Modernising B2B eCommerce and dealer platforms across Europe

Role: B2B IT UX Consultant
Industry: Enterprise · B2B eCommerce · Digital Platforms
Scope: Product flows · Platform modernisation · Design system · Stakeholder workshops · DevOps handoff · Testing · Visual QA
Collaboration: European headquarters · Local business teams · Developers · Dealers · Product stakeholders
Focus: Making a fragmented B2B ecosystem more consistent, easier to use, and easier to evolve

Confidentiality note

Due to GDPR and enterprise confidentiality, I cannot share production screens or detailed internal visuals. This case study focuses on UX strategy, system decisions, workflows, collaboration, and outcomes.

Context

Konica Minolta operates a complex B2B digital ecosystem across multiple European markets. The work covered a modern eCommerce platform and a legacy dealer platform used for indirect sales. 

These products were business-critical and used by dealers, partners, and internal teams in different countries. Each market had its own priorities, level of digital maturity, and local business needs.

I worked as an embedded UX consultant within the IT department, collaborating with European headquarters in Germany, local business teams, and development teams.

My role

I worked across UX strategy, hands-on design, stakeholder communication, and delivery support.

A large part of my role was translating business needs into practical flows, prototypes, specifications, and developer-ready tasks. I also helped balance short-term feature delivery with the longer-term goal of making the platform more consistent and easier to maintain.

The challenge

The B2B ecosystem had grown over time across different platforms, teams, and technical foundations.

The modern eCommerce platform and legacy dealer system did not always follow the same UX patterns or visual language. At the same time, teams needed to keep releasing features quickly across multiple European markets without disrupting existing business operations.

The challenge was to improve the experience gradually, without relying on a full platform rebuild.

Design process

1. Discover - Audited the existing purchase journey and pricing presentation across markets, gathered input from regional sales and marketing teams on where local processes broke down.

2. Define - Mapped the indirect sales journey end to end (partner, configuration, quote or purchase, fulfilment) and identified where complexity and non transparent pricing were causing drop off.

3. Design - Designed a simplified, modular purchase flow that could flex per market (currency, tax, localisation) without duplicating logic for every country team.

4. Validate - Tested the new flow with regional sales and marketing stakeholders and a subset of indirect partners, checking that local nuances such as language, pricing display and approval steps were respected.

5. Deliver - Worked with developers to translate the flow into a component based frontend, enabling local teams to manage content without design or development involvement for routine updates.

Target audience

• Primary users: Indirect sales partners and resellers across multiple European markets, purchasing or configuring devices and consumables on behalf of end customers.

• Secondary users: Local and regional sales and marketing teams who needed to manage pricing, content and promotions per market without central bottlenecks.

EXAMPLE OF User personas

• Tomas, Regional Reseller Partner.
  - Runs a small B2B reseller business, orders devices and consumables regularly on behalf of clients.
  - Wants a fast, predictable purchase flow with transparent pricing in his own language and currency.
  - Frustrated by unclear pricing and a purchase process that did not reflect how his business actually orders.

• Ingrid, Local Marketing and Sales Coordinator.
  - Manages content and promotions for one country market.
  - Not a developer, needs to update pricing, content and campaigns herself without waiting on central IT.
  - Frustrated by having to request every small change through a central team.

User research

• Interviews with regional sales and marketing leads to understand market specific friction, including pricing transparency, localisation gaps and approval processes.

• Review of the existing purchase funnel to identify the steps with the highest drop off.

• Comparative review of how partners were completing, or abandoning, purchases in the legacy system, based on support and sales team input.

• Light usability testing of the redesigned flow with partners in two pilot markets before wider rollout.

• We used empathy map as part of research. 

WHAT I WORK ON

Creating a shared UX direction

Problem: The eCommerce and dealer platforms used different patterns and visual approaches, making the experience feel fragmented for users and creating extra work for teams.

Solution: I helped define a shared UX direction and introduced scalable design system principles that could work across both the modern and legacy platforms.

Result: This created a clearer path for gradual modernisation without requiring a full system rewrite.

Improving legacy dealer workflows

Problem: The dealer platform was essential for daily business, but many of its flows were outdated and difficult to navigate.

Solution: I worked on key workflows, information architecture, and interaction patterns to reduce unnecessary complexity while respecting technical limitations.

Result: The platform became easier to use and easier to improve incrementally over time.

Aligning stakeholders across markets

Problem: Different European teams often had competing priorities, leading to unclear ownership, late changes, and slow decisions.

Solution: I ran regular review sessions, presented UX concepts and prototypes, and facilitated workshops focused on dealer workflows and B2B purchasing behaviour.

Result: Teams aligned earlier on scope, priorities, and expected outcomes.

Simplifying B2B purchasing journeys

Problem: Cart and checkout flows created friction for partners, especially where purchasing decisions involved complex B2B rules and dependencies.

Solution: I reviewed the journeys, removed unnecessary steps, and simplified key decision points based on testing and stakeholder feedback.

Result: The purchasing experience became easier to complete and support requests around key flows were reduced.

Introducing new features without disrupting existing workflows

Problem: The platform needed to introduce new functionality f.e including an AI chatbot and dynamic FAQ component, while keeping the experience stable for existing users.

Solution: I helped integrate these features into relevant user journeys and ensured they matched existing patterns, expectations, and technical constraints.

Result: This supported faster validation and smoother adoption of new functionality.

Strengthening design-to-development delivery

Problem: Design handoff had previously caused rework and misunderstandings between UX and development.

Solution: I managed UX work in Azure DevOps, prepared clear documentation and acceptance criteria, and remained involved during development through visual QA against Figma designs.

Result: Implementation quality improved and collaboration between UX and engineering became more efficient.