TESCO
Supplier Onboarding
1 Year
TESCO is home to large number of suppliers with many business relationships built to last for many years.
Suppliers know TESCO as a household name and have built up perceptions about the retail giant based on their personal shopping experiences. As a result, they bring their own businesses to join the retail giant in the hope of providing great experiences for others.
I was hired by TESCO as the sole Product designer to bring the experience people have enjoyed on a personal level to the business side of their relationships with new and existing suppliers.
The existing onboarding journey
The project was kicked off with an in-depth look at the existing process. The plan was always to digitise the onboarding journey, but it was imperative that I understand the complexities involved and scope of the project.
Discovery Workshop
My first point of call was to understand the steps involved end-to-end. A workshop was held with three Supplier Relationship Officers (2x senior, 1x junior) – the team that were responsible for liaising with the supplier through the entire process.
I set the narrative for the workshop by explaining that the purpose was to focus on the step-by-step onboarding.
We utilised Miro, a great tool for ideation and collaborative working. Participants were able to add notes to each step to reveal a full and detailed account of the process. Some key takeaways from the full day session surfaced:
- There was a serious lack of documentation to guide suppliers through the process
- Conflicting ideas of on the process
- The journey was incredibly complex and riddled with inaccuracies in data
- Compliance issues were plenty
- 7 Excel sheets bloated with hefty functionality were used to facilitate data capture and other operations
- Data was often lost due to system failures whilst using these excel sheets
- SROs had to bear the frustrations of the Suppliers often through the process
The flow diagram created was then validated by other SRO’s to ensure that nothing was missed.
Pain points
Now that journey was mapped out, I wanted to shine a spotlight on the stages of the journey that were a cause for concern and potential red flags.
This for me is always important step as it presents the opportunity for us to:
- dive into emotions felt in responses to tasks within the process
- think of the possible opportunities
- uncover small details that may have been missed in the initial discovery
Interviews with pre-existing suppliers
The next step was to speak to suppliers who had already been onboarded through the legacy process. I wanted to gather their thoughts on how they felt about the onboarding process and how it compares to other onboarding solutions they may have gone through.
Here is a quote extracted from an interview. It highlighted exactly the changes that need to happen in order to enhance the experience.
“The process was laborious. There was a heavy burden on us to ensure that we provided information that we didn’t even how to obtain. I was expecting a seamless online experience instead of composing emails, attaching files, endless printing of documents to sign and scan again.
TESCO Supplier
If they can leverage the web for this process, they’d already be winning”
Interview analysis
Upon further inspection of comments received, it seems that there were a myriad of operational challenges faced by participants across the board. This really highlighted how widespread issues in the process were.
An initiative started the SRO’s was to record the number of times they had to request information from Suppliers after their initial request. The proved useful as a data-point we could measure against a new onboarding system.
Defining a solution
It was clear that the process was lacking an infrastructure that would not only allow the team members to perform their jobs efficiently, but equally, provide a safe and seamless experience for the the suppliers.
Key metrics
Below are some of the metrics (per onboarding session) of which the performance and success of this project could be measured against.
Suppliers onboarded per year
50
Avg # of days taken to complete onboarding
90
Avg # of sheets of paper used
(This references the number of sheets of papers printed)
30
Accuracy (%) of data sumitted
(Data calculated by how many times information was requested after being provided by supplier in 2021)
75
Technology
The process was a very complex one. There were many moving parts which at times made steps within the process difficult to compute. Simply delivering Tesco branded forms matching step-for-step the process that existed would’ve alone made a whole world of difference for the Tesco buyers.
This was the chance for us to build a user-centred, streamlined and cohesive experience. We’re able to optimise the entire process and leverage the capabilities of todays technology and external services to help deliver the vision.
It was my vision as the product designer to develop a platform that supports the actions of both Suppliers and the business.
Proposed features
- Provide a dashboard for SRO’s to see and overview of their activity
- Provide information for Suppliers to know what they need ahead of onboarding
- Assist all users with guides/how to
- Secure storage for all forms of documentation
- Capture as much data as possible at the start of the process
Third party services
- User DocuSign or other service for signing agreements
- Use Exiger API to transmit data between platforms
Journey mapping
To the SRO’s, it would have sufficed to design a few forms that simply captured data. But of course, this was an opportunity to build something long lasting and to leverage the capabilities of todays technology and external services. It was my vision as the UX designer to design a platform supports that actions of both Suppliers and the business.
Wireframes ➞ Test ➞ Iterate
Wireframes I developed were regularly presented back to the product manager, SRO’s and the business as it was important to keep alignment as to the direction of was being implemented. Sketches are the easiest and most cost-effective way to demonstrate ideas and make quick iterations where needed.
The entire end-to-end flow was designed in low-fidelity wireframes and imported in to Miro for critiquing, discussions and annotations.
Onboarding data – at a glance
A feature that was discussed during the discovery phase was the notion of a dashboard that could play important that’s pertinent to the user back to them. I compiled a list of data points that would be useful to SRO’s and other business units and validated these with them.
Visually appealing data
The proposed system would present data in a tabular format listing all suppliers in the system whether fully onboard or in progress. To go a step further I employed some charts to allow the user to consume data find and consumer information quickly as part of their workflow.
The chart inline provides (1) the total running number of suppliers engaged with Tesco, (2) the total number onboarded vs the total number in the process of being onboarded and (3) the breakdown of how many suppliers are within each category.
Not only do we ensure that these charts present data that is relevant, but is pleasant to look at while doing so.
Outcomes
Results
Of 14 suppliers that had gone through the entire new process:
- None of them were met by any of the compliance issues that were rife in the legacy system
- All documents produced are captured and stored safely and securely in a single repository
- Data validation has improved data quality
- The time taken to get through onboarding is significantly reduced for most stages
Avg number of sheets of paper used
10
Avg # of days taken to complete onboarding
15
Feedback from suppliers has been positive, with one supplier mentioning it was the best experience out of the four major suppliers they had previously onboarded with.
Reflections
The scope of this project was indeed very big. Even though there was the willingness to shift to a digitised onboarding solution, there were a very high number of concerns and considerations that had to be addressed from various segments of the business. Obtaining information from these business units could have been managed better.
UX design was not a service that many had come across before, so taking them on the journey with me was a crucial part of my role. Helping the team to understand exactly what my involvement was and why it was important allowed them to comfortably engage in open conversation with me and be completely honest as well.
Final designs
TESCO’s well established branding came to good use in terms of driving familiarity through the use of fonts and colours in the UI.
The design system was thorough in providing the standard assets used widely within the business. However, there were assets and components that needed to be created, simply because there weren’t any that could be used to deliver what had been envisioned for supplier onboarding. I was tasked with creating these items and contributing back to the design system. Any components I created was put through review by the wider team to (1) understand the purpose for the component, (2) be checked by usability specialists for its accessibility and (3) determine its potential to be used for future projects.
Figma was used to created the final designs.
Figma was used to created the final designs.
