A leading commercial bank in Nigeria with an extensive branch network, faced significant challenges in managing its procurement and inventory processes. The traditional manual systems used to oversee vendor management, procurement, and inventory control were not only time-consuming but also prone to errors and inefficiencies. These challenges were magnified by the scale of the bank’s operations, making it difficult to maintain consistency, ensure compliance with regulatory standards, and streamline day-to-day workflows.
To address these issues, we collaborated to design the Source 2 Settle Procurement & Inventory Management System, a solution aimed at transforming the bank’s processes into a seamless, automated, and efficient system. This project focused on optimizing procurement workflows, enhancing vendor management, and ensuring precise inventory control across all branches.
As part of a team of three designers, I worked closely with stakeholders to deliver a system that would enable Keystone Bank to achieve operational efficiency, improve compliance, and gain better control over its procurement and inventory operations. The following case study details the journey from understanding the challenges to delivering a tailored solution that streamlined operations for the bank.
Product Designer
2 other Designer and 3 Engineers
5 Months
Procurement is the backbone of any organization’s operations, ensuring the timely acquisition of goods and services needed to support business activities. In a bank as large as Keystone Bank, procurement involves managing multiple vendors, processing purchase requests, negotiating contracts, and ensuring compliance with financial and regulatory policies. This process becomes exponentially more complex when scaled across an extensive network of branches.
Keystone Bank’s procurement and inventory processes relied on traditional manual methods, creating significant challenges:
Inefficiencies in Procurement Workflow
Purchase requests and approvals were time-consuming, often delayed by miscommunication or lack of visibility across departments.
Vendor Management Issues
Managing a diverse vendor base without a centralized system led to inconsistencies, duplicated efforts, and difficulties in tracking vendor performance.
Inventory Control Challenges
With numerous branches, maintaining accurate inventory records was difficult, leading to overstocking in some locations and shortages in others.
Compliance and Accountability
Manual processes made it harder to enforce compliance with regulatory standards and internal policies, increasing the risk of errors and potential penalties.
To enhance inventory accuracy to 95%, improve procurement budget adherence by 20%, and ensure expenditures stay within budget, all within the first year. Optimize inventory management, reduce financial waste, and promote efficient resource use.
To design a solution that effectively addressed the bank’s challenges, we began with an in-depth research and discovery phase. Our goal was to fully understand the pain points faced by procurement officers, branch managers, and inventory teams across the bank’s extensive operations.
We conducted interviews with procurement officers, inventory managers, and branch staff from various locations to gain insights into their workflows and challenges. These conversations provided a detailed understanding of the manual processes, inefficiencies, and frustrations experienced on a daily basis.
Surveys
To complement the interviews, we distributed surveys to a broader group of stakeholders. The responses helped us quantify the challenges and identify trends, such as delays in procurement approvals and difficulties in maintaining inventory accuracy.
“I spend hours every week following up on purchase requests. Approvals are slow, and sometimes I don’t even know where the process is stuck.”
“Keeping track of inventory across multiple branches is a nightmare. We either have too much or run out of essential supplies, and there’s no way to get a real-time update.”
“Managing vendors without a centralized system is chaotic. I often end up chasing the same vendor twice or losing track of contract details.”
“There’s no standard way to monitor inventory levels. Every branch does things differently, and that makes it hard to ensure consistency.”
Our conversations with their procurement officers, branch managers, and inventory teams revealed a story of inefficiency, frustration, and untapped potential. At the heart of their struggles was the reliance on outdated manual processes. Procurement requests were managed through a patchwork of spreadsheets, emails, and phone calls, leading to delays, miscommunication, and costly errors. One procurement officer described the situation as a constant cycle of “chasing approvals,” which consumed more time than the actual work of procurement.
The approval workflows themselves became a focal point of frustration. With layers of sign-offs required, critical purchases were often delayed, leaving branches without essential supplies or missing out on favorable vendor terms. A branch manager summed it up succinctly: “By the time approvals come through, we’ve either already run out of stock or the vendors have moved on.”
Another recurring theme was the lack of visibility across branches. Branch managers found themselves guessing inventory levels, unsure whether another location had surplus items that could be redistributed or whether they were heading into a stockout. This lack of a unified system for inventory tracking created inefficiencies that rippled across the bank’s operations. One inventory officer described it as “flying blind,” with no real way to coordinate effectively between branches.
Beyond operational inefficiencies, compliance and security emerged as pressing concerns. Without a centralized system, the bank struggled to maintain proper audit trails, enforce regulatory standards, and ensure vendor accountability. A compliance officer captured the risk succinctly: “Without a proper system, it’s hard to prove that we’re meeting regulatory standards. It’s a big risk for the bank.”
Through these interviews, it became clear that Keystone Bank needed more than just an off-the-shelf solution. The unique scale and complexity of its operations required a tailored platform—one that could automate workflows, simplify approval processes, enhance inventory visibility, and ensure compliance with advanced security measures. These insights shaped the vision for the Source 2 Settle Procurement & Inventory Management System, paving the way for a transformative solution designed to address the bank’s most critical challenges.
To ensure that the Source 2 Settle Procurement & Inventory Management System would be both innovative and aligned with industry standards, we conducted a detailed competitive analysis. This involved examining existing procurement and inventory management systems to identify best practices, gaps, and opportunities for improvement. By studying successful platforms, we were able to gather valuable insights to inform our design.
Strengths
Existing platforms excelled in areas such as automation, spend tracking, and vendor management, which highlighted the importance of these features in our design.
Gaps
Most systems lacked tailored solutions for institutions with multi-branch operations and complex approval hierarchies.
Opportunity
We saw a clear need for a custom solution that combined the powerful automation of enterprise platforms with the simplicity and flexibility required by Keystone Bank’s operational scale.
