Heineken Sales App
Unifying planning, visits and performance for sales teams worldwide
Project Overview
ContextFMO is the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank, investing in projects across more than 80 developing countries. The organisation operates in a highly regulated financial environment where internal banking workflows involve complex reviews, approvals and compliance processes.
Internal banking workflows involved fragmented tooling, manual handovers and complex approval processes, making clarity, traceability and efficiency critical.
RoleAs Product Designer, I helped shape complex banking workflows in close collaboration with Product, Engineering and domain experts.
Impact- ↓ 30% lead time for loan change requests
- ↓ 50% time spent collecting data in early workflow stages
- design foundation scaled across 10+ internal applications
This not only improved efficiency, but also helped users make faster and more confident decisions.
Problem & Context
The Problem
Banking workflows relied on fragmented tools, email handovers and manual administration, making contract change processes slow, error-prone and difficult to scale. Employees spent more time managing information than analysing risk and client impact.
Video of the current workflow:
Regulatory and organisational context
Because contract changes could directly affect financial risk and compliance, accuracy and traceability were essential throughout the workflow.
Audience & Stakeholders
The product supported analysts, portfolio managers and decision-makers across multiple departments, requiring close collaboration with Product, Engineering, Business Analysts and compliance stakeholders.
Project Vision
The goal was to transform fragmented banking workflows into a structured experience that supports confident decision-making while reducing operational complexity.
Multiple tools, responsibilities and handovers were unified into a single workflow with clear ownership, progress and next steps.
Research & Insights
Mapping the workflow
Existing workflows differed between teams and relied heavily on interpretation and manual coordination. Mapping the process helped identify ambiguity, duplication and inefficient handovers.
Framing decisions through structure
Rather than preserving flexibility, we introduced structure to reduce ambiguity and help users understand what to do next at every step.
Concepting
The solution, Flow, centralised information, ownership and tasks into one structured workflow, replacing fragmented tooling with a clearer and more collaborative experience.
By introducing 'cases', information, tasks and responsibilities were centralised into a single, coherent flow, reducing cognitive load and improving collaboration across teams.
Design decisions & Iterations
Set-up
The workflow introduced clearer ownership from the start of each case, creating a visible source of truth for responsibilities and progress.
Assessments
Flexible workflow patterns supported different assessment types while maintaining consistency through a shared design system.
Department input
Structured tasks replaced ad hoc handovers, improving accountability and collaboration across departments.
Designing a Connected Banking Ecosystem
Beyond the primary workflow product, I redesigned multiple adjacent banking tools used across investment, compliance and portfolio management processes. The challenge was not only improving individual workflows, but also creating consistency across a fragmented ecosystem of internal products. These tools are focussed on:
- Monitoring financial covenants
- Financial spreading
- Risk assessment
- Arrears monitoring
- Compliance monitoring
A shared interaction model and design system helped align navigation, structure and task handling across tools with different business purposes and user groups.
Constraints & Limitations
Design decisions balanced usability with technical platform constraints, legacy processes and regulatory requirements. Mendix imposed clear limitations on design flexibility, while banking regulations and embedded legacy processes limited how far workflows could realistically be redesigned.
Outcome & Impact
The launch of Flow in 2025 marked a turning point in FMO’s digital maturity. Replacing fragmented workflows with one structured process improved visibility, reduced friction and accelerated decision-making across teams.
The lead time for loan change requests decreased by approximately 30%, while early-stage data collection became roughly 50% faster. Manual administration and duplicate data entry were significantly reduced, allowing users to focus more on analysis and decision-making.
What started as a workflow solution evolved into a broader ecosystem of internal banking applications supported by a shared design system and interaction model.
User satisfaction
Users responded positively to the clearer ownership model, reduced distraction and more structured workflows, helping strengthen design’s position within the organisation.
Key Learnings
- Structured UX can fundamentally improve how complex decisions are made, not just how interfaces look.
- Accurate and realistic data representation is essential for trust in financial products.
- Shared design systems create value by improving consistency and scalability across product ecosystems.
Robin has attention to detail and delivers high quality work. He has a good ability to collaborate with stakeholders and provide designs that meet their different views and requirements.
Business Analyst at FMO
Robin combines his technical knowledge with creative intuition and this is reflected in his designs, where his eye for detail is next level. His relaxed and professional attitude makes it pleasant to collaborate.
Software Developer at FMO
Background & Team
This project was completed by Soda Studio I worked within a cross-functional product team alongside Product Owners, Business Analysts, developers and domain experts, contributing to the product vision and workflow design over a period of 1.5 years.
