Embarking on a Transformation Journey
The Bid Management
Imagine stepping into a project that has been in works for over three years, with multiple UX designers involved before you but little to show in terms of tangible results. The users— pricing support analysts, pricing analysts, sales, engineers, and business stakeholders—were skeptical, having seen countless research efforts with no actionable outcomes. Trust was low, expectations were high, and the challenge ahead was daunting. This is where I began my journey
PS: Heads up, this case study is a long read—covering 3 years of work and the roadmap for the next 3 to 5 years.
In this case study, I am focusing on two key stages of the RFP process: the New State and the Preparation Phase that we used for budget proposal. While the full RFP process at J.B. Hunt consists of 13 stages, I’ve narrowed the scope as the product is too big. If you’d like to dive deeper into the complete 13-stage process and its impact, feel free to reach out for more details.
If you're short on time, feel free to skip ahead to the solutions we've developed so far. But if you're up for the journey, it's an exciting story worth diving into!
A Monstorous Application
The EAGLE system had become an unwieldy beast, packed with tools not just for pricing analysts, but also for engineers. Over time, as more and more features were added, the application lost its focus, becoming a confusing, bloated tool with too much irrelevant information
Restoring Confidence
When I first joined the project, the biggest challenge wasn’t just the technical complexity—it was regaining the trust of our users. They had been through numerous rounds of research over the course of three years, yet had seen few, if any, actionable results. Their main pain point wasn’t just the cumbersome EAGLE application—it was the lack of confidence that anything would actually improve.
My mission? To turn skepticism into collaboration.
Lack of Scalability
The system could not scale efficiently to handle increasing volumes of requests. For example, at one point, EAGLE faced a backlog of over 15,000 problem tickets, and the system struggled to keep up with the increasing demands. This significant backlog not only delayed responses but also caused frustration among users who relied on timely and accurate pricing data.
Budget Proposal Pitch: Crafting a Vision for EAGLE’s Future
This section presents the budget proposal that helped secure approval for the continuation and expansion of the EAGLE project. The proposal focused on addressing key user pain points while delivering a long-term vision for EAGLE's future development. Although specific details of the design may evolve based on future research, the core features and objectives remain consistent, particularly for Pricing Analysts (PA) and Pricing Support Analysts (PSA). Here's a glimpse into the journey of creating this pitch and how we envisioned solving users' frustrations through an epic-driven solution.
Chapter 1 – Simplifying Our Preparation Process
Tools used in
Pre Bid Process
Eagle (60%)
Upload files into EAGLE and create separate RFP requests due to data processing limits
Process and scrub data
EAGLE consumes the majority of time as the file processing and scrubbing tasks are manual and require significant attention.
Excel (31%)
Retrieve the bid file
Split lanes into files, each with fewer than 5,000 lanes
Scrub lane information
Excel is the second most-used tool, with users spending considerable time organizing and preparing data before uploading it for processing.
Dynamics (9%)
Review details in Dynamics
Though Dynamics accounts for the smallest portion of time, it plays a critical role in verifying data and ensuring accuracy before moving forward with bid submissions.
User Narrative
Our process starts once Cindy contacts Samuel for help with the transportation needs for her company.
Her request consists of 15,000 lanes with volumes that range from 10 to 50 shipments per week. She is open to truck or intermodal service, whichever is the most affordable for her company. She wants to start shipping in the next few weeks and would like to get a primary carrier picked soon.
Cindy shared her lane file with Samuel so that pricing and negotiation can get started. Samuel completes the Dynamics request, and Richard receives a notification that a new RFP is ready for preparation and starts work.
(Sales Executive)
(Pricing Support Analyst)
Transforming Workflow Efficiency
The redesigned system addresses the core issues users faced, transforming how they manage tasks, collaborate, and make decisions. With improved task visibility, users can now easily prioritize requests, while enhanced collaboration tools ensure smoother handoffs between team members, reducing delays. Real-time tracking provides clear insights into the progress of RFPs, helping users quickly identify and resolve roadblocks. Additionally, by presenting accurate data upfront, the system enables faster, more confident decision-making. These improvements create a more efficient workflow, empowering users to work smarter and move processes forward without unnecessary delays
Create RFP
There are various ways to create an RFP, but in certain situations, users need to manually create these requests, especially when they receive them via email. The following video demonstrates the step-by-step process of manually creating an RFP.
