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The Tobacco Turnaround: Scaling Enterprise Supply Chain

"How do you successfully digitize a massive enterprise supply chain when your users operate in remote rural areas with zero internet connectivity?"

A 30-second overview

Led the design of a field-ready, offline-first procurement system that transformed fragmented manual processes into a scalable digital workflow.

Designed the system to bypass poor rural internet connectivity, ensuring uninterrupted purchasing and seamless syncing with central SAP systems.

Accelerated the procurement cycle by 4x and enabled 3x operational scalability, supporting a volume growth from 850 MT to 2,500 MT within a strict two-month harvest window.

A friendly note :) This case study captures the journey of digitizing a massive agricultural supply chain. Guided by the 7C Concerns of Innovation framework (IIT Bombay), it’s a story of how I navigated extreme rural constraints, shaped the product strategy, and executed a real-world enterprise platform at scale.

20 Second Impact Overview

4x Faster Procurement Cycle: Reduced turnaround time from 4 days to just 1 day.

3x Operational Scalability: Successfully supported the aggressive volume growth from 850 MT to 2,500 MT

100% Manual Paperwork Eliminated: Completely digitized the buying, remote approval, and dispatch workflows

Risk Reduction: Higher data accuracy and zero reliance on memory-based field training significantly lowered operational risks and required supervision.

Domain

ERP, Supply chain,

Procurement,

Field Operations.

My Role

Lead Product Designer

Duration

~75 Days

Client

ITC INDIVISION LTD (IIVL)

Platform

Mobile & HHD

Team Structure

Product Manager,

Business Analyst,

Frontend Backend Developers,

IIVL field team.

Problem Framing & Constraints

The Messy Reality: Scaling a Broken System

When I joined, IIVL had an ambitious mandate: scale direct-from-farmer tobacco procurement from 850 MT to 2,500 MT in just two months. But their operations were 100% manual, and scaling a paper-driven process by 300% doesn't just stretch it—it breaks it.

To understand how to untangle this, I mapped out the reality on the ground and found severe bottlenecks:

As-Is procurement & approval flow with Manual Dependencies

The Paperwork Paralysis: The entire workflow relied on physical purchase slips and handwritten Unique Bale Codes (UBCs), stretching procurement cycles to 4+ days.

High Risk & Zero Visibility: Manual data entry meant errors only surfaced days later at the warehouse, and central buyers had zero real-time tracking of the fields.

The "Offline" Reality: Procurement happened in remote rural villages with poor or completely non-existent internet connectivity, while SAP handled inventory entirely disconnected from the field.

Meet Rajesh, our Field Agent. He bore the brunt of this failing system, handwriting multiple sheets of paper per transaction under the blazing sun.

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The Core Insight

Mapping this chaos led to one defining realization that shaped our entire product strategy:

Any digital system that depended on constant connectivity or memory-based training would fail in practice. The design needed to absorb the complexity of the rural environment, not expose the user to it."

Key Insights & Strategic Decision-Making

Digitizing a broken process just gives you a faster broken process. We had to rethink the system entirely.

The "Aha!" Moments from the Field

Watching agents manually weigh bags under the blazing sun revealed that the lack of system intelligence was creating a dangerous visibility gap. A simple handwriting mistake made in the field on Day 1 wouldn't be discovered until Day 4 at the warehouse, completely paralyzing the logistics chain.

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Co-Creating the Foundation (No Ego, Just Logic)

Before proposing any solutions, we needed alignment. During our induction meeting, I had stakeholders sketch their rough ideas. This built shared ownership early on. I then took their raw logic and refined it using UX principles to manage cognitive load.

Aligning cross-functional teams early. I took the raw business logic from these stakeholder sketches and translated it into a streamlined, user-friendly architecture.

Strategic Trade-Offs

The SCAMPER Workshop

How do we inject system intelligence and close a 4-day visibility gap in a region with "zero" internet?

I used two distinct frameworks to tackle the different dimensions of this problem: one to define the physical UI constraints, and one to restructure the enterprise business logic.

Defining the Physical Constraints (Worst Possible Idea): To ensure the app survived the environment, I facilitated a quick "Worst Possible Idea" session. Brainstorming anti-patterns—like ultra-trendy glass-morphism or forcing agents to type 15-digit codes manually—immediately anchored our strategy on building a rugged, high-contrast, scanner-first interface.

Restructuring the Business Logic (SCAMPER): With the UI constraints locked in, I facilitated a SCAMPER workshop with our Product Manager and lead engineers to fix the 4-day logistics delay. We made four major strategic pivots:

Automating Data Entry (Substitute): We substituted long text inputs with quick QR scans, smart dropdowns, and pre-filled data to drastically reduce human error.

Untangling the Bottleneck (Rearrange): Instead of buyers rejecting entire batches for minor errors (causing 4-day delays), we reversed the flow so buyers could edit errors directly

Designing for the Elements (Adapt & Eliminate): We eliminated confusing tech jargon in favor of simple, agent-friendly copy, and adapted a high-contrast, large-button UI for the blazing sun.

