How might we increase productivity and track the approval workflow smoothly?
A fresh approach to media needs in
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proposal creation,
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approval flow,
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report generation,
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rating configuration,
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channel rules,
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annual planning,
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floor pricing,
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deal optimiser and
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proposal evaluation
01.
THE SUMMARY
Backstory
Star Plus
ABP News (Anandabazar Patrika)
Client Details
1 year (From Feb 1st, 2017 - till March 2018)
Time Duration
Enterprise application for web, tablet and mobile
For Mediums
Design Research, UX Strategy, Interaction Design, & Visual Design
My Role
Rohit Jaiswal (BA)
Piyush Gupta (PM)
Shaban Mohammad (VD)
Raghvendra Singh (UX)
Vipin Verma (Tech Lead)
Ashutosh Vyas (Data Scientist)
Team Setup
In mid-2016, Star TV (standing for Satellite Television Asian Region) is an Asian TV service owned by Star India. On December 14, 2017; The Walt Disney Company announced their intent to acquire Star TV's parent company 21st Century Fox for $52.4 billion after the spin-off of certain businesses. On March 20, 2019, the deal was officially closed.
ABP News is an Indian Hindi news channel owned by ABP Group. It is a free-to-air TV channel founded in 1998. It was formerly known as STAR News before being acquired by ABP Group.
Sister channels: ABP Ananda (Bengali); ABP Asmita (Gujarati); ABP Majha (Marathi); ABP Sanjha (Punjabi); ABP Ganga (UP); ABP Live
About Project
I started the engagement with a design workshop to understand the problem at hand. I would typically ask as many questions with the client during a kickoff or even pre-kickoff meeting.
The UX Strategy stage occurs at the beginning of the product's life cycle before the design development begins. I used to gather insights about the market research, product competitors, users research and their needs to validate with real potential customers to proved desired needs and goals.
We made an immersive design sprint that included a complex workflow integrated with multiple sub-flow solving multiple touchpoints in the user journey of the professional working in the Media sectors.
We have started figuring out different user journeys such as proposal creation, Approval workflow, Ratings and pipeline reporting flow, Configurator for Ratings, Product and Channels rules. Planning module for monthly, yearly and floor price. Deal Optimiser for all the deals taking place, and finally, overall Evaluation summary for the whole business.
What it would mean to move to an 'on-demand model. We identified several critical issues and put them into an early prototype of the application. We take step by step individuals workflow to make it robust and user friendly in every aspect for the user in their daily activity. Created wireframe to try and test internally and externally in the field with a small batch of media stakeholders. After getting feedback and multiple iterations, we freeze when all agree to go for Quick Visual Design for real feal and experiences.
The same steps are performed for every module to try and test so that the overall experience can be seamless. Every module is interrelated and helps each other provide information, generations results and helping every stakeholder with a personalised solution as per their needs.
The prototype was quickly tested upon and iterated to develop a quick minimum desirable version of the mobile, tablet and desktop application.
After the development of the product, we have also done the UAT testing in various regions with multiple Teams to get their feedback so that we can make changes to the go-live App.
It's a wonderful experience to work on such a large and complex enterprise application, which gives me a deep understanding of the SaaS application and its challenges before and after the product is built.
02
THE OVERVIEW
Project Basics
A. Role, Deliverable & Team Structure
My contribution included User interface, User Research, Wireframing, Visual Design and Interactive Prototype. I managed one designer team of 1 designer, and one front-end developer, engaged with the business team for validation and design input. Below is the team structure in which I worked
B. Business Objectives & Target to achieve
To design industry first, media enterprise SaaS-based solution for all their needs.
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How to help them in creating more proposals on run time?
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How to optimize the product mix to maximize yield and inventory available?
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Tracking the pre-sales target and making the approval management process fast?
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How to Plan your monthly and yearly budgets?
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How to optimise all their deal?
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How do you get the overall evaluation summary for the business?
C. Known Solutions
1. Tradition method of predicting sales?
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Personal connecting,
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Traditional media platforms,
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Personal instinct.
2. Target Segment
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Perishable, fixed inventory, B2B businesses
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Traditional media (Print, TV, Radio, OOH): Industrials
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Geographies such as Domestic, International (Channel Partner)
D. Problem Definition
Who are my users?
Top management, Sales Head, Regional Head and a sales representative.
What is their pain point?
Predicting sales, and the performance of their sales teams.
What do they really need?
Predictive price guidance, Optimised product mix, value leakage, 360 deal view, tracking dashboards
03.
CUSTOMER INPUT
Research Process
Project Immersion
User Stories
User Persona
Brainstorming
User Interviews
Define, Ideate & Delivery
Information Architecture
Wireframes
Visual Design
Prototype
Future & Beyond
Key Takeaways
Concept Propagation
04.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Scope of work and timeline
This project involved UX and UI work, from the design thinking workshop to research, creating user flows, creating wireframes, validating ideas, creating the visuals resources, testing the prototype and develop and the app
05.
ABOUT THE USER
User Persona
01. User Persona - Sales Person
"I’m looking out for new leads through the various channel of communication in the northern region where I am in charge of increasing sales and regular service to all my client. ”
Behavioural Considerations
Goals
About Animesh
Designation - Executive Sales North Region
Age - 24
Location - Delhi NCR
More Info
- Animesh has completed his MBA from an open university.
- He does not believe in settling in Delhi.
