Making financial workflows make sense
Emerging from a mountain of paper
Corporations wrestle with an enormous amount of paperwork, even in the digital age. Processes around business deals and partnerships involve laborious document swapping, requiring the same information to be submitted over and over. It is an outdated process in need of digital transformation. CoorpID, a company spun out from ING Innovation, worked with argodesign on a fresh design approach to its data exchange service.
argo’s user research identified three key areas on which to focus design thinking: guidance, transparency, and control. The argo team created prototypes around these concepts to validate with CoorpID’s multi-national corporate clients. This was vital for working in an iterative agile process with the development team, ensuring that the right features were built and prioritized.
Guidance on regulatory requirements
Problem: Every new jurisdiction has different financial regulations, resulting in unclear requirements.
Solution: Smart recommendations to give clarity on what information is required and avoid duplication of tasks.
Transparent workflow
Problem: Keeping track of the current process is difficult with no audit of activities.
Solution: A centralized workspace that keeps track of progress and activities to empower distributed teams to work more efficiently.
Control over who can see what
Problem: Company-related information is extremely sensitive, containing significant personal data.
Solution: Comprehensive access management system to enable a structured way of working on a need-to-know basis.
Expediency above all else
Along the way, the research produced an interesting finding. Though initial thinking assumed a change in workflow was needed, the real problem was found to be mental load. End-users are treasurers of large corporations; data exchange is just one of many tasks they perform. They don’t enjoy doing it, and they want it done as quickly as possible.
The argo team therefore shifted focus to features that increase efficiency. An activities log provides a continuous audit view so users can instantly see what’s been done. The ability to set reminders removes the onus from the individual. And the ability to apply document updates across corporate entities translates to a drastic reduction in time spent on repetitive tasks.
Funding the business
Over the course of nearly 2 years, argo defined, shaped and built an enterprise product that ensured funding for CoorpID and helped it to progress from concept to market-fit to product-fit. The end result is currently being piloted by several large multinational corporations in Europe.