Expediting Large RFP Preparation with Column Mapping
Historically, preparing large RFPs with up to 15,000 lanes took a Pricing Support Analyst (PSA) around 12 hours to complete. The newly introduced column mapping feature is designed to drastically reduce that time.
This intuitive interface allows users to quickly map spreadsheet columns to bid management fields, minimizing manual entry. A future enhancement will enable users to save customer-specific templates for these column mappings, allowing them to easily repurpose the templates for future bids. This will eliminate the need to recreate mappings for every RFP, as is currently required. With these improvements, the time spent preparing RFPs can be brought down from 12 hours to just 5, significantly increasing efficiency
Streamline Error Correction with In-System Scrubbing
One of the most time-consuming and error-prone tasks for users has been correcting invalid lane information, such as incorrect city names, zip codes, or origin states. Previously, this scrubbing process had to be done manually in Excel files, often resulting in a tedious workflow that added delays and frustrations.
This new design will allow users to handle these errors directly within the system. The interface provides a comprehensive error list, detailing invalid points like incorrect city, state, or zip codes, and offers users the option to correct these mistakes in bulk. By offering mass update capabilities for common issues, the design significantly reduces the time and effort needed to clean up lane data, making the process much more efficient.
With this enhanced scrubbing functionality, users can quickly identify and resolve errors without leaving the platform, eliminating the need for external tools and manual corrections. This improvement addresses a major pain point and empowers users to complete their RFP tasks more efficiently, ultimately enhancing the overall workflow.
Opportunity and Yield management
Chapter 2- Processing Better and Faster
User Narrative
Anita is an Intermodal Pricing Analyst, and her pricing strategies are driven by total contribution, dray mileage cost and historical performance.
Easy visibility to this data helps her to price quickly. Data accuracy helps her to price with confidence..
Anita sees on her landing page that she has a new bid to price. She selects the RFP and is taken to her bid sheet to get to work.
(Pricing Analyst)
Establishing Trust in Data Accuracy
Our users frequently encountered challenges in navigating complex, disjointed information across multiple platforms. The new interface minimizes this friction by integrating all necessary data into streamlined views. This solution eliminates the need for repetitive data entry and toggling between applications, significantly enhancing efficiency and reducing errors in data handling. The ability to perform bulk actions also transforms what was once a time-intensive process into a more manageable task.
The design offers clear visibility into lanes that align with pricing strategies, minimizing guesswork and speeding up decision-making. Relevant details are now easily accessible, cutting down time spent searching for information. The multi-select feature also enables bulk actions, streamlining repetitive tasks. This enhancement allows analysts to focus more on strategic decisions and less on administrative work, increasing overall productivity.
Streamlining Lane and Price Matching
Automating a previously manual process is key to improving both speed and accuracy in pricing workflows. With the redesign, users can now trust that lane and price updates are automatically matched and clearly presented, minimizing delays and reducing the chances for errors. This new workflow helps streamline the decision-making process, allowing users to stay focused on high-priority tasks rather than getting bogged down by tedious manual comparisons.
The elimination of the manual process required to match lanes and prices was a significant improvement. Previously, users spent a considerable amount of time manually comparing lanes to their corresponding prices, which was not only time-consuming but also prone to human error. With the updated design, this process is fully automated. Users receive clear indications of lane changes, price updates, and other relevant adjustments directly in the interface. This transparency allows users to make quick decisions without needing to manually cross-check every detail, significantly reducing their cognitive load.
Optimizing Pricing Overview for Efficiency
Pricing Overview feature consolidates all relevant pricing information into one view, minimizing the need for Pricing Analysts to consult external resoruces or reference multiple columns
By providing tariff rates, total avenue, contribution, profit, and estimated costs at a glance, this design helps streamline the entire pricing process. With this new system, analysts no longer need to sift through 65% of the columns they previously had to review, significantly reducing the time and effort required to complete their task
With this new system, analysts no longer need to sift through 65% of the columns they previously had to review, significantly reducing the time and effort required to complete their tasks.
