A new foundation for enterprise UX.

The opportunity

Sungard Availability Services needed to overhaul a legacy product suite that was poorly aligned with customer and stakeholder needs. The original case study describes annual customer attrition of 60% at the starting point and identifies Sungard AS as a $1.4 billion company at the time. Those figures provide historical business context, not results of the redesign.

Its product division supported business continuity and resilience solutions in connection with cloud-based monitoring programs. Product design was largely engineering-led within a traditional waterfall process, with little customer or user research informing the roadmap.

Establishing a global UX practice

Leadership recognized that the existing approach limited innovation and the ability to meet changing customer needs. The VP of Product Management brought Patrick in to establish an enterprise UX practice and help change how products were conceived, built, and delivered.

As Head of Enterprise User Experience, Patrick built Sungard’s first global UX practice. He hired, developed, and mentored more than ten UX professionals across multiple regions, establishing clear roles in user research, interaction design, and product design.

Giving customers a role in the roadmap

Patrick created a Customer Charter Team and hired a dedicated user research group. Qualitative and quantitative methods, together with customer journey analysis, ensured that customer evidence informed both product-roadmap decisions and strategic priorities.

This gave the organization an ongoing research capability and established UX as a strategic business function within the enterprise.

Bringing design into delivery

Patrick introduced Agile and Lean UX methods, embedding iterative design into Scrum-based development. The approach improved collaboration between disciplines and supported faster, higher-quality product development.

He also led the development of a comprehensive product design system. Together with the agile UX process, it enabled teams to design, validate, and launch solutions within predictable release cycles.

Connecting the brand and product experience

Patrick led brand strategy and product design initiatives to strengthen brand preference and align the experience with Sungard’s evolving cloud-based portfolio. Shared design standards and clearer professional roles helped deliver a consistent, customer-centered experience across the enterprise product suite.

The outcome

The engagement elevated design maturity and changed how design and development teams worked together. Customer research became part of the roadmap, and the organization gained a global UX practice, a design system, and an iterative delivery model.

The original case study credits this work with helping deliver a product recognized as “Product of the Year” and positioned as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Continuity and Resiliency Solutions.