Designing the Source 2 Settle Procurement & Inventory Management System was a collaborative effort focused on addressing the unique challenges faced by Keystone Bank. With multiple user roles—such as branch managers, division heads, and regional bank heads—playing critical parts in the procurement and inventory workflow, it was essential to create a system that streamlined approvals, enhanced visibility, and maintained accountability across all levels of the organization.
Our approach was iterative, combining user insights, stakeholder feedback, and technical feasibility to design a scalable solution. Through brainstorming sessions, wireframing, prototyping, and rigorous testing, we worked to reimagine procurement and inventory management as a seamless, automated process tailored to the bank’s complex operational structure. This section details how we turned these goals into a practical, user-centered solution.
Our team held brainstorming sessions to ideate potential solutions, with the goal of reimagining procurement and inventory management as a seamless, automated process. During this phase, we sketched initial concepts and created wireframes that focused on key functionalities. These included an intuitive dashboard designed to provide real-time visibility into inventory and procurement statuses, a dynamic approval workflow with customizable rules to streamline decision-making, and centralized vendor management tools to track performance and ensure accountability. These early designs laid the foundation for a system that would address Keystone Bank’s unique operational challenges.
Before diving into the design, we focused on creating a moodboard to set the tone and direction for the solution. This moodboard captured the essence of what the solution needed to convey—professionalism, trustworthiness, and efficiency—while staying user-friendly and modern.
To bring our ideas to life, we began with wireframing, focusing on translating user needs into actionable design concepts. The wireframes served as a blueprint for the system, highlighting the key functionalities that would address Keystone Bank’s challenges.
We designed an intuitive dashboard to provide real-time visibility into procurement and inventory statuses, ensuring users had a clear overview of operations at all times. For the approval workflow, the wireframes introduced a streamlined and dynamic system with customizable rules, allowing for greater flexibility and faster decision-making. Additionally, the vendor management module was outlined to centralize vendor information, track performance, and improve accountability across the bank’s branches.
Next, we developed high-fidelity prototypes to simulate the system’s functionality and bring our design concepts to life. These prototypes showcased the core features of the solution, such as the approval workflow, inventory management, and vendor management modules. The approval workflow was reimagined as a simplified and transparent multi-level process, complete with automated notifications at each stage to eliminate delays and improve communication. For inventory management, we designed a system that provided real-time tracking across branches, with built-in alerts to flag low stock or overstock situations. Additionally, the vendor management module allowed users to centralize vendor contracts, monitor performance, and identify compliance issues effectively.
Designing th was a highly collaborative effort that brought together a multidisciplinary team of designers, developers, and stakeholders. Working at a design and development agency, I collaborated closely with two other designers, as well as product managers and engineers, to ensure the solution was both user-centered and technically feasible.
The approval workflow was tested with various user roles, including branch managers, division heads, and regional bank heads. Each role interacted with the system according to its assigned permissions, ensuring that the workflow was intuitive and aligned with the bank’s organizational structure.
We conducted usability testing sessions with procurement officers, inventory managers, and branch staff to validate the system’s design and functionality. These sessions were structured to simulate real-world scenarios, such as
Submitting and approving procurement requests.
Tracking inventory across multiple branches.
Managing vendor contracts and performance metrics.
Approval Workflow
Users appreciated the clear, step-by-step process but requested more visual indicators for approval stages.
Inventory Management
The real-time tracking feature was well-received, but users suggested adding filters to quickly locate items across branches.
Vendor Management
Stakeholders valued the centralized module but requested better reporting tools for tracking vendor performance over time.
We added a reporting dashboard to track vendor performance and integrated a contract tracker with alerts for expirations and renewals, ensuring proactive vendor management.
After development, the built solution underwent rigorous testing to ensure functionality, scalability, and usability across Keystone Bank’s operations. Real-world scenarios, such as submitting procurement requests, tracking inventory, and managing vendor data, were simulated with end users. Performance testing validated the system’s ability to handle large-scale data across multiple branches, while usability testing ensured the interface was intuitive and met user expectations.
Approval Workflow
The multi-level approval process functioned smoothly, with automated notifications keeping users informed at every stage. Users also requested visual progress indicators to provide better clarity on approval statuses.
Inventory Management
Real-time inventory tracking across branches was well-received, with users appreciating the visibility into stock levels.
Vendor Management
The centralized vendor module effectively streamlined contract tracking and vendor performance monitoring.
Performance Under Load
The system demonstrated excellent performance and scalability, handling concurrent requests from multiple branches seamlessly.
We added visual progress indicators to clearly show the status of approvals at each stage, providing better transparency for users like branch managers and regional bank heads.
The Source 2 Settle Procurement & Inventory Management System was designed as a tailored internal solution to address Keystone Bank’s unique operational challenges. By streamlining procurement workflows, enhancing inventory visibility, and simplifying vendor management, the system transformed manual, error-prone processes into an automated, efficient, and secure platform. With distinct user roles such as branch managers, division heads, and regional bank heads in mind, the solution prioritized transparency, scalability, and ease of use to meet the needs of stakeholders across all levels of the organization.
W highlighted the importance of deeply understanding user roles and workflows in complex organizational structures. By involving users such as branch managers, division heads, and regional bank heads early in the design process, we were able to tailor the solution to their unique needs, ensuring seamless adoption and maximum impact.
Additionally, the iterative testing and refinement process reinforced the value of collaboration between design and development teams to address technical constraints while maintaining a user-centered focus. This project emphasized that scalable, impactful solutions come from aligning user insights with business goals and technological feasibility.
A B2B solution that helps financial institutions and lenders to manage risk and improve lending decisions.
An enterprise procurement software developed for Keystone Bank. It manages all internal procurement processes from requesting to approvals.
