Enhance Mahindra Auto Dealer experience by establishing a seamless connection among them.
UX Designer
Role:
Dependency and communication gaps between Financing Companies and auto dealers lead to collaboration issues and inefficiencies.
MF Dealers is a proposed financial system that intends to simplify dealer business finances.
Year:
2020
Adobe XD, Miro
Tools Used:
Overview
Mahindra and Mahindra Finance Service Limited (MMFSL) also known as Mahindra Finance is one of the most renowned Non-Banking Financial Companies. Mahindra Finance has a presence in every state in India and a footprint in 85% of its districts. It has a network of over 1300 offices, serving customers in more than 3,70,000 villages. They wanted to empower the business of the Dealers by bridging the gap between them.
I followed a product and services design cycle, understanding users, questioning assumptions, redefining problems and creating innovative solutions across four phases: 1. Discover 2. Formulate. 3. Assemble 4. Measure
Phase 1
Discover
Vehicle Financing or Auto Financing refers to the various financial sources which allow someone to acquire a vehicle through loans and leases. There are 2 types of Vehicle Financing. Mahindra Finance wanted to help the dealers with the business, therefore further study is focused on Dealership Financing. Dealer financing is a loan that is offered by the dealers to the customers and then sold to a bank or an NBFC. Dealer financing is also known as an indirect loan. Dealers benefit a lot from this type of finance.
The Indian Automobile Industry is the fourth largest in the world with an annual turnover of $100 billion and employs 32 million people. However, sales in the automobile industry in 2019-20 had contracted by 17%, the worst in over two decades and doesn’t seem to increase.
Validate and discard assumptions bringing the data and insights
Insights
These insights were based on secondary research and then later confirmed by the client.
Dealers and customers have to deal with a lot of paperwork due to a lot of layers in the process and the lending norms of the dealers keep changing constantly.
01
02
There is high competition between the dealers to sell the vehicles as fast as possible as the customers can switch to another dealer at any point in time.
03
Due to Mahindra finance having various tie-ups with original equipment manufacturers it has a continuous flow of business.
Phase 2
Formulate
Gathered information to gain insight into the target audience and their ecosystem.
How does Financing work?
Money has to be repaid with interest, meaning the dealer pays a certain percentage of the principal amount to the lender as compensation for the exchange.
Trade Advance
Trade Advance means an Advance to pay. In this case, the advances have been taken from the NBFC by the dealers. Trade Advance is mostly offered to the dealers, who perform goods purchases upon Advance Payment, to raise financing by using a purchase order.
Inventory Funding
Inventory financing is a form of asset-based lending that allows you to leverage your inventory or the main product of the business. The transactions between the dealer and NBFCs settle regularly as inventory is turned into products and sold off to customers.
Stakeholder Workshop
Interacting with the stakeholders to understand the business goals, gather existing knowledge and set priorities.
To understand the business goals also directly interact with the main stakeholders to understand the functionalities. I conducted a stakeholder discovery workshop to understand business requirements, gather existing knowledge and set priorities.
There is no proper channel to facilitate communication. The current communications are communicated through Emails.
01
The solution should be divided in 3 important parts:-
a. Trade Advance details
b. Vehicle loan
c. Inventory Funding details
03
Providing better customer experience to the dealers which would help the business to grow and also bridge the gap between the business and dealers.
02
Target Audience
User process and their mental models.
I began researching users, situational mental models and goals to better design solutions & interactions.
3.5/5
Technical Maturity
The auto dealers are majorly Gen X who are currently between 41-55 years old and Gen Y or Millennials who are currently between 26-40 years old. 90% males and 10% female work as auto dealers. 75% of dealerships are in Tier I and Tier II cities as the demand for vehicles is higher. Most of them have a fair enough qualification to handle the business as well as are good enough with technology.
25 - 45
Age Group
Dealer Interview & Insights
To understand the processes the user is involved in and the frustrations and challenges they face in the process. In an effort to gather information about the user perspectives and behaviors, a questionnaire was created. The questionnaire comprised a series of questions that were intended to capture a wide range of information about their ecosystem and challenges. The complex workflows of the user and their interactions with one another needed to be laid out in detail.
“We are not aware of the market in general and because of this miss out on offers. Especially government subsidies on the selected vehicles are not informed and also have very short time constraints so get missed out most of the time.”
Mr Sharad Dwivedi, Provincial Tractors, Nagpur
“Commission earned on each vehicle sold by the dealer has to be manually calculated which is very tedious. And also most of the data is not real-time which causes errors in the calculations.
Mr Anand, Seva Automobiles, Nashik
“We have to be dependent on the hard copies for most of the documents which take time shuffling in between Mahindra Finance executive and us which causes delay in a lot of processes. ”
Mr Kaplesh Rami, Kataria Motors, Ahmedabad
Competitive Analysis
What is working, avoid what doesn’t and identify gaps.
I compared the main features first and then did a comparison of usability using the Nielsen-Norman Heuristic Evaluation.
Existing Experience
Mapping
Highlighting touchpoints and interactions aimed at understanding and improving overall customer satisfaction.
Pain Points
To enhance experience by addressing specific areas where users face challenges.
After analysing the whole process some of the main pain points were grouped together.
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Dependency on the Mahindra Finance executive for all the data.
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Negligence of information which should be known to the dealer.
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Barriers, due to which information gets lost.
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Confirmation of approval is not received by dealers most of the time.
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Dealers lose on benefits because they aren’t made aware.
Communication Gap
Manual Errors
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Errors occur due to big calculations done manually.
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Payments have to be calculated first by the dealers then Mahindra Finance dealer and the circle continues till they don’t have the proper calculations.
