Transfers Planning Module.
Rescued a back-office module planners had rejected — sustained production use across all 27 operating companies, planning errors down 18%.
As Head of UX at ANIXE, I led the recovery: research across nine countries, stakeholder realignment, profit visibility in V1, and a live-data prototype that secured C-level backing for V2 automation.
Key results
- -18% — Order-creation errors in UAT — measured against the pre-redesign baseline (Measured)
- 27/27 — Sustained production use across all 27 operating companies worldwide (Measured)
- €190K/yr — Modeled: ≈ 2,500 errors prevented annually across the 27-company network × €75 direct cost — the €547K speculative routing upside stays separate in the FAQ (Modeled)
What I measured
- User error reduction — -18% (User acceptance testing + system logs)
- Production use — 27/27 operating companies (Post-delivery production use across the 27-company network)
- V2 automation concept — C-level sign-off (Excel prototype test with live data and live users — funded for the next budget cycle)
- Perceived utility (UMUX-lite) — Top-tier scores (Usability testing with Axure RP prototype and live data)
Users rejected the product — and the client was losing trust
Transfer services were the portfolio’s highest-margin line. All 27 operating companies needed the module before high season.
Rejected V1
Planners had returned to Excel; trust was broken.
No new budget
The recovery had to land inside V1.
Fixed deadline
Another miss before high season threatened the client relationship.
Nine countries
One module had to support different local workflows.
I can't do my job with this. I'm going back to Excel.
I never know if an Order actually made money until the end of the month.
Planner, first week of rollout
Contextual inquiry, transfers planning
From screen redesign to rebuilding planner trust
I reframed a screen redesign around two outcomes: restore trust and make profit part of every planning decision.
“Redesign the screens so users can work with the system.”
“Rebuild trust with 27 skeptical companies and turn planners from transportation arrangers into profit optimizers.”
I introduced both as success criteria.
Automated Service Grouping was valuable, but V1 had no budget left.
I co-built it in Excel on live data. Planner demand turned the concept into a C-level-backed roadmap item.
Four groups, one evidence base.
Business Owner
Observed the failed workflow and became an advocate.
Planners across 9 countries
Co-designed flows; UAT covered regional differences.
Front-end Developer
Co-built the live-data V2 prototype.
C-Level Executives
Backed the validated automation roadmap.
Profit visibility as a planning pattern
Planners optimized for completion because margin appeared only after the work. I moved expected profit into the planning flow.
Show expected profit before commitment and flag loss-making configurations. Planners could optimize margin without learning a separate process.
Profit appeared only at month-end
Manual copy-paste across disconnected tools
No warning when services changed
Manual supplier emails and reconciliation
What I measured — and what I couldn't
Directly observed metrics from UAT, adoption data, and post-delivery acceptance.
Order-level margin uplift
No booking integration connected the feature to actual margin.
Routing upside
The €547K scenario remains illustrative and unverified.
Trust recovery
Production use reached 27/27 companies; relationship impact was not instrumented.
What worked · what I'd do differently
What worked
Including stakeholders to the research.
Watching planners struggle turned a defensive stakeholder into an advocate.
What I'd do differently
Lobby for financial instrumentation from day one.
Require booking-system instrumentation early enough to measure actual margin, not only proxies.
FAQ
What's the business value of showing "expected profit" per Order?
Previously, planners optimized for completion - getting travelers from A to B. They had no real-time visibility into whether their routing decisions were actually profitable. A planner might create a perfectly functional Order that lost money due to suboptimal vehicle allocation. They wouldn't know until after the fact, if ever. Speculative scenario — illustrative and unverified, never summed with the modeled €190K: - Assume average Order value: €500 (multiple travelers, varying distances) - Assume 100 Orders processed daily across 27 companies - If profit visibility enables just 3% better routing decisions - 3% of €500 = €15 additional margin per Order - 100 Orders × 365 days × €15 = €547,500 additional annual margin This is speculative but deliberately conservative — 100 Orders/day is roughly one-eighth of the network's real volume (≈ 770/day across the 27 companies). The feature turned planners from "transportation arrangers" into "profit optimizers".
What was the actual cost of the "error-prone manual work" you reduced?
Transfer planning errors cascade — across 27 companies. **Direct costs per error:** - Missed pickup → emergency taxi at premium rates (€50-150 vs. €20 planned) - Wrong timing → complaints, potential compensation (€25-100) - Supplier miscommunication → service failure, refunds **The estimate, network-wide:** 200 complex Orders/week per DMC at a 5% error rate is ≈ 520 errors per company per year. An 18% reduction prevents ≈ 94 of them — per company. Across all 27 DMCs that's ≈ 2,500 errors a year that never happen. At €75 average direct cost (emergency rebooking + customer service + planner time): **≈ €190K/year in direct error costs prevented across the network.** **On top of that — named, not priced:** - **Reconciliation and compensation.** Every traveler-visible error spawns finance work: supplier-invoice disputes, compensation processing, refund reconciliation across DMC, tour operator, and supplier. The reconciliation hours often cost more than the mistake. - **Brand.** Transfers are the first and last moments of a package holiday. A stranded family at an airport is the failure a tour-operator brand remembers — and at 27-company scale, error patterns become complaints, claims, and renewal risk. - **Planner attention.** Every correction steals time from the profit-optimizing work the module was built to enable.