IN SHORT

• Challenge: Shaping and executing a vision for a future proof order portal.
• Solution: Engineering a completely new order platform, built to scale and last. 
• Approach: Combining intensive user research with high-fidelity wireframing and collaborative web development.
• Outcome: A new, scalable order platform that accelerates Reynaers’ ambitions for the future.

The Challenge

We soon discovered that Reynaers’ order platform was the crucial touchpoint in the buyer experience. Due to a gap between the order portal and the actual buying flow, orders were often dealt with manually by the commercial team. Also, the information provided on the order portal wasn’t always clear and didn’t map on the customer's way of working. Not meeting these basic customer expectations, the platform was confusing for the user, leading to an overload of sales & customer support questions.

Reynaers partnered up with In The Pocket to reach a clear mandate for the future: to offer and deliver a seamless buying experience to all partners: from internal stakeholders to end-customers.

‍Solution

Together with Reynaers, we set off on a journey to discover the main points of improvement. An eagle-eye focus on both the customer expectations and the internal capacity was key.

Knowing that the existing order platform was in need of a refresh, we gathered a top-tier team of strategists, product managers & web developers.

Rebuilding the order platform brick by brick, we managed to tackle all of Reynaers' previous issues. To top it off, we set up a design system to ensure visual consistency and a narrow bridge between design & development. The new order platform ensured excellent customer service, scalability, digital maturity and internal capacity optimization.

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The approach

Structure & gap analysis

To deliver true value we first needed to understand the gap between the existing platform and the actual customers needs. In addition, we wanted to make sure that the new order flow would completely map with the existing internal processes.

Starting off with event mapping, we created an as-is blueprint of the current order flow providing an overview of all the different steps a user had to run through to place an order.

In a second phase, intensive user research enabled us to identify which components would be primordial for the platform to satisfy customer expectations as well as optimise the internal capacity. Collaboratively, we explored and mapped the relevant priorities for Reynaers future order portal.

Using this output, our team started creating high-fidelity wireframes to give Reynaers a clear understanding of the scope and cost. This early prototyping gave us an advantage in the building phase as our customer knew exactly what to expect.
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Build to scale and last

Moving on, we set up a 3-month sprint phase where we started building and delivering a number of the foundational components.To move quickly and keep costs manageable, we chose a modern development platform: .NET Core. This also matched Reynaers existing adoption of Azure AD for sign-in.

During the collaboration, Reynaers’ IT department was in charge of the construction of an API linking the internal ERP with the order portal. To avoid dependency, we decided to first build a mock API. This allowed us to begin development and gain speed without waiting for the Reynaers team to finish building the final API.

While building, we also identified the need for an internal design system to smoothen the future outset.

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The outcome

Going into close collaboration with Reynaers’ IT department, we managed to ship an order platform that now maps the business processes of both the company and its customers. More than ever, they are ready to accelerate their current business model and serve the next generation of digital mature customers.