Introduction

In the world of global commerce, a supply chain is a company's lifeblood and its greatest vulnerability. For Chief Supply Chain Officers, navigating the daily threat of disruption is a high-stakes guessing game with billions of dollars on the line.

This case study details my journey as the lead product designer for Vertru, a B2B SaaS platform. My mission was to transform a chaotic flood of global data into a simple, actionable, and elegant experience. The goal was to design a tool that felt less like complex software and more like a trusted, all-seeing advisor.

Problem Statement

The core business problem was the immense financial and reputational risk hidden within opaque global supply chains. However, the human problem was one of overload and anxiety.

• Information Overload: Supply chain managers were drowning in a sea of irrelevant news alerts, manually trying to connect vague headlines to specific suppliers.
• Reactive & Inefficient: This time-consuming process meant they were always a step behind, unable to act proactively.
• Lack of Context: They couldn't distinguish between minor issues and full-blown crises, leading to constant stress and a high risk of missing critical, operation-crippling events.
• The Core Challenge: Our challenge was to design a solution that provided not just data, but confidence and control.

The Solution

The solution is Vertru, a sophisticated yet intuitive platform that provides a single source of truth for supply chain risk.

• Proactive & Visual-First: It moves users from a reactive, text-based workflow to a proactive, visual-first approach to risk management.
• The "Mission Control" Map: The core of the experience is an interactive map that gives managers a living, breathing picture of their supply network and emerging threats.
• Actionable Insights: By leading with location and context, the platform transforms a day of research into a 10-second investigation, empowering teams to make faster, smarter, and more decisive actions.

Team Structure

This was a globally distributed but tightly integrated team:

• Product Design: Led by me from India
• Engineering Team: Backend and frontend engineers based in India and the UK
• Stakeholders & ESG Experts: Based in the UK

We worked across time zones, leveraging weekly sprints, real-time Figma collaboration, and async video walkthroughs to ensure alignment and fast feedback cycles.

My Design Process

To tackle this complex challenge, I adopted a rigorous, human-centered design process anchored in a continuous cycle of discovery, strategy, design, and validation.

Research and Findings