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The commission earned on each vehicle sold has to be manually calculated.
Dependency
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For an advance payment process, they have to involve all stakeholders and have to wait a long time till their approval.
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The availability of Mahindra Finance executives also causes a delay in the process.
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Auto Dealers don’t have data for the current sale due to which errors occur in the calculation.
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Most of the data which they receive is not updated daily.
Real-Time Data
Complex Processes
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Requesting for finance is a very time-consuming process due to which a lot of customers are dropped.
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There is a very long process to get the valuation of a used car.
Technology
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Most of the reports are not acknowledged at times as they are sent through WhatsApp or Email.
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Have to be dependent on hardcopies for most of the paperwork.
Phase 3
Assemble
Different perspectives and ideate innovative solutions to your problem statement.
I consolidate insights to create an experience, synthesizing information to design and deliver a cohesive and user-centric solution.
New Experience
Mapping
Insights into user interactions, preferences and pain points.
Information Architectute
Organize and structure content, features and hierarchy enhancing user navigation, functions and behaviors.
This helped to organize the information and understand how the users will navigate through the application.
Phase 4
Measure
Identify and address interaction issues, ensuring the solution is intuitive and efficient
Wireframes were created to understand the flow and explore the UI as it had a lot of data visualization. An expert usability testing method keeps in mind the users and how will they understand the system's learnability. Based on the wireframes there were three types of tests conducted - Cognitive walkthrough, VIMM Model for cognitive load and Don Norman’s design principles for usability. Some results are presented here:-
Evaluation categories and results
The navigation is clear and the user can access the main functions very easily. Only some features are difficult to find like the write to us which happens after a lot of digging.
Navigation
Content
The content is easy to understand due to the list view. All the important features are easily understandable. It is organized in a proper hierarchy. The content is well-focused on the users.
All though features are in order as to how the users use them but some features could be rearranged. The reports button is not consistent throughout. The write-to-us functions provide users assistance. All the functions are visible and users don't have to rely on memory.
Functions
Consistency
The bar graphs do not follow the same pattern of labelling. Some buttons do not look clickable. The terminology used at some places is complex and does not contain the full forms. The elements for choice like radio buttons and checkboxes are not consistent.
Building the MVP
Design System
Consistency and efficient design elements for a unified experience
Elements were designed to understand the language, colour, navigation, typography and icons of the application which would help to design clear, consistent and intuitive UI. Also using a design guide helped with appropriate task completion and efficiency. The colour was selected keeping in mind the Mahindra Finance colour scheme.
Final Screens
MF Dealers help to reduce dependency and communication gaps between financing Companies and auto dealers.
Overview
It is a feature to give the whole over view of the business collectively. It includes all the main features. Dashboards make it possible for dealers to check the overall performance and the individual sales performance as well.
Trade Advance
Trade Advance is the most used feature as interest keeps adding up daily. The aging, utilization and balance which were manually calculated will be an automated process. Also, it shows the status of the previous requests which will be either pending, approved or disbursed. It will also show the interest charged daily for Advance the auto dealers receive.
Pain Points solved
Manual Error
Real-Time Data
Complex Processes
Business
This feature is a link between the vehicle maker and the auto dealers. It shows the monthly delivery order status of the vehicles. It gives an overview of the monthly issued, approved and unapproved status of the vehicle from the vehicle makers.
Pain Points solved
Real-Time Data
Payouts
This feature helps the auto dealer to understand his total commission earned monthly. It includes total eligible or the total interests which have to be received, the already paid payments and total balance remaining for the month.
Pain Points solved
Manual Error
Portfolio
This feature is like a case study of the auto dealer and his business. It includes document pending, Non-performing Assets (NPA) and Non-starters.
Pain Points solved
Manual Error
Real-Time Data
Inventory Funding (IF)
This includes the total limit, the total sanctioned by the dealers, the total outstanding and overdue left, loan details such as account number, program name, amount disbursed, amount repaired, die date, and how long the dealers have to pay back.
Pain Points solved
Manual Error
Real-Time Data
Requests and Refunds
These are the primary features of the application. Requests include transaction history for both Trade Advance and Invetory Funding. Also, a filter can be applied to manage the amount, period and date. Refunds include case-wise interests earned by the auto dealers. This includes the date, transaction ID, narration, the amount received by the auto dealer and the balance left.
Pain Points solved
Communication Gaps
Other Features
Transaction History: It is a summary of the history of payments made with transaction ID, date amount of trade advance and inventory funding.
Performance Charts: Representing the business in charts becomes easy for the dealers to understand and use. It also reduces cognitive load for them. It gives them a clear view of the insights.
Raise a Trade Advance: This feature was a very important feature as raising an Advance is a very difficult process. This helped them to directly apply and also get immediate approval.
Pain Points solved
Manual Error
Complex Processes
Real-Time Data
Final Thoughts
After wrapping up this project, I reflected on my work and what I learned. Prior to this project I never had worked in fintech. It gave me a great understanding of fintech applications. By thoroughly studying the data and by iterating multiple times, I was able to establish a design which was data-driven and also followed a pattern for displaying hierarchical data.
What I would do differently
If I had more time, I would have tried to conduct user testing after the visual design guidelines were in place. I would also like to talk to each shareholder in the dealer ecosystem to better understand their perspective.
Next
As of 2020, the Mahindra Finance dealership application 1.0 is in development with NeoSoft Technologies. It is scheduled to be released and in use by September 2020. The Phase II of the project which involves some of the insights from Phase I is also soon to start to solve the problems of the Mahindra Finance Executives end.