This enhancement is designed to make the pricing workflow faster, more intuitive, and more accurate, giving analysts everything they need in one place to confidently finalize pricing decisions.
My Approach
Before initiating new research or design, I took a step back to thoroughly analyze the extensive three-year backlog of research. This involved sifting through all the collected data to ensure our team had a comprehensive understanding of what had been done and what gaps still needed to be addressed. I meticulously reviewed user journey maps, personas, and several hours of recorded contextual inquiries, extracting key insights and patterns. This deep dive into the existing data allowed me to draft detailed user workflows, providing a clear and informed foundation for moving forward with clarity and purpose.
The User Connection:
A Collaborative Journey
Active Participation
Rather than relying solely on past research, I’ve ensured that every interaction with the users is purposeful. Whether it’s a feedback session on a prototype or a discussion about a specific feature, users see that their input matters.
Iterative Improvements
With continuous feedback loops, we’re not waiting until the end to show users what we’ve built. Instead, we’re bringing them along for the ride, adjusting and refining based on their real-time input.
One Project, Two Paths:
Balancing Immediate Solutions and Long-Term Vision
This project introduced a new challenge for me as we followed two parallel paths: developing a detailed, end-to-end epic solution for immediate user engagement, and crafting a high-level proposal outlining EAGLE’s future vision for the next three to five years to secure additional budget. Unlike previous projects where the full budget was approved upfront, we only had funding for one year. This required us to show tangible progress with the epics while simultaneously creating a compelling proposal to ensure future investment. It was a unique balancing act, delivering short-term results while laying the groundwork for long-term success.
Building Trust Through Tangible Solutions
To regain user trust, we focused on the development of identified epics, delivering a live product users could interact with. After years of waiting for improvements, users finally had a chance to engage with the product, provide feedback, and see progress. This approach restored confidence by showing real, functional solutions in action.
Envisioning the Future: Long-Term Strategy
In parallel, we worked on a long-term budget proposal, envisioning what EAGLE could evolve into over the next three to five years. This high-level plan demonstrated how the system could support future business growth and solve existing pain points, securing the buy-in and investment needed to ensure the next phase of EAGLE’s development.
Persona and User Journey: Revisiting Past Research
As part of my deep dive into the three-year backlog of research, I revisited the personas and journey maps that had been created during the earlier stages of the project. These artifacts were essential in helping me understand the users’ interactions with the EAGLE system and where the primary pain points existed.
Understanding the Workflow:
Mapping the System
After reviewing the personas and journey maps that had been created before I joined, I needed a deeper understanding of how all the pieces fit together within the EAGLE system. To achieve this, I drafted a comprehensive workflow map (AS-IS workflow) to visualize the full process across different user bases. This map helped me identify how various tools, tasks, and roles interacted, giving me clarity on where inefficiencies were occurring and how we could streamline these interactions for a more cohesive and efficient user experience.
Identifying and Understanding
The journey maps for the Pricing Support Analyst and Pricing Analyst revealed key inefficiencies in the EAGLE system. It can take users anywhere from 1 to 13 days to complete a pricing request, largely due to switching between multiple tools like Dynamics, EAGLE, and Excel, and communication silos that slow down the process. With over 10,000 customer queries and 300 daily requests, these issues have become more severe as the business scales.
Users are expected to respond quickly with high accuracy, but the system’s limitations make it difficult to meet these demands, resulting in a lack of trust in the process. These journey maps helped us pinpoint these pain points and focus on designing solutions to streamline workflows, improve efficiency, and restore trust in the system’s ability to handle future growth
Processing Limitations
The EAGLE system’s 10,000-lane file size limit severely impacted efficiency, particularly when dealing with large clients like Amazon. To process an RFP involving over 600,000 lanes, users were forced to split the data into more than 80 separate files just to begin working.
Manual Processes
Users had to rely on manual steps, with system processing being slow and prone to errors. The entire process often took days to complete, with significant work being done after hours or on weekends, placing additional strain on the team.