- He wants to get the most out of every opportunity he gets in his professional experience.
- Before moving to a new position he wanted to learn new skills in sales pitching and generating leads
+ Interested in career opportunities within the organisation that fits his career goals
+ Thoroughly compares multiple companies with similar opportunities
+ Is interested in the unique benefits of working at a company, including personal and professional growth.
+ Needs to be confident to pitch to a different client.
+ Needs to see the reason why a company is not interested in dealing with us: has it been offered a better price, had to service an issue for him, or competitor has offered big discounts.
+ wants to figure out how to get in touch with someone at the new company to explore new leads
Frustrations
+ Would like to challenges himself and have a more stable client, but is comfortable as a Junior salesperson and wouldn’t stop for just any new small client.
Task
+ Learn about the current customer and its requirements.
+ Read the press release to check new launches, promotion, campaign
"I crave variety in the types of industries and goals of each leads i work on. I need to ensure I won’t missed old client.”
02. User Persona - Sales Manager
"I always have the challenges of retaining all the old client portfolio and increasing new client onboard. Yearly revenue needs to be increased.”
Behavioural Considerations
Goals
About Priyanka Sharma
Designation - Sales Manager
Age - 32
Location - Delhi NCR
More Info
- Priyanka is a very talented and topper in her class. She has done her MBA from IIM C and bachelor degree from IIT Delhi.
- Spontaneous and well travel in India and abroad for a business meeting.
- She has 8 years of experience in a small and big organisation.
- Expert in dealing with the new client acquisition process and tie-up with new business.
I- Recently married and an avid sportsperson.
+ Team handling and assigning the task to each and every team member
+ Discussing requirement from top management and accelerate the task to the team in the best possible way
+ Better planning and management is required on every level
+ Travelling in multiple cities to track record the performance of the business and improvise on the go with feedback and action.
Frustrations
+ Would like to challenge himself and have all big client in his portfolio.
+ Unstructured and nothing is in place to manage the team at the grass-roots level. Micromanagement is not happening at a lower level to reduce loss. portfolio for every year without any issues.
+ Better offer and deals at a better price on regular basis to increase the profit.
+ Missing lead needs to zero for a lower level of sales executive
+ Sales target need to be meet on a monthly & Yearly basis.
+ Better service to the client for retention.
Task
+ New client Acquisition every month.
+ Not a single lead needs to missed
+ Better application for better management internally for all sales.
+ Upcoming events need to be planned well with offer and deals.
"Managing client portfolio and updating on all new area where to pitch is really great opportunities to work on.”
03. User Persona - Sales Head North & South
"I always have the challenges of retaining all the old client portfolio and increasing new client onboard. Yearly revenue needs to be increased.”
Behavioural Considerations
Goals
About Monish
Designation - Sales Head North & South Region
Age - 38
Location - Delhi NCR
More Info
Monish has completed his MBA from IIM A and always work in MNC outside India in the media industry. 18 years of working experience handling team and product folio.
Creating new business and expand them globally. While joining this organisation, he was given the task to expand the sales and operation of the business.
He is married with 2 kids. Expansion and Management is his core strength.
+ Management and leadership is required.
+ Knowledge and contact with the big client to keep them on board.
+ Client management and servicing need to be perfect for a better experience.
+ Indian and international travelling required to meet client and handle meeting for new opportunities and tie-up.
+ Structuring the process to handle all the project and track task every week for the whole team in all the region of the sales team.
+ Planning of managing all sales and operation side to reduce the loss.
+ Reduce the size of the sales team for less expenditure & maximize the profit with micromanagement of all the task.
Frustrations
+ Would like to challenge himself and have all big client in his portfolio for every year without any issues.
Task
+ Business expansion in all the territory.
+ Build the client portfolio strong and increase the revenue by 30% every year.
"I want to improve communication gap and track record of all the process happening from bottom to top management for smooth process”
06.
DESIGN SYSTEMS
UI Style Guidelines
07.
FINAL LOOK
Visual Design
08.
THE IMPACT
Success Metrics
Here are a few metrics which are in comparison to 5 months old sale representative search patterns:
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10-15 % increase in revenue
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The number of new client onboarding happens based on the lead generated by the optimizer, and income increased by 30%
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Market campaign share of 60% also increased due to more clients in the portfolio.
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90% Lesser time in searching for leads on the web.
09.
LAST THOUGHTS
Roadblocks & Takeaways
Key Blockers
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Card sort exercises exposure - The feedback which we got from the first card sort exercise was - " We are not used to this please show us visual design and do A/B Testing instead.
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Product management trust issues - Convincing the product managers about the insights gathered was difficult. To overcome that, we started inviting the PM's in the free research process and insights gathering sessions.
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Visualisation and Wireframes - Discussing wireframes was complex with the stakeholders as they could not relate to it. Walkthroughs were the only solution.
Key Takeaways
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The involvement of product management in every stage is very crucial. They can help us buy time, enable talks with customers, and iterating on last-minute changes. If not involved, there could be a change where the outcome may differ from the business want.
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Hatred towards the legacy design system and related constraints can only eat up your time. Instead, carefully modifying them can also give you satisfying results.
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Hanging out with developers can often solve complicated problems. But can become overpowering if involved during the initial incubation stage.
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Interactive prototypes work pretty well to explain the concepts to the stakeholders.
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partner with domain experts throughout the design process
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Adaptor builds upon existing methods.
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Know when to stray from best practices
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