B2B Sales Platform
Streamlining the wholesale process for Levi Strauss & Co
As a Production Manager at SFDS, I optimized our workflow for catalog imagery production, making it 4 times faster and lowering production costs by 60%. This gave us the time and resources to focus on our main client, Levi's, and their B2B sales challenges. We identified problems and developed software solutions: IPG, VMR, and SOUP DAM, which we offered as a subscription service.
As a Founding Designer at SFDS, my role included identifying and analyzing customer problems, creating end-to-end user experiences, supporting the engineering and QA, developing research and KPI analysis strategies, creating client-facing analytic reports, and facilitating demos and training sessions.
Product Overviews
IPG
Interactive Product Guide
A B2B wholesale tool that digitizes and customizes product assortments, streamlining the sales process and enhancing customer collaboration.
Released 2019
VMR
Virtual Meeting Room
A multi-user whiteboard tool that replicates the in-person experience for B2B sales reps and buyers, enabling collaborative product presentations.
Released 2020
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SOUP DAM
Digital Asset Manager
A cloud-native DAM solution that centralizes assets, automates image manipulation, and provides API delivery using an AI image recognition agent.
Released 2021
Levi’s B2B Sales Opportunities
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How might we maximize sales?
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How might we speed up the sales process?
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How might we view data to make informed and actionable decisions?
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How might we leverage all stakeholder efforts and minimize duplicate work?
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How might we simplify asset creation efforts for all departments (design, merchandising, photo studio, sales)?
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How might we steamline communication between all stakeholders throughout the entire product life cycle (from design to retail)
IPG - Interactive Product Guide
The Interactive Product Guide (IPG) is a tool for B2B sales reps to create custom merchandise assortments for collaboration with wholesale buyers. It provides reps with pre-configured, customizable assortments to fit their sales strategy.
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Selected IPG screenshots, February 2019
Problems Adressed
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Sales were blocked or delayed due to inefficiencies in the B2B wholesale process.
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Printed catalogs were expensive, slow, inflexible, and often inaccurate.
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Lacked an efficient way to take and manage sales meeting notes.
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Lacked a way to customize merchandise assortments to individual customers, leading to impersonal sales experiences.
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Unmanageable processes for performing product inventory, recording customer preferences, and building draft orders.
Solutions Provided
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IPG successfully phased out printed catalogs, digitizing up to 90% of the Levi's B2B wholesale process.
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Real-time product information updates and image sharing enhanced buyer engagement and improved sales efficiency by 300%.
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IPG enabled the creation of tailored merchandise assortments for individual customers, allowing for a personalized sales experience.
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Our framework enabled the creation of purchasing forecasts and the development of additional digital products.
User Profile
Our discovery approach included surveys, interviews, field studies, competitive analysis, and real-time feedback to understand users' specific needs and workflows.
Fernando Jones
B2B Sales Rep at Levi Strauss & Co
40 years old
Orinda, CA
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Has an established way of working with buyers
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Slow with adopting new processes and software
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Overworked and burnt out during the sales season
Goals
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Sell as many items as possible that satisfy buyer needs
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Establish trust and connection with the buyer
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Prepare a curated list of items per specific buyer and share
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Walk buyer through the list, take notes, and quantize the order
Pain Points
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Selling through paper catalogs requires time-consuming in-person meetings.
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It is difficult to communicate product changes not reflected in static printed catalogs.
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Presenting self made curated lists is challenging and not visually appealing with static catalogs.
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Iterating orders is challenging when using static materials in person and over the phone.
Interface and Functionality
VMR - Virtual Meeting Room
VMR is a digital presentation tool that provides B2B sales representatives and buyers with a collaborative environment to meet, share assortments, and make purchasing decisions.
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Selected VMR screenshots, May 2020
Problems Adressed
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The pandemic disrupted traditional in-person B2B sales meetings, making it challenging for sales reps to maintain buyer relationship.
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Complex multistep sales process needed to be adapted to a virtual setting.
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Difficult to convey the quality and details of products (e.g., fabric, fit) without physical samples.
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Difficulty building strong connections with buyers without face-to-face interactions.
Solutions Provided
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VMR provided an immersive, interactive, multi-user interface that supports voice and chat features, enabling engaged collaboration.
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The tool provided a flexible way for users to collaborate on presentations, starting from full assortments to lists created in IPG
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Features included freehand drag-and-drop, preset layouts, whiteboard tools for interactive product presentations, and different access levels (Admin et al.).
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Provided buyers with the ability to independently view collections, make selections, and manage inventory
User Profiles
Fernando Jones
B2B Sales Rep at Levi Strauss & Co
40 years old
Orinda, CA
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Has an established way of working
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Slow with adopting new processes and software
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Overworked and burnt out during the sales season
Pain Points
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Struggles to convey the quality and details of products, like fabric, without physical samples.
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Difficult to build strong connections with buyers without face-to-face interactions.
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Virtual settings make it harder to add changes into the buyer assortments .
Goals
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Sell as many items as possible that satisfy buyer needs
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Clearly explain product details and features remotely
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Establish and maintain trust with buyers in a virtual setting
Jessica Carter
Sr. Buyer at Macy’s
35 years old
New York, NY
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Has 8+ years of experience in fashion retail buying
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Balances creativity with a data-driven approach to ensure that her selections resonate with customers and meet sales targets
Pain Points
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Overwhelmed by the sheer volume of products and the need to make quick, accurate, decisions.
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Lacks the tactile feedback needed to make fully informed decisions.
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Virtual meetings are less effective for discussing and comparing products, leading to uncertainty in buying choices.
Goals
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Select products for the upcoming season's trends and shopper needs
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Keep stores well-stocked with popular items
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Build good relationships with suppliers
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Avoid overstock or stockouts
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Negotiate better deals and secure exclusive products
Interface and functionality
SOUP DAM - Asset Manager and Webcut Tool
A centralized data and media platform that manages the image lifecycle. It automates the workflow using an image recognition agent, and automatically delivers finalized assets to relevant customers.
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Problems Adressed
Inefficient Webcut Process: The process for obtaining webcuts involved multiple departments, redundant manual work, and various tools, leading to time loss and errors.
Decentralized Efforts: Difficulty in connecting all departmental efforts, leading to miscommunications and duplicated work.
Sales Process Delays: Delays in getting the most up-to-date images negatively affected the sales process, especially crucial for online sales.
Data and Image Management: Challenges managing and accessing product images and data across different departments and regions.
Adapting to Pandemic Constraints: Maintaining internal sales interactions during the pandemic required a shift from in-person to virtual environments without access to physical samples.
Solutions Provided
ILM (Image life manager): A platform to track and manage the entire lifecycle of product images, ensuring that the most current images are available to all stakeholders.
Deliver (Automated webcuts tool): Automates image editing and sizing, and streamlines image distribution via API integration.
Shortlist: Supports the image production process, reduces asset transfer time, and improves item check-in/check-out efficiency.
Assort: Enables merchandisers to use past-season imagery to influence current designs and enhance collaboration with their design partners.
Seamless integration with Levi's existing SAP platform ensures timely and efficient data updates
User Profiles
Interface and Functionality
Achivements and KPIs
Implementing IPG, VMR, and SoupDAM significantly streamlined Levi’s B2B sales processes, leading to their adoption across sub-brands like Signature Gold, Signature Red, and Denizen.
These tools reduced image production and delivery times, improved team collaboration, and automated processes to minimize errors and ensure accurate asset delivery. This resulted in notable sales growth, with high user adoption driving Levi’s continued success and efficiency.
Customer-facing usage and analytics reports.