Data Reliability Issues
The accuracy of the data was frequently questioned, with users expressing frustration over the inconsistency and unreliability of the information they were required to work with. This lack of trust in the system’s data further undermined its effectiveness.
RFPs are increasing in size and with current limitations, there is a significant lack of trust in the current Eagle processes
Crafting the Vision:
Designing with Purpose
Given the complexity of the project, we approached the redesign using a top-of-the-funnel process, ensuring that UX was involved from day one. This collaborative approach was crucial in guiding the project toward meaningful solutions.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
We began with cross-functional solutioning exercises that brought together product managers, product owners, business analysts, and the UX team. These sessions were pivotal in identifying the core problems and prioritizing them effectively. Through these discussions, we distilled the issues down to 30 essential epics that would guide our efforts in taming the EAGLE giant.
Data-Driven Design
Leveraging the research from the past three years, I led several design thinking workshops, focus groups, and solutioning sessions tailored to the specific needs of each epic. This approach ensured that every design decision was rooted in real user pain points and needs, without overwhelming the users during their busiest seasons. We were careful to respect their time while extracting the critical insights needed to inform our design.
Competitive Analysis:
Shaping the Proposal and Identifying Opportunities
While we were conducting cross-functional solutioning, identifying the scope of work, and creating epics, we were also working on the budget proposal. One of the key tasks in this process was conducting a competitive analysis to understand where we stood against top competitors in the industry.
The companies we analyzed have been in business for at least 8 years and are financially stable, using advanced technologies like data, automation, and AI to quickly respond to pricing requests. As we delved deeper into this analysis, it became clear that for EAGLE to remain competitive, we needed to focus on automation, user-centered designs, and increased visibility throughout the pricing process.
Tackling Column Overload: Streamlining Data for Efficiency
To address the overwhelming number of columns within EAGLE, we facilitated a Design Thinking workshop that brought together multiple key stakeholders, including our Chief Architect, Backend Lead, and end-users. The goal was to dive deep into the intricacies of column usage and identify which data points were truly valuable to both the users and the business.
The process involved:
This collaborative workshop was essential in understanding the full scope of the problem. By bridging the gap between technical limitations and user needs, we were able to design a more streamlined, efficient system that reduced unnecessary complexity while preserving essential data for both operational and business success.
What Makes This Iteration Different?
After reviewing three years of prior research, I initiated targeted sessions like design thinking workshops, focus groups, and usability testing to address key epics while supporting the budget proposal. The goal was to gather insights without overburdening users during peak seasons.
Our research remained user-centric, focusing on real pain points and workflow improvements. We gathered feedback from Pricing Analysts, Sales Executives, and PSAs across business units, ensuring that EAGLE's development aligned with both user needs and long-term goals.
Workshops with PSAs helped shape the ideal landing page, while usability testing with over 50 participants refined task management workflows. Card-sorting activities with PSA managers prioritized key RFP states, ensuring our design addressed the most critical parts of the process. Further sessions streamlined the RFP workflow and optimized column usage, reducing complexity.
Specialized workshops, including one with the Amazon pricing team, addressed client-specific needs. Interviews with Pricing Analysts highlighted data distrust, leading us to focus on features that rebuild confidence in the system’s accuracy.
By continuously engaging users, we've ensured that EAGLE’s development is aligned with user needs and business objectives, providing actionable insights to shape future enhancements.
Navigating Constraints
One of the significant challenges has been limited access to users, especially during their busiest seasons. I’ve had to carefully balance the need for user feedback with respect for their time, ensuring that we’re gathering the insights we need without overburdening them.
Outcome So Far
The prototypes we’ve developed are already making an impact. Users now have something concrete to interact with, which has helped restore their trust and enthusiasm for the project. We’re still refining, still iterating, but the path ahead is clear, and the progress is undeniable.
Impact
We’re seeing a shift in user attitudes. What began as skepticism is evolving into trust and collaboration. Users are starting to see that this project isn’t just more research—it’s a commitment to delivering real, actionable improvements.