Pharma · B2B · 2017–2018
Pharmplace: Eliminating 80% papers from a workflow of a large pharmholding
An internal ERP and a field app that took a pharma holding's medical representatives off paper.
- Measured−80%paperwork in the medical-rep department
- Measured×1.5medical-rep performance
- Measured90%of internal training moved into the system
- Role
- Product Designer, took over the senior designer's scope
- Company
- Pharmaceutical holding, via Spiks LLC
- Timeline
- 2017–2018
- Team
- CTO, project manager, 1 back-end, front-end lead and 2 front-end developers, Android developer, 3 product designers
- Platform
- Web ERP, Android app for medical representatives
- Methods & tools
- Material Design based UI kit, usability testing, process analysis, prototyping
Outcome
- Measured−80% paperwork in the medical-rep department
- Measured×1.5 medical-rep performance
- Measured90% of internal training moved into the system
Measured outcome in productionQualitative context: process, volume, lab or qualitativeUnder NDA under NDA
60-second brief
The problem
A pharmaceutical holding ran its medical representatives on paper. Team leads wrote a Word file per rep every day, reps filled reports by pen in pharmacies and clinics, other employees retyped them into spreadsheets, and training happened in lecture halls with a presenter. Hours of skilled time went into transcription.
What I did
- Joined as a middle designer and took over the senior's scope when he left: research, prioritisation, UI kit, screens, usability testing and design supervision.
- Analysed the leads' Word and Excel routines and turned them into a task designer with locations, actions, KPIs and generated reports.
- Based the UI kit on Material Design to ship web and Android quickly, then reworked type and shadows so it feels like the Gmail and Docs the audience already uses.
Decisions that mattered
- An action log on everything.
Every contract, project and task shows who did what, with threaded comments and the ability to cancel an action while it is still possible.
Threaded action log on a ticket - MVP first, ideal later.
The task designer needed a full-screen version; we shipped a simpler MVP to the customer and bought time for the right one.
The task designer for team leads - Education with deliberate restrictions.
Courses can forbid fast-forward, limit pauses and rewinds, time the slides, so remote training matches a lecturer-led session.
A video lesson with playback restrictions - A rep app driven by location.
Arriving at a pharmacy triggers the visit: task list, stock check, shelf layout, meetings, all captured on the phone.
The rep app: arrive at a location, see the tasks
Working with engineering and product
- Team: CTO, project manager, one back-end, a front-end lead with two developers, an Android developer, three designers.
- One UI kit for the web ERP and the Android app kept the two products consistent without a second design pass.
Impact
- Measured−80% paperwork in the medical-rep department
- Measured×1.5 medical-rep performance
- Measured90% of internal training moved into the system
The system runs the holding's field operations; the assistants who used to retype reports moved to another department.
What I took awayIn B2B the loudest win is removing work: an interface that deletes a paper form beats one that prettifies it.
