generates critical common language for cross-functional collaboration.

Cazoolo's internal metrics demonstrated a 20% reduction in development cycles after framework implementation. Key indicators:

• Average UX validation time dropped from 3 weeks to 2.4 weeks
• Interface rework reduced by 35%
• 95% of new projects adopted the framework in the first 6 months

To ensure organic framework adoption:

• Service Design Mapping: Complete analysis of existing flows before proposing changes
• Code-Ready Guidelines: Practical templates ready to use in sustainable projects
• Hands-On Training: Practical workshops with real green packaging cases
• Champions Network: Identification of early adopters in each technical squad

Deliverables:

• Complete Design Thinking framework adapted for petrochemical context
• UX standardization in complex B2B environment (engineering + operations)
• Accelerated agile sustainability projects (green packaging)
• Technical documentation and recorded workshops for continuous onboarding

During framework implementation:

• Legacy team resistance: Professionals with 15+ years at the company questioned the need for "new processes"
• Initial overhead: First 2 months had a 15% slowdown while teams learned the methodology
• Infrastructure gaps: Some necessary tools (Figma, Miro) needed to be acquired, slow bureaucratic process

Learning: Involving senior leadership from the start would have reduced cultural resistance. Initial slowdown was anticipated and communicated.

With current GenAI technologies:

• AI Workshops for global scale: AI-assisted training would reach 200+ professionals across Braskem's multiple geographies
• Automatic framework personalization: AI to adapt guidelines by specific context (B2B vs. B2C, chemicals vs. packaging)
• Predictive UX analysis: AI to predict friction points in new designs before development
• Auto-documentation: Automatic generation of updated guidelines as frameworks evolve

Estimated impact: 5x greater scalability (from 40 to 200+ professionals) with same time investment, additional 10-15% reduction in dev cycles.