From Cube to Ecosystem: Building the waterdrop® Customer Experience

How can companies build customer-centric, future-proof business models in an age of AI while scaling across markets and channels and making sustainability a genuine source of customer value?

Since its launch in 2017, waterdrop® has grown from an Austrian start-up built around a small hydration cube into a €126 million global business spanning e-commerce, its own stores, retail partners and marketplaces. In this INTHECASE webinar, INSEAD Professor Joerg Niessing will be joined by Martin Murray (MBA’15D), Founder and CEO of waterdrop®, and Tina Scheele (MBA’02J), customer strategy expert and former Partner at Monitor Deloitte.

Using waterdrop® as the starting point, they will explore the broader lessons for both challengers and established companies: how to connect physical and digital experiences, use data and AI to reimagine customer engagement and personalization, evolve from products towards ecosystems and new business models and turn sustainability from a corporate ambition into meaningful customer value. 

Why participate?

• Explore how companies can move from products to customer ecosystems and new business models.

• Understand how data and AI can transform customer experience, personalization, and engagement – not simply automate what companies already do.

• Consider how sustainability can become part of the customer proposition and a source of differentiation

• Learn what established companies can take from digital challengers – and what challengers must change as they scale.

Further reading

• ‘Phygital’ Data-Driven Customer Experiences at waterdrop®: Building a Sustainable Ecosystem in the Beverage Industry, INSEAD Case study, 3 Mar 2026

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