Case Study:

P2P Experience Strategy for Procurement at Nedbank

Client: Nedbank Group
Timeline: 2023–2024
Role: UX Strategist & Product Designer
Focus: Procure-to-Pay (P2P) experience strategy, journey mapping, system design, policy improvements
Tools: Figma, Miro, SAP Ariba, Guided Buying, Fieldglass (FG)

The objective of this project was to redefine the procurement experience across Nedbank, improving the way internal users source, request, and buy goods or services through platforms like Guided Buying (GB), Ariba, and Fieldglass. Our goal was to improve user satisfaction, streamline approval workflows, and reduce process inefficiencies — while also realigning procurement operations with business needs and compliance requirements.

The Problem

Nedbank’s procurement process faced several key challenges:

Communication gaps between business users, procurement teams, and suppliers
Inconsistent budgeting and unclear forecasting during early-stage planning
Over-reliance on legal for routine contracts and approvals
Fragmented user touchpoints across multiple procurement tools
Unclear roles and responsibilities during key process stages

These issues contributed to long tender cycles, inefficiencies in sourcing, and user frustration across teams.

UX Research & Discovery

We began by mapping the end-to-end procurement experience — from initial buying intent to payment — across key personas:

Sourcing leads
Commodity specialists
Business stakeholders
Legal/compliance reviewers
Finance approvers
Internal requesters

Our discovery process included:

Journey mapping workshops
User interviews and feedback collection
Tool usage audits (e.g., Ariba logs, GB funnel data)
Analysis of common pain points, including:
- Bottlenecks in approval flows
- Repeated misunderstandings around policy or contract types
- Deviation from the guided buying process
- Inconsistent engagement with value teams and CABs (Change Advisory Boards)

Design Strategy & Goals

Our design strategy aimed to make the procurement experience:

User-centered by streamlining journeys and contextualizing content
Collaborative by aligning roles, responsibilities, and expectations
Efficient by surfacing budget, policy, and legal guardrails early in the journey
Consistent across decentralized and centralized buying models

Key Design Goals:

- Redesign and restructure the Guided Buying (GB) platform to serve as the single entry point into procurement
- Introduce decision trees, contextual templates, and custom forms based on commodity type
- Simplify SOW (Statement of Work) non-catalog journeys
- Standardize deviation flows and approvals
- Support targeted journeys such as:
  - Professional Services
  - Marketing
  - Travel & GT services
  - Centralised Sourcing

Tools, Processes & Improvements

We implemented the following enhancements:

Guided Buying redesign: new homepage layout, form-based templates, decision trees
P2P strategy mapping: visual process flows for each journey with roles and tools clearly defined
Value team model: structured engagement model between business, procurement, legal, and finance
Policy & rules review: removed unnecessary steps and clarified ambiguous approval routes
Training plan: scoped and developed onboarding materials for new processes, systems, and roles
Cross-platform consistency: aligned experiences across Ariba, GB, and Fieldglass

Implementation & Change Management

We implemented the following enhancements:

Guided Buying redesign: new homepage layout, form-based templates, decision trees
P2P strategy mapping: visual process flows for each journey with roles and tools clearly defined
Value team model: structured engagement model between business, procurement, legal, and finance
Policy & rules review: removed unnecessary steps and clarified ambiguous approval routes
Training plan: scoped and developed onboarding materials for new processes, systems, and roles
Cross-platform consistency: aligned experiences across Ariba, GB, and Fieldglass

Outcome & Impact

Improved clarity and navigation across procurement systems
Faster turnaround times on routine purchases and contracts
Reduced reliance on Legal through the use of templates and contextual automation
Higher adoption of Guided Buying platform due to better UX and tailored entry points
Greater stakeholder confidence in the end-to-end sourcing process