From Insight to Impact

Overview

In the world of B2B platforms, where seamless interaction and financial trust is central, we partnered with Bank 1 as their experience strategists and set out to create an opportunity that could get Bank 1 to the next stage of their joint venture. As the lead designer, my journey was not just about designing new features for the platform but understanding how wholesalers and outlets could better work together.

What was my role

Design lead
Research
Prototyping
Usability Testing
‍Facilitation
Recommendations

As the Lead Designer, my responsibility was to spearhead the design efforts to align our client's functionalities with the users' needs and business goals. This involved an extensive collaboration with a product manager and various stakeholders to deep-dive into the platform's user experience and identify key areas for improvement.

The Challenge

The primary challenge was the difficulty in attracting new outlets to our clients platform. One of our client's main goals were to make it so that wholesalers could easily onboard outlets to their existing platform without the need for our client to step in. The prevalent use of informal communication channels like WhatsApp for orders underscored a significant gap in the platform's offerings. Moreover, the lack of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) integrations posed considerable hurdles in onboarding and managing outlets, affecting the overall user experience negatively.

The Process

We initiated the project with an Assumptions workshop to highlight and prioritize high-risk assumptions before proceeding with any of the interviews. This would help us gain an understanding where our clients assumptions were compared to their customers. After we had collected enough research we could really see how most of our assumptions started to shift and help understand which areas we needed to focus on. Some were still left uncertain as we didn't have enough time or interviewees to collect enough data.

Our assumptions before and after the user interviews

User Research

In total we conducted twelve in-depth interviews to refine our understanding and prioritize user needs. These interviews were with both wholesalers and outlets to get a better understanding of the pain points from both sides. Using Dovetail we were able to rank the interviewees needs in order of importance and surfaced frequency as well as distinguishing key themes across both wholesalers and outlets.

As we were partnering with a bank to find a opportunity, the financial possibilities were always at the back of our minds when thinking of a solution. This dd however, not stop us in finding other ways to improve the overall experience.

Key Themes & JTBD

After all interviews were done we use Dovetail again to identify key themes across different categories that stood out to us. Based on our collective goals we identified tangible opportunities to boost the confidence of our clients customers. These included:

  • Procurement and order management

  • Streamline experiences like onboarding through better use of customer data

  • Enable seamless connections between wholesalers and outlets

  • Automate manual processes

  • Enabling transparency around delivery statuses and ease of mind when ordering

  • Finance management

Finding Our Blue Ocean

One of the last workshops we ran with the client was a Blue Ocean Strategy workshop where we explored unique value propositions that could differentiate our client from its competitors. Focusing mainly on onboarding, connected data, and risk mitigation that were chosen during the Factor Brainstorm activity.

Risk Mitigation became a added factor that we saw potential in with bad dept consolidation and different financing solutions not being prevalent on our clients platform. We started to see where they could stand out amongst the competition without compromising their current strengths.

The Solution

Our comprehensive solution focused on creating a seamless onboarding experience for both wholesalers and outlets:

  • Enhanced Onboarding Experience: Designed a user-friendly onboarding process allowing outlets to select from specific or multiple wholesalers on our clients platform through a unique code provided by the wholesaler sales representative. They would also be able to use MyInfo through Singpass to easily acquire the necessary information when signing up.

  • Financial Integration: Integrated Bank 1's financial services to offer instant credit limits for outlets, enabling a trust-based relationship between wholesalers and outlets through transparent credit terms and financial data sharing. Allowing an outlet to apply for instant credit limit when onboarding would give wholesalers peace of mind as they'll receive a recommended credit limit that they can assign to any outlet.

  • Opportunity Identification: Utilised existing market research and our findings to identify opportunities for enhancing wholesaler and outlet confidence through transparent credit limits. Throughout the checkout experience any outlet would be able to see their current credit limit to make informed decisions when ordering. This will allow them to be more flexible with choice of payment.

The main screens we designed as part of the final solution that we tested and iterated on. This was all made to be integrated into our clients current platform.

The Impact

The result of the opportunity sprint had a tangible impact, showing improved user engagement through the testing phase. The introduction of an intuitive onboarding process and innovative financial solutions marked a new era for our client, one where wholesalers and outlets could engage with confidence and ease. Importantly, our efforts culminated in a pivotal achievement: positioning the project at a stage where it could successfully pitch for the bank's internal ventures funding quorum. This not only underscored the project's innovative potential but also highlighted its readiness to scale and contribute meaningfully to the bank's strategic initiatives.