A mobile screen showing our work with Shell
Digital platform engineering

Delivering a world-class enterprise solution with Shell

We designed and delivered an end-to-end enterprise solution with Shell and multiple partners across geographies. This has been deployed globally across 39 markets to millions of customers. It replaces Shell’s existing system and transforms the interaction Fleet Managers have with their online card management platform.
The challenge
  • Delivering on Shell’s vision for their place in the future of the mobility space for Fleet Solutions: diversifying revenue streams through innovative products and services that are reliable, relevant and rewarding. Designed with the customer at their heart.
  • Designing, developing and delivering a Fleet Management portal which supports millions of drivers globally across 44,000 retail outlets.
  • Setting the benchmark for user experience and end-to-end agile development across retail transformation initiatives at Shell.
Impact
  • Creating business change grounded in user centricity.
  • Designing, developing and delivering a Fleet Management platform as the stepping stone for a digital ecosystem of integrated mobility services – Shell Fleet Hub.
  • Embedding new software solutions that create world-class user experience in a B2B context.
Client

Shell are a leading global energy provider

Project type

Design & Build

impact
0
markets

The platform is available across 39 markets around the globe

0
K

It is used in 44,000 outlets as a payments vehicle

Addressing shifting customer attitudes

Shell recognised the need to reimagine their place as a Fleet Solutions provider. Unsuitable platforms, competitors moving into the market and changes in customer experience expectation drove this shift. Shell needed to move from being a fuel card company to providing connected services which scale to meet their customers' needs. With a vision to be a mobility services platform.

Shell’s new business strategy meant focusing on products and services with customer experience at their heart. Making our work on Shell Fleet Hub about more than fuel cards. It paves the way for Shell to become a market leading provider of mobility solutions, including Tolls, telematics and other non-fuel services.

Mock ups of our work for Shell
Screens from the Shell MVP

Envisioning the ideal experience

We defined an experience strategy including a MVP which brought to life the possibilities in the user experience. It was a compelling picture of the future which allowed stakeholders to understand and support the ambition of the programme. This meant further investment was secured to build the experience as part of Shell’s retail transformation plan. 

Initial MVP which set the future vision for the platform (no sound).

Research informs design

The legacy platform offered an outdated user experience, our design research with core user groups identified pain points and user needs. It also helped us understand the competitive threat from smaller more agile organisations entering the market. This meant we could differentiate Shell’s offering through design.

Design principles

By defining design principles grounded in design research we directed our design process to meet and exceed Fleet Managers’ expectations. Including designing the platform to be insightful, predictive and empowering. Each principle guided the visual design, development, and implementation across the programme.

Shell case study 03.1
An illustration of a Shell wireframe
An illustration of our work with Shell
Design in increasing fidelity

Every customer, every time

The onboarding experience on the legacy platform was poor and required significant upfront effort from the user. This meant people resisted using the platform, those who remained preferring email or phone contact to manage their fleet. Shell’s goal to treat every customer like a guest reaffirmed the need to create a product rooted in best-in-class design in a B2B context. Our biggest design wins came from creating microinteractions which gives cues to the user about how the platform works. 

We focused on the simplest, high priority tasks Fleet Managers carry out. Over time, we ramped up our efforts by designing for greater complexity. By validating our design iteratively through research, we fed back changes into the sprint cycles. This helped us align with our client-side partners expectations and boost our design, development and integration effort towards successfully launching the platform.

Microinteractions offer a B2C feel to the platform (no sound).

Co-creation at scale

Alongside designing the platform modularly, we delivered it with our parent company Zensar and Shell’s API partner. This meant following modern development techniques and building a delivery culture across teams.

From the get-go we immersed ourselves in the design and technical delivery process. This meant together we had an entire picture of the technical landscape at Shell and the vision they had for the platform. We knew what could and couldn’t change on the road to delivering Fleet Hub. It also meant when we hit challenges, we found solutions and wins together, as one team.

By working collaboratively at scale, we designed and delivered a solution which protects the intricacy of the user experience and the moments which make a difference to Fleet Managers. This proves that world class experience design can be executed on complex B2B systems. By distilling the UI which form the platform into a pattern library we helped Shell create a baseline for design and development. This will be used to inform a future enterprise design system, ensuring efficiency and cohesiveness to services which are part of Shell’s Fleet Hub vision.

Some visual design elements for Shell
Components from the Shell pattern library

A future empowered by data

This platform is the first big step in a journey towards Shell becoming a provider of best in class customer experience. Fleet Hub has served as inspiration for other propositions Shell are considering – the pattern library built for the online card management platform has significantly sped up the ideation and delivery of a Tolls system. Meaning our work helped drive down time to market and cost to serve whilst increasing revenue for Shell.

Shell case study 07.1
Screens showing how data is used by the application

We're immensely proud of what we've achieved by helping Shell to deliver this platform. It represents how we can help businesses design, develop and deploy next generation platforms rooted in user-centred design and agile methodology at scale. 

  • Activities

    Personas, MVP, Proof of Concept, visual design, experience strategy, design standard definition, front-end development, back-end development, technical integration, UAT, platform roll out and localisation.

  • Delivery

    Iterative research, design, development, and implementation over 2+ years through a full Agile (SCRUM) methodology involving 30+ team members distributed across 2 regions.

Get in touch

We'd be very happy to talk through more examples of our work.

Contact Ed Walker, Business Development Director on ed@foolproof.co.uk.

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