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First steps
My responsibilities
This project was a collaborative effort between two designers working as peers. My work covered the facilitation of co-creation workshops, information architecture, wireframing and prototyping across all three modules, and usability testing sessions with operational users.
Main problem
As the company scaled, operations fragmented. Transactions were managed through disconnected tools: emails, parallel spreadsheets, and undocumented WhatsApp agreements. Consequently, no department had a complete view of an operation, tasks were duplicated across areas, and tracking relied on knowing who to call rather than consulting a centralized system.
Primary goal
Together with stakeholders, we defined a core objective: to establish a common, traceable operational process shared across all departments. More than just building another tool, the challenge was creating a single source of truth to replace informal coordination, giving each team visibility into the status of every operation without relying on calls or emails.
Research
We conducted two interview rounds (exploratory and validation) with Sales, Logistics, and Finance leads, analyzing the documents they used daily. We translated this into cross-team dependency diagrams, refined during co-creation workshops. This step was crucial: several critical dependencies only surfaced when teams saw their integrated workflows for the first time.
Among the key findings: Finance and Logistics used separate spreadsheets with inconsistent payment statuses, even though logistics couldn't advance without payment confirmation. Meanwhile, open claims remained buried in sales emails, passing weeks without follow-up or a clear owner.
Strategy: Designing processes before screens
The primary finding was organizational: there was no shared vision of how an end-to-end operation should flow. Before designing screens, we had to align the teams around a common operating model; designing for undefined processes would only digitize the chaos.
Through co-creation workshops, we explicitly defined ownership for previously orphaned operational tasks, such as sending contracts, recording material quality, managing claims, and exchanging invoices. This organizational consensus became the structural foundation upon which we designed the platform.
Digitalizing complex processes
With the processes defined, the next challenge was to translate them into a digital experience that could be rolled out progressively. Operations involved multiple stakeholders, documents, validations, and dependencies between areas. Attempting to cover every exception from the very beginning would have skyrocketed the complexity and slowed down decision-making.
We opted for an incremental approach focused on the happy paths: we started by designing the most frequent and agreed-upon flows among the areas, and progressively incorporated more complex cases and exceptions as we moved forward with design and validation.
Design decisions
Role oriented and modular architecture
During our research, we found that each department handled vastly different tasks, documentation, and sensitive data. A single interface for everyone would have introduced visual noise, complexity, and security risks.
To solve this, we designed a role-based, modular architecture. By organizing the platform into independent modules for Sales, Logistics, and Finance, we ensured each team accessed only the information relevant to their specific workflow. This structure also guaranteed the system's scalability for future features.
Priorization and MVP
We defined a progressive implementation strategy alongside stakeholders. Our primary prioritization criterion was clear: start where we could establish operational traceability and measurement as quickly as possible.
We began with the Sales module, where the lack of visibility was the most urgent, high-impact business problem. Once consolidated, we expanded the platform to Logistics (managing shipments, documentation, and tracking) and finally to Finance (centralizing collections and payments).
Each module was launched as its own MVP, with features prioritized based on the urgency identified during our research and their relevance to the overall operational flow.
Key features by module
With traceability as our top priority, we created a shared operations section. In this single hub, any department could search by ID to view a transaction's status, associated company, and pending tasks at a glance. Access was role-based: Logistics and Finance had global visibility due to their cross-functional work, while sales reps only saw their own operations.
Commercial Module: We replaced informal WhatsApp checks with a centralized view of available materials, using a card-based layout to make technical attributes easily scannable. Additionally, we integrated a real-time profitability simulator, allowing sales reps to evaluate margins and confirm viability before closing any deals.
Logistics Module: To solve the struggle of identifying urgent quotes, we designed a tracking system with visual status badges and advanced filters by country or supplier type. This enabled the team to prioritize immediate actions at a glance.
Finance Module: We revamped collections and payments management by implementing a Kanban board. This allowed the team to visually separate urgent tasks from ongoing ones, attach receipts, and mark payments as completed, instantly updating the information for all other departments.
Testing & Iteration
During the design of each module, we conducted at least three usability testing sessions per department. Observing how users interacted with prototypes in real-world scenarios allowed us to refine our proposals before handing them off to development. Key iterations included:
Commercial Module: The initial visual hierarchy of the material cards hindered quick scanning. We redesigned them to prioritize price, country of origin, and technical specifications at a glance.
Logistics Module: We reordered the quote fields to match the team's natural workflow and added previously missing data points, such as container quantity, size, and weight.
Evolution and next steps
Results
Following the MVP launches, the platform has continued to evolve, incorporating new features based on real-world usage. Two key outcomes stand out: the commercial module drove a 12% increase in closed deals, and the system's overall adoption drastically reduced the reliance on spreadsheets and cross-departmental calls to track transactions.
Next steps
The platform continues to evolve. Since interdepartmental operations were highly complex, digitizing everything at once was unfeasible. We took an incremental approach: establishing a shared baseline to provide visibility across teams and prioritizing critical flows. From there, we scaled each module with advanced features.
Upcoming iterations aim to broaden financial coverage, incorporating new financing options and payment methods tailored to different company profiles, and expand operations into new markets.
Learnings
This project taught us that digital transformation is, above all, a cultural shift. Upon centralizing operations, we noticed some users still relied on personal spreadsheets out of fear of making mistakes and being exposed. We learned that adoption cannot be forced: framing the initial weeks as a pilot environment and providing training was key to gradually building trust.
Structurally, realizing the processes we needed to digitize were undefined confirmed that design work begins long before screens, by facilitating the conversations that align the business. In retrospect, I would have included operational users in the initial interviews, not just department heads. Involving them earlier would have helped us uncover their fears and reliance on parallel tools much sooner.
