We transformed the Fisherman's Friends global annual business plan.
With a heritage dating back to 1865, Fisherman’s Friend was founded by Pharmacist, James Lofthouse. Today, the brand produces over 5 billion lozenges a year in over 10 different flavours to over 50 countries worldwide.
Challenge
The design and functionality of the Fisherman’s Friend, company wide ‘Annual Business Plan’ had become outdated and restrictive to users. It needed a complete overhaul.
For the new template we needed to create a secure, future-proof platform online that would not only have a new and improved design and is easier to use across different devices/locations but will also allow for potential future integrations with business systems for additional phases of the project.
After a robust discovery session with key stakeholders from all over the globe, we decided to build the new platform on a bespoke .NET web application as it enabled us to create a more user friendly experience overall and fulfill the business requirements more accurately. The .NET framework has built in security functionality that we utilised for the role based editing and access rights.
The integral data that informed key decisions for the business each year was originally an offline document that sits on Microsoft Word.
What we did
The new platform offered a number of key functionalities for users including:
Country Managers login to create, update and view their business plans
Permission based access so Country Managers are only be able to see the Business plan relevant to their market
Form-based pages that allow the user to easily move through and input relevant information to their plans
Automating calculations (e.g. totalling figures / currency conversions)
Autosaving to ensure information wasn’t lost through forgotten saves, or accidental window closure.
Company administrators were able to:
Set up new user accounts
Select what sections of the plan can/can’t be edited per region/market
Sign off plans submitted by distributors
Add/edit product list and assign them to markets/regions
We created a range of user roles for the platform that varied depending on permissions and what read, write and approval rights they are assigned. From full admin access to view only users.
We built the front-end in Angular 9 using material design principles (Google’s design process) to redesign the form on an online platform.
Designs are in keeping with the existing brand guidelines of Fisherman’s Friend whilst accommodating digital and UX best practices.
Result
The project was successfully delivered in six weeks and rolled out across the globe for one unified platform.