Building an Ecosystem (Put to Another Use): We repurposed the initial field UBC scans for instant shipment reconciliation later at the warehouse (AGG).

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Translating Strategy into Actionable Scope

To keep our engineering team aligned on execution, I anchored our design strategy around targeted User Stories:

Rajesh (Field Agent): Needs to scan UBC QR codes quickly and work (sometimes) offline to execute error-free purchases in sunny fields.

Kartik (Buyer): Needs to receive purchase vouchers digitally and edit/approve high volumes in one click to prevent dispatch delays

Warehouse Agent: Needs to scan received shipments to reconcile inventory instantly and catch missing bags

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Designing for the Field: A System with Empathy and Intelligence

Shifting the burden of accuracy from human memory to the system itself.

When we started building, the goal was simple: take the cognitive load off Rajesh (our field agent) so he could focus on the farmers, not the software. We couldn't just digitize a form; we had to fix a fundamental lack of system intelligence.

Instead of relying on people to remember complex steps or avoid mistakes under the blazing sun, we designed the system to take complete ownership of correctness and sequence.

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Mapping the new digital ecosystem. Before designing screens, I mapped the exact system interactions to ensure seamless, error-free handoffs between the field agents and the central buyers.

Enforcing Correctness & Guided Progression

Taking Ownership: The interface dictated exactly when users could proceed and when actions were final. It actively stepped in to prevent errors rather than letting users fail and recover.

Clear Role Handoffs: A single purchase required action from the Field Agent, the Buyer, and the Warehouse. The UI clearly signaled when responsibility shifted between roles, so no one was ever left wondering whose court the ball was in.

State Visibility: We replaced complex hamburger menus with an action-oriented task dashboard. Users had immediate visibility into exactly what needed their attention (e.g., Pending Approvals vs. Completed).

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Designing for the Human Constraint

To ensure the app survived the messy reality of rural Kurnool, every interaction was filtered through the lens of our field agents' environment:

Drastically Reduced Input: We replaced 33 pages of manual typing with QR scanning and smart, pre-filled data, removing hours of physical strain and eliminating data entry errors.

Lowering Training Dependency: We completely stripped out enterprise tech jargon. By using simple, field-friendly language and high-contrast layouts, we drastically lowered the learning curve for agents who weren't tech-savvy.

Offline-First with Clear Feedback: When agents lost connectivity mid-purchase, the system seamlessly cached data locally. We introduced clear, non-intrusive feedback (like "Saved Offline" toast notifications) to give agents confidence that their work was safe, auto-syncing the moment network returned.

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Testing, Outcomes & Reflections

Validating in the wild and driving enterprise-level scale.

Guerrilla Testing the "Messy Reality"

Strict project deadlines meant going back to rural Kurnool wasn't an option.

To simulate the environment, I took the prototypes to a nearby open field to test UI visibility under the blazing sun. I also conducted end-to-end task walkthroughs with our team and stakeholders to simulate real procurement scenarios.

Testing in these conditions revealed friction we couldn't see on our monitors:

The Sun-Glare Pivot (Visuals): The harsh glare during my outdoor test made high-contrast UI a functional necessity, forcing us to increase font weights and button sizes so agents could actually read the screens.

UX Writing for Clarity (Cognitive): During stakeholder walkthroughs, generic labels caused hesitation. I replaced vague CTAs with clear, action-specific microcopy (e.g., "Submit for Approval" and "Upload Signed TLPV") to give agents absolute confidence.

Fixing Disjointed Flows (Interaction): Walking through the tasks revealed that switching between scanning and data entry felt clunky. We simplified the navigation and reduced clicks, ensuring the workflow felt like one continuous motion.

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The Business Impact

By shifting the burden of accuracy from the users to the system, we completely transformed IIVL’s supply chain logistics:

4x Faster Procurement: Slashed the end-to-end procurement cycle from 4 agonizing days down to just 1 day.

100% Paperwork Eliminated: Eradicated the 33-page manual purchase vouchers, eliminating human transcription errors.

3x Operational Scalability: Allowed the business to safely scale procurement from 850 MT to 2,500 MT without breaking the logistics chain.

Zero Downtime: The offline-first architecture ensured 100% uninterrupted field operations in zero-connectivity zones.

Reflections: What I Learned as a Lead Designer

Extreme context dictates design: Testing under real sunlight proved that beautiful UI means nothing if it doesn't survive the user's physical reality.

Structural simplicity beats feature bloat: Realizing that simple, offline-capable task flows were more valuable than complex real-time dashboards taught me a massive lesson in product strategy.

Metrics explain the "what," users explain the "why": I could see the delays in the data, but I only understood why the 4-day bottleneck existed by stepping outside the office and mapping the real-world workflow.

"Aditya understood our goals, spoke with stakeholders, & turned everything into nice & easy flows. His designs made digitization possible."

Naveen

Product Manager

"Earlier I write all in paper, carry so many sheets....Now its just scan in mobile and done. Work is much fast, less efforts."

Ramesh Reddy

Field Agent

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