Producers of animal food have little contact with the end consumer, let alone the animals they feed. Their contacts are limited to distributors and the resellers, and may professionals such as breeders and veterinarians. They wish they could converse with consumers like social networks that do see the shared pictures of their favourite dog, cat and horse. This way, social networks gather lots of intelligence about the animal friends, but they do not share any of that with the animal food producers.
This post shows how a food producer can become animal-centric and build communities based on the GABAC model, described in our post on How to scale the administration of access control? From experience we know that it is fine-grained authorisation using relationships that makes the system work at scale, reliable and trustworthy. In fact, the model has proven to reach top levels of security and privacy protection that are suitable for medical care. Thanks to this, consumers and professionals trust the system so they can share sensitive material.
Note that this post illustrates the model using the system we implemented at Royal Canin, member of the Mars Inc. group. We helped them launch and deploy this model whereby Royal Canin evolved from a producer of dog food to a service provider in dog care. Mars considered Royal Canin a pilot for further digital transformations in the group.
Illustrating the community building model
We’ll illustrate community building as a key differentiator using a story about BestCare, a fictitious platform for dog care. The story goes as follows…
“Imagine I’m a dog lover and like to buy a puppy dog of my favourite breed, the Labrador Retriever. I was told about a wonderful breeder whose dogs live indoors as family pets, have regular health screenings and are not overbred. So if I was really determined to get a dog from this licensed breeder, called Paul.
When I paid Paul a visit, it was clear he was specialised in breeding Labrador Retrievers and had a long history of breeding puppies. Paul showed me around and pointed me at one of the dog mothers. She really looked happy and one of her puppies clearly caught my attention: it looked very busy, inquisitive and had happy demeanour. The breeder saw my interest and asked questions about my knowledge and situation.
While I was talking, Paul took his tablet and entered my contact details. A few seconds later I received a message from him saying: “Hello An, thank you for your interest in puppy Prim3. If you want to see its profile and some photos, and if you agree that we keep your contact details, please click this link.” Of course I was interested and when I clicked the link, I saw photos of the mother, the nest and puppy Prim3. He was so cute. The breeder told me that the puppy needed to stay with the mother for another 4 weeks. This gave me the time to decide. In the mean time, Paul would reserve Prim3 for me until I signalled that I’d buy the puppy or not. I only needed to install the BestCare app and use it to confirm my purchase or decline it.
Of course I decided to buy the puppy. I used the app to confirm my purchase and to enter my address. I immediately got a confirmation back that the puppy was now mine, together with the health certificate of his parents and his pedigree chart. I could also change the temporary name Prim3 into the name I chose, namely Nura.
When I got home, my daughter was delighted and wanted to see Nura’s dossier using the same BestCare app. So, I invited her by adding her as my family member and entering her phone number. She immediately got a notification on her phone with a link. After she confirmed the relationship with me and her consent, she saw Nura’s dossier and photos of his first few weeks. She was happy she did not need to complete a lengthy registration form and she only needed to use her face-id. And as you can imagine, she promptly shared some of the photos on her Instagram.
To be sure, I wanted to arrange for a check-up with a veterinarian. Interestingly, all I needed to do was open the BestCare app and select one of the proposed veterinarians in my neighbourhood. I chose one and after I agreed to share my contact details with her, I was offered to select a slot for my first appointment.
When I visited veterinarian Thea, she already had my contact details on file, knew the name Nura of my puppy and got the health certificates and pedigree chart. After a full examination, she gave the mandatory vaccinations and chipped him. She entered some of her observations on body marks and behaviour and added the chip number and vaccinations to Nura’s health card. My little puppy was now officially registered, vaccinated and declared fit. I was so happy!
The veterinarian advised me to buy specialised pet food specialised for labrador retrievers and for puppies. When I went to the pet shop, the shop lady said that she could present me personalised offers if I’d invite her to Nura’s dossier. Which I did of course.
After a few months, the breeder called me and said that he was happy to see I was taking care of my dog. Paul had already seen that Nura had a clean bill of health and was vaccinated. With his first birthday, my pet shop sent me offers for toys specific for his age. I also got dietary guidance from the breeder and got a reminder from the veterinarian for his annual deworming treatment.
That winter, we wanted to go skiing and found it inappropriate to take Nura along. So we called a dog shelter and luckily there was room and they would take care of Nura. They also asked whether I could invite them to Nura’s dossier. That way, they’d have all my contact details in case of emergency and they’d knew what vaccinations he already got and whether he had allergies or so. Again, I was so happy everything went smoothly and safely without any complex forms to fill in.”
Building the dog care community
Using Nura’s dossier, we actually built a mini-community around my puppy with the breeder, me, my daughter, the veterinarian, the pet shop owner and the dog shelter owner:
Of course, breeder Paul will also have a community around himself with all the dogs he bred. As such, Paul is indirectly linked to the veterinarians serving those dogs:
A similar network of indirect links will apply to veterinarian Thea and the other veterinarians, other breeders, pet shops and dog shelters. What happens is that, over time, the entire ecosystem of dog professionals and consumers is being mapped with links between the members that have a real-life meaning:
Royal Canin implemented the dog care system as a SaaS solution serving the ecosystem (see the app here). Previously, Royal Canin only had contact with breeders and veterinarians as their customers and influencers. By deploying this Community Building service, they now have direct access with consumers and other parties in the dog ecosystem. And this direct contact does not at all jeopardise the role of their original customers and resellers. Even though their go-to-market model is still B2B, the SaaS service has clearly evolved to B2B2C.
So what happened behind the scenes?
When my puppies were born, breeder Paul created a dossier, named it Prim3 and linked it to the mother dog. The dog care system also recorded a relationship between Paul and the puppy of type ‘is owner of’. This allows him to update the dossier with photos and observations.
When Paul invited me, the system created a profile for me and set up a relationship ‘is candidate buyer of’ between my profile and Prim3’s dossier. When I confirmed my purchase, my relationship changed into ‘is owner of’ while Paul’s relationship changed into ‘is breeder of’. Because I took over ownership, it’s me who can now change the name and can add photos. Because Paul is no longer the owner, he can no longer change anything in Nura’s dossier, but he will still be recognised as the original breeder. This allows him to follow up on his dogs and see how they are doing on the longer term.
When I invited my daughter, the only thing I revealed was her phone number and the fact that the owner is my daughter. Not her name or anything else, so she could remain anonymous, which I found important since she is still a minor.
The system already registered thousands of veterinarians. So when I selected Thea and made an appointment, the system set up the relationship ‘is veterinarian of’ between Thea and my dog Nura. This allowed Thea to open Nura’s dossier and add vaccinations and medical details. Me, as owner of Nura, however, cannot change these medical details; this is reserved for licensed veterinarians only. I also cannot add prescriptions for specialised medicine.
Controlled AI services 