Orbe
All-in-one, self-service, insurance suite for insurance brokers and businesses.
Research Tools
Description
ORBE Seguros y Fianzas (Orbe Insurances and Sureties) is an Insurance Broker Agency based in Jalisco, México. From individual to Construction Sureties, ORBE can provide custom services to everyone who wants a personal broker and all-insurance assistance. They started as a family venture with fewer products and currently operate nationwide at different company levels with more than 20 insurance companies.
About the project
ORBE reached Digita Studio to address some issues with their internal ERP. Their ERP was costume made and focused on managing a specific type of insurance that needed 24/7 service and assistance. We thought it was a bug-related issue and proceeded with a standard discovery process. It wasn't enough. Once we checked the current solution, we noticed the problem was based on the operations' structure, the tool's usage, and the limits of the processes and pivot.
We pitched the idea to expand the discovery process to services, processes, and related tools, which was accepted. After this new discovery ended, we understood their actual needs were for an entirely self-service Insurance suite where customers could get insurance and assistance all in one place. This project would eventually expand into an app, a SaaS, and other products.
Their internal SaaS would relate customers, products, payments, invoices, and payments. Their central platform would track the progress of administrative processes through states, manage credentials for sellers and clients, and acquire new products. Clients could buy new products as a self-service using the referral of their seller. Sellers could manage their clients, products sold, payments, and commissions. Management could visualize sellers' and products' performance. Accounting and Finance Teams could see and manage product payments, commission payments, and accounting reconciliations.
Main Design Challenge
How might we understand end-user needs if we can't contact them at the moment of User Experience Research?
After the first discovery process, we needed to involve other departments in the product development cycle. Their operations were crucial for the client's goals, and their input was vital. Nonetheless, stakeholders' priorities were set on the initial request, and any deviation would seem unfounded. Furthermore, the reason their information was needed was quickly dismissed by stakeholders, as the platform was intended for someone else at the beginning.
We mapped all departments and found essential bottlenecks in the communications between departments. Departments without connection to the first platform popped up around the primary process, and the dependencies became evident thanks to visual representations. Using system diagrams, customer journeys, and service blueprints, we could exemplify why more areas of the company were needed and why the platform had the wrong scope.
Since the initial discovery process was blindsided by a reduced time frame and early feature specification, we identified this was our fault. After stakeholders recognized this shift could bring value to the platform and primary process, we corrected the path. Interviews with these missing departments were planned, executed, analyzed, and synthesized to features soon after. We integrated their insights and made a new status system that could inform all the areas involved. As a result, the platform stayed on track with the first development, and a new iteration came after this one to empower new users and their needs.
Conclusion
After their first project, ORBE saw the power of digital transformation and process optimization. They were interested in researching several new ventures to scout for new business possibilities and plan a complete digital transformation roadmap for their next 3 years. They saw the relevance of a deep user research process and started their in-house development team to incorporate their new products, ventures, and operations. The digital transformation process of ORBE is still being worked on.
