Overview
ID Fresh delivers 100s of thousands of freshly prepared and perishable foods packs every day to retailers across the Middle East and India. An efficient and time-sensitive distribution infrastructure and process is essential to drive ID Fresh’s ambitious expansion plans. Sales team, distribution centres and planners sync to keep fresh products on shelves.
As volumes grew, the manual processes that once held the system together started to slow it down. Sales planning, stock handovers, and payment reconciliation became harder to manage, making the distribution process less agile.
The Challenge
Morning distribution centre handovers were getting delayed. Sales routes were planned reactively, leaving little room to adjust for real-time demand. Sales data was spread across multiple logs , papers and spreadsheets, creating bottlenecks for sales and finance reconciliation.
Our UX Research Approach
Participant Observation
Shadowing salesmen on their daily routes to capture real-world delivery constraints, Proof of Delivery interactions, return management, and store-level checks.
Contextual Inquiry
Conducting on-site interviews at distribution centres, factories, and retail points to understand task sequences, decision triggers, and time-sensitive challenges.
Workflow Mapping
Documenting processes as they unfolded from stock arrival to payment reconciliation to identify hidden dependencies and inefficiencies
Role-Based Data Requirement Analysis
Mapping the data inputs and outputs required by each stakeholder to complete their daily tasks without bottlenecks
Key Insights from the Field
Our field research revealed operational patterns and gaps that were invisible in reports
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Queue Congestion at Distribution Centres
- Salesmen lost critical time in early morning waiting for route allocations.
- Stock handovers were sequential instead of parallel, slowing loadouts.
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Fragmented Planning Tools
- TSIs ( Territory Sales Incharge) planned next-day quantities using scattered notes, historic averages, and reactive adjustments.
- There was no real-time mechanism to factor in sudden demand changes.
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Data Fragmentation Between Teams
- Finance teams reconciled payments using a mix of paper slips and UPI records.
- Delays in consolidating this data created discrepancies and late settlements.
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On-Route Inefficiencies
- Store visits averaged 4-5 minutes, oft were ten exceeded due to manual entry and dispute resolution.
- Salesmen had limited visibility into their remaining tasks for the day.
Every role faced different hurdles
Our research distilled them into focused design outcomes.
Role-Centric UX Design Outcomes
Our ethnographic findings directly informed the design of targeted, role-specific solutions each addressing a distinct operational pain point.
Sales Enablement Tools
Mobile-first workflows that gave salesmen:
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Pre-loaded daily routes with clear priorities.
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Instant proof-of-delivery capture with offline sync for low-connectivity areas.
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One-tap return logging and on-route performance tracking.
Distribution Centre Dashboards
Role-specific tablet dashboards for distribution executives with:
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Parallel loadout tracking to avoid sequential bottlenecks.
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Live inventory visibility by route and vehicle.
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Instant validation of returned goods.
Integrated Payment Reconciliation
A central accounting dashboard linking
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Sales transactions with payment modes (cash, UPI, credit).
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Instant discrepancy alerts for faster settlement.
Dynamic Planning Suite for TSIs
Allocation and route planning tools with:
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Adjustable rosters based on live field updates.
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Product-wise forecasting tied to seasonal trends and retailer history.
Administrative Control Layer
Configurable master data management for
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Products and SKUs.
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Retailer-specific credit terms and discounts.
Business Benefits Achieved
Summary
Our UX research approach, based ethnographic process exposed the operational dependencies and time sensitivities of ID Fresh’s distribution process. By experiencing and observing the daily chores of sales, distribution, and finance teams, we could empathize with the challenges faced by the team, which helped us design a connected platform that reflected the reality of their work and scaled with the pace of the business.
