Designing a World-class User Experience (UX) for a Leading Manufacturer's Customer Dealer Management System

Client

Major Farm Equipment Manufacturer

Industry

Automotive

Features

Requirement Analysis

UX Research & Wireframing

Mobile App Design

Technology Stack

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A leading Indian manufacturer of farm equipment (who will remain anonymous per a Non-disclosure Agreement) was founded more than four decades ago with the vision of providing self-reliance to the domestic agricultural industry. The company eventually became a major player in equipment manufacturing—producing harvesters, tractors, and other agricultural essentials.

Currently valued at more than $139 billion (USD), the global market for agricultural equipment is massive and continues to grow. With significant revenue at stake, manufacturers around the world began digitizing their functions and processes in recent years, working to integrate IT across their entire business ecosystems. Those who did so successfully would achieve a significant competitive advantage.

With multinational corporations like John Deere entering the Indian market, the company executives knew the time was ripe to update key systems. Ultimately, they chose to create a new, state-of-the-art Customer Dealer Management system, since they believed this would provide the greatest return on their efforts.



What Was Wrong with the Old System?

Like many established companies built before the digital age, the client’s functions and processes were manual. As such, they faced some all-too-common challenges associated with analog systems, including:

  • Difficulty scaling as their network expanded
  • Struggles with data analysis and number crunching due to labor-intensive processes
  • Error-prone processes that risked impacting customer satisfaction and the bottom line

Given the rudimentary nature of these manual processes, automation would prove impossible without creating an entirely new system. Simply put, it was time to innovate, so management turned to a tech partner (who will also remain anonymous).

Finding a Business Analysis (BA) and User Experience (UX)/User Interface (UI) Expert

The tech partner had the development expertise the client required. However, they needed help with the BA and UX/UI design phases of the project. With this in mind, they began their search for a Business Analysis and User Experience expert in their region.

Net Solutions had already created a name for themselves in the BA and UX space. So after evaluating several companies across India, the tech partner believed Net Solutions stood head and shoulders above the rest. Confident they had found the right partner, the tech partner joined forces with Net Solutions and committed to building a groundbreaking product.

Building a State-of-the-art
App Ecosystem

When Net Solutions joined the project, the in-house and the outsourcing teams had already created high-level documentation for the Customer Dealer Management System, outlining everything it would cover. They were strongly leaning toward making a suite of purpose-specific apps rather than a monolithic app designed to do everything, but they needed to validate the concept.

Concept Validation

To explore and validate the idea of creating a suite of apps, the Business Analysts at Net Solutions spent weeks interviewing:

  • Key stakeholders
  • Equipment dealers
  • Logistics and services providers connected to these processes
  • Customers who could give them insight into the many possible user journeys for each potential product

The Net Solutions team also worked to understand how different departments functioned and collaborated, and they identified which processes the client staff members employed at different stages.

Combining this information with research on how other agricultural companies approached similar processes, the Business Analysts confirmed that the best approach would be to create multiple apps. This would allow the teams to focus on specific processes without interfering with other business functions. Plus, offering a suite of apps would ensure greater security.

Optimizing Documentation,
User Journeys, and Workflows

The Business Analysts at Net Solutions created extensive documentation on all user journeys and workflows that required digitization, upgrading, or a complete redesign. In the end, they planned design and development for the following seven apps:

  • Customer app
  • Sales Manager app
  • Salespeople app
  • RCNM app
  • Service Manager app
  • Store Manager app
  • Installer app

In addition, they planned for a comprehensive back-end system allowing the client’s management to:

  • Keep a bird’s eye view of the entire ecosystem
  • Generate reports for deeper analysis
  • Receive alerts when certain metrics breached prescribed limits

The Net Solutions BA team produced interactive wireframes and ran the workflows past the relevant stakeholders and representatives of the client, obtaining sign-offs before passing each piece on to the Design team.

At the same time, the UI team worked with the brand guardians at the client company to create the design language that the system would employ. After receiving the approved wireframes, the team translated them to UI mock-ups for the various apps and received stakeholder sign-offs, passing the final design files over to the tech partner for development.

A Successful Engagement + two Long-term Relationships

The Net Solutions team’s dedication and attention to detail impressed everyone involved. In the end, the Customer Dealer Management System created significant value for both the client and their customers, and this success paved the way for future collaboration with both the outsource partner and client.

Results

Net Solutions teamed up with another tech company to create a suite of apps that comprised the client’s Customer Dealer Management system.

As an integral player in the project, Net Solutions handled the Business Analysis and UX/UI Design aspects. In the Process, they:

  • Validated the concept of creating a suite of apps, rather than one monolithic app, by interviewing stakeholders and customers, identifying user journeys, and more
  • Created thorough documentation on all customer workflows
  • Built interactive wireframes
  • Worked with the brand guardians to create the design language that the system would employ

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