GlowTrack
Optimise a 10 years old tool that supports companies to invest in other countries providing them tax information. The expectation was improve the usability, flexibility, accessibility and the visual design of GloWTrack and aligning it to the new KPMG branding.
The challlenge
GloWTrack was a 10 year old licensed application that provides the single source of truth on various tax regimes and is used by asset managers, banks, sovereign wealth funds, and hedge funds. To be more competitive, it needed to be much more asset-based, provide better data access and visibility, provide improved and more flexible reporting, provide real time information and other new features as well as a vastly improved user experience.
A complex data structure - 7 dimensions with up to 100 values were crossed with multiple notes per multiple rates – had to be captured in requirements first, as the data model depended on it. Then, the user experience had to be designed to communicate the right information to the user at the right time in as easy to use a fashion as possible. In addition, the MVP had to be delivered in 10 months.
The approach
I collaborated with the Product & Portfolio Management PODs combined with Technology’s Product Engineering approach to develop and launch the MVP in 10 months. We used Agile/Scrum for team organisation and an approach of:
Discover: User Experience Design & Research, Product Strategy and Roadmap, Requirements Elicitation, Prioritisation and Management
Define: User Journey Mapping, Personas
Design: Wireframes, Deliver, Test Strategy and UAT Testing
Heuristic Evaluation
GlowTrack presents complex data structure such as:
85 Investment Source Countries
100 Investor Residencies
More than 7 investor types (Banks, Corporates, Country-specific etc.)
More than 30 different asset types including equities, corporate and government bonds and derivatives
3 Activity Types (Acquiring, Holding, Disposing)
3 Tax Types (Withholding, Capital Gains etc.)
5 Rate Types (Standard, Treaty etc.)
Multiple rates per single data intersection
Multiple notes per single rate
Complex Rate Definition and Management Process (Audit Trail, Approvals etc.)
Multiple Stakeholders Involved (UK Tax, KPMG Member Firms, Clients)
Stakeholder interviews
Conducting stakeholder interviews for the development of the GlowTrack a health was an enlightening and essential step in understanding the expectations, requirements, and goals of this project. The objective was to gather valuable insights to create a user-centric tool that meets the needs of its intended audience.
Users interviews
What did we learn?
Gathering data is the most time consuming part of the process
There are existing tools and processes in place that we can leverage
Navigational inconsistencies and complex navigation may require some training before starting using GlowTrack
Value proposition
Provide a tool that could easily show detailed Tax Information with the necessary relevance to the investor.
Relevant: Information should be relevant to the decision-making needs of the user. For GlowTrack it means to provide complete information about tax in the needed country to support the investor decision.
Supportive: The navigation must be intuitive and the user needs to be assisted during the navigation to quickly complete their tasks and find relevant information. For GlowTrack, it means to provide an intuitive navigation allied with error prevention methods to guide the user on their journey to easily find the necessary and relevant information
Flexible: The design will not be responsive at this stage but needs to be flexible to allow the user to access the tool by different devices. GlowTrack will need a new design that allows the user access to the relevant information by using any device.
The outcome
Client’s have fed back to the tax team that Glow Track has the best user experience on the market. This has resulted in the product being sold to 30 clients in 10 countries including the biggest asset management firm and the 3 biggest sovereign wealth funds.
Total revenue exceeds ten million pounds, with a license fees = £500K per annum and some additional consulting fees.
GlowTrack is now a tool that can easily show detailed Tax Information with the necessary relevance to the investor.
It holds information on 81 investment source countries or territories and 100 investor residencies. Specific investor residencies can be added on demand.
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UI/UX | Design system | Visual direction | Prototyping