The Challenge
Dr. Reddy’s Vikreta Connect portal was conceptualized as a responsive vendor engagement portal that helps bridge the communication gap and builds trust to fulfill a mission to improve stakeholder engagement through one-of-a-kind new age platform. DRL team wanted to optimize their existing processes and automate all their supply chain transactions through appropriate customization of their SRM called Vikreta Connect.
Along with automating all standard transactions like RFx, PO and Invoices, leadership at Reddy’s Lab wanted to delight their business partners by providing various value additions like BP Delight, P2P visibility report etc. with a coherent and seamless user experience. An end to end design which addressed the goals, needs and pain points of the partners was hence called upon.
Our Methodology
During the period of our engagement, Think Design worked closely with the business and technology teams to identify their requirements and validate the designs. While designing, we ensure to consolidate all the business and strategic inputs obtained in various workshop sessions and presentations, to come up with the key values that drive our design directions for the platform.
Our teams came up with a collaborative approach across every stage of the design process to evaluate and suggest various customization options for all their modules and tools to incorporate superior UX. This was essential for bringing in brand value to the fore and to build a first Business Partner friendly organization in India.
Key Insights
1. Delight
The platform needed to delight and delight as an experience could be derived when suppliers could get more than what they would expect.
2. Support
Support is often needed in terms of smoother interactions to address concerns of partners in regards to various issues like payments, compliance, trainings, forms etc. There existed a need for this to occur in a completely transparent and assuring manner.
3. Collaboration
Partners were found to be worried about the loss of traditional collaboration and personal connect with various teams in DRL due to the automation of all the SCM processes.
4. Trust
Trust is a long-term proposition that needed to be built slowly as vendors engaged with the portal and became aware of the value it serves.
5. Efficiency
Suppliers were found to log into their portals numerous times a day to know the status of various transactions which was a time-consuming process, hence requiring careful implementation across various processes to enhance task efficiency and user control.
Key features
1. Building transparency
Critical processes like payments were streamlined, with all the types of payments aligned to come up with clear and uniform data points which would address the majority of the user concerns.
2. Enabling Vendor Trust
Vendors now have a clear sight of their status and when their jobs are getting done. Vendors now get a visibility of their invoices and where they are, without having to write emails to managers and waiting for their reply. Also, various partner-centric features like alerts communicating critical data is never missed out.
3. Fostering collaboration
The portal now incorporates various platforms for both DRL employees as well as the suppliers to interact at various levels of business processes to keep in touch.
4. Streamlining tasks and processes
The portal came up with a snapshot summary approach at multiple modules to keep suppliers informed about what is happening across various processes and the status of various transactions upfront with minimum effort and time. Easy classification of various stages in addressing an issue quick filtering mechanism for issue types, detailed process maps, and upfront escalation metrics were added as features to support the partners.
DESIGN ACTIVITIES
Consulting, Stakeholder Workshop, Strategy and product Definition, Visual System, UI UX Design, Prototyping, Front end Development, Product Development coordination.
CURRENT STATUS
Dr. Reddy’s Labs launched the initiative in 2014.
