Research and Experience Design to improve Promotions and Limited Time Offer Management and Reporting for B2B Foodservice Brands
Project Summary
I led the user research, collaborated in scoping, and designed a tool for Foodservice Brands to manage and track their Promotions and Limited Time Offers. Gathered user insights and iterated based on our quarter long Beta release.
Responsibilities
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Qualitative user research
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Scoping product requirements
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Product design strategy
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Experience design
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Prototyping and Usability testing
Timeline & Team
This project had a timeline of 3 quarters cumulating with a quarter long Beta release to a subset of customers.
The team consisted of a PM, Product Marketing Manager, 5 engineers, and myself.
Results
The beta release was well recieved, we have 3 active customer accouts and product continues to collaborate with marketing and account management in upselling this module.

ArrowStream is a Foodservice B2B supply chain and logistics SaaS platform. Brands, distributors, and suppliers utilize data collection and analysis tools to manage, track, and inform their decisions.
Company Overview
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ArrowStream facilitates the collection of distributors' and stores' information, which helps brands make critical decisions in their supply chain with focused reporting.
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ArrowStream is data-centered and relies on a good user experience for users to input, report on, and view their data.

ArrowStream saw an opportunity to improve the management of Promotions and Limited Time Offers to improve brands' processes and reporting…. and it worked!
Brands could see potential stock issues at the store and DC levels without digging through data so they could respond faster.
Reducing unused stock at the end of the promotion saved money and resources.
Daily time spent on promotion management was decreased by 30%.
Time spent on creating reports during and after a promotion decreased by 20%.
ArrowStream is an Industry Thought Leader. Through our research for this product we helped companies ideate on what a "successful promotion looks like".
10 Brand Interviews
Goal: Understand brands' promotion forecasting, setup, management, and tracking processes
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At what level are brands forecasting and how are they generating that forecast?
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Once a promotion starts, what does daily management look like?
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What are key indicators of concern during a promotion?
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During and after a promotion, what kind of reports are generated and what is the audience for those reports?
Goal/Interview Framing
12 Internal Research Meetings
Goal: Understand how AS receives data from Distribution Centers, the limitations of our data streams, and the creation of metrics that accurately portray the indicators brands are interested in
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What is the cadence of data received?
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If we are unable to directly answer a question with data is there another way we can indicate something?
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What are the thresholds to pay attention to in our metrics?
Goal/Interview Framing
5 Brand Design Feedback Workshops
Goal: Recieve brand feedback on mocks and show work completed in previous sprints
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Validate work and processes
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Open up the discussion to different employee roles
Goal/Interview Framing
I organized qualitative interview questions and facilitated user research sessions with brands. I also attended many internal meetings to understand our data and limitations.
This product needed to fit many different brand workflows and consider how they forecast, manage, and track their promotions.
1. Planning
Setup
Users are inputting forecasts, setting up data collection streams, and beginning to track/ship physical products to Distribution Centers and Stores
Clear data setup and definitions are critical
2. Management
Tracking
A promotion is live in stores and users are managing their inventory at both the Distribution Center and Stores
Problem Indicators and remedial actions are ciritical
3. Complete
Analysis
A promotion has ended. Obsolete inventory must be managed and data gathered will be used for future promotion planning.
Obsolete inventory management and ability to export data for reporting and planning is critical.
From our research, we broke the promotion process into 3 distinct phases with their own needs and goals.
Phase 1:
Planning
Setup
Phase 2:
Management
Tracking
Phase 3:
Complete
Analysis
Phases that Promotions go through
A "successful" promotion has no inventory outages during and little to no obselete inventory after.
Inventory Alerts
Goal: Keep stock levels at Distribution Centers and Stores at levels that meet demand with no outages and avoid overstock.
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Know how many Days On Hand of stock for each item in the promotion. Special attention is paid to items that are only used for the promotion.
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If there is a potential for shortage or overstock be able to see surrounding Distribution Centers to arrange transfers
Financial Exposure
Goal: Understand your potential financial exposure for the promotion
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If your promotion ended today, know how much obsolete inventory you would be left with and the base cost of it.
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Calculate based on only promotion items for some brands and for all items for other brands.
Data Slicing/Reporting
Goal: Create internal reports for different business needs to share promotion progress and analysis
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Slice the data in different ways based on attributes like region, distribution centers, and stores
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Easily zoom in and out in reports based on the internal audience and their needs
Zooming in on Phase 2 Management and Tracking we focused on solving for 3 main user goals.
To fulfill our user's goal of inventory alerts we created a dashboard view that surfaces immediate issues.

Available during Phase 2, all this data can be exported into excel
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Inventory Alerts are for Item/DC and Item/Store groupings, the issues are sorted to the top, and are categorized by:
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Out of Stock (Red) where the On Hand is less than or equal to zero
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High Risk (Orange) where the estimated Run Out Date is before the Next Purchase Order Delivery Date
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At Risk (Yellow) where there is either No Purchase Order placed or the estimated Run Out Date is before the 2nd it 3rd Purchase Order Delivery Date
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No Alerts (Green) none of the conditions above are me
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Count of days until estimated Run Out: Clicking on this gives you a deeper inventory view at that DC Location/Item Combo
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Clock Icon: Alerts user to potentially old data the file's last receipt date is before today's date. Hovering tells you the last receipt date
Key Learning #1
Data heavy products are complex and present many constraints. There will always be a compromise between what data is available, the workflows that it needs to support, and the diversity in brands' internal processes.
Key Learning #2
Definitions drive expectation. Creating a consistent mutual language with brands, users, and our system is crucial.
Key Learning #3
Internal process needs to make room for discovery to enable proper scoping and requirements building. While you won't have all the answers upfront taking time to play things out and ask cause and effect questions is very important.
The balance between available data, different workflows, and user needs is an interesting challenge.
We launched a quarter-long guided Beta release with 8 brands and generated 3 upsells!
"This makes my morning check in so much faster. Less time looking for issues and more time solving them"
-Beta User
Daily time spent on promotion management was decreased by 30%.
Time spent on creating reports during and after a promotion decreased by 20%.
Sales identified a $1-3 million potential ARR based on our brand customers.
To fulfill our user's goal of Financial Exposure we created a dashboard view that tracks purchase orders and inventory.

Available during Phase 2, all this data can be exported into excel
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Total Exposure at all Distribution Centers across all Items
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Manual Override: For customers who want to edit their financial exposure or remove items from the calculation
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Total Exposure at the listed Distribution Center across all Items