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Connect Contract Analytics
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Implementing the Compliance Analytics feature for Connect, a B2B online pharmaceutical ordering platform, and integrating machine learning and AI capabilities to provide customers with proactive suggestions, enhancing their ability to consistently exceed contract performance standards.
Project Overview
A. Summary
The goal is to create a new feature allowing customers to evaluate their adherence to contracts with Mckesson during order creation. This feature will provide insights into contract performance and prompt customers to modify their orders by adding or swapping items to maintain compliance.
B. Team Comp
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Steerco Stakeholders: Collaborated closely with Tyler Jones (VP Product Management Buy Smarter Program), Michael Cyz (Senior Product Management), Robert Slack (Product Manager, Business), Sarah Nash (Rebates), Zakiya Waren (Sr. Manager Generics Program) and Julie Woods (Lead IT Architect)
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Buy Smarter UX Lead: Partnered with Chris Grodoski
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Design System UX Designer: Worked with Balaji Reddy to make sure we were aligned with Connect's Design System
C. My Role
As the UX Design Lead for Contract Performance, I showcased my expertise in user research, feature design, scenario planning, wireframing, and prototyping. I leveraged tools such as Figma, Notion, Google Suite, Miro, and LogRocket Data Analytics, and applied machine learning and AI principles to enhance the functionality of the new feature.
D. Project Imapct
Due to data unavailability, the project is being completed in three major phases. Phase 1 is ready for rollout, Phase 2 is planned for release by Q4 of 2024, and Phase 3 is expected to be released by Q2 of 2025. Once Phase 3 is implemented, it is anticipated to mitigate risks and save McKesson between $12M to $25M, while also attracting additional business.
PROBLEM
A. Problem Statement
The absence of clear visibility into contract performance hinders customers from meeting their contractual obligations and optimizing purchases to maximize rebates.
“Being able to have real-time performance is good and especially at the end of the month, real-time metrics for last week, is probably the most important purchasing for the pharmacy to hit their month in metrics”
The idea was to incorporate Contract performance In the highlighted area in the margins, next to the Customer's Account # and Name and Account Status
Currently, customers have no visibility into contract compliance while preparing their orders. Therefore, we plan to incorporate a feature for contract analytics into the margin, providing customers with continuous visibility into their performance.
B. Background
The objective is to develop a new feature within Connect that empowers customers to assess their adherence to contracts with Mckesson while creating orders. This feature will offer real-time insights into contract performance, allowing customers to review their GPR% (Generic Purchasing Ratio) and BPR% (Brand Purchasing Ratio), GCR (Generic Compliance Ratio), and OS% (One-stop ratio) as well as Dispense and Purchase Amounts. Currently, users lack visibility of their contract compliance, hindering their ability to achieve rebates and optimize purchases. Increased visibility will enable customers to meet contractual commitments and optimize purchasing decisions. The goal is to provide customers with a 360-degree awareness of their contract performance.
C. Business Objectives
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Empower Connect customers to easily meet contractual commitments through real-time insights
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Provide customers the means to review their GPR%, BPR%, GCR%, and OS% as well as Dispense and Purchase Amounts
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Develop a solution that easily scales Phase 1 into Phase 2 in non-disruptive, organic ways
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Offering suggestions to enhance contract compliance for customers
D. Target Users
The pharmacy technician or store owner at the Independent Pharmacy store within the CPH Segment (Community Pharmacy and Health) is tasked with the vital responsibility of ordering drugs and items for the store. When placing orders, they must ensure that they select items that adhere to their contracts, enabling them to fulfill monthly contract requirements and receive expected rebates from Mckesson.
Final Outcome
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This solution empowers customers with real-time insights into their contract performance, providing ready suggestions to add or switch items in their ordering cart.
User Research
A. Research Methods
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Stakeholder Workshop
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Customer Interviews at Idea Share
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Contract Performance User Journey
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Contract Performance Hypothesis Feedback
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Subject Matter Research
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Customer Feedback
Customer Interviews @Idea Share Conference
"How will I monitor my contracts? I am not signing the contract with Mckesson as I have to wait till the end of the Quarter to know if I made it to check mark for getting optimal rebates"
“You worry about rebates, which can be difficult to monitor throughout the month. Do we order more generics? Do we order somewhere else?”
“We try to stay compliant as much as possible... But if you don't know what you're doing, if you're not looking at prices, you’ll very quickly going to be out of business.”
What Customers were experiencing?
Increasingly challenging market conditions have left pharmacists under significant financial pressure. As a result, they cannot afford to make uninformed purchasing decisions, which may include weighing competitors’ prices against McKesson’s.
Pharmacists constantly monitor contract agreements and rebate status but find it difficult to track metrics and communicate these requirements to their staff.
How does it impact their potencial business?
The lack of visibility into contract compliance and subsequent penalties creates frustration and erodes trust amongst users, increasing the risk of churn, resulting in market loss to competitors.
Users commonly rely on competitors when investigating the best net prices; they are not willing to remain contract compliant at the risk of going out of business.
B. User Persona
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C. Insights from Pain Points
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Ensure constant visibility of Contract Performance Ratios (GPR, BPR, Scrub GCR).
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Enhance visibility into gained rebates.
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Alert customers for optimized purchases.
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Improve compliance ratios through enhanced buying insights.
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Integration with Select and Save.
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Gamify Contract Performance for continuous customer engagement and nudging toward optimal purchases.
D. User Journey
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Design Solution
A. Design Process
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To kickstart the development of the Contract Performance feature in Connect, we held a workshop with key stakeholders to understand their goals, vision, and mission. Early in the process, we envisioned empowering our customers with generative AI capabilities, offering ready suggestions to add or switch items in their cart to help them achieve compliance. Despite receiving applause for our initial designs, we realized that we were still missing something big.
B. Brainstorming and Exploration
Early Iterations
C. Design Rationale
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After our initial iterations and explorations, we decided to incorporate a right-hand sidebar featuring compliance suggestions.
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We studied "Storytelling with Data" by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic to learn best practices for representing compliance data in an easily understandable and insightful manner for customers.
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We researched and investigated the mechanics of contract compliance, focusing on the key data points that matter most to customers for quickly assessing their performance.
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We also sought to understand the calculation methods for contract performance, including the specific formulas and definitions of various compliance ratios.
Solution & Roadmap planning
A. Design Solution
After our initial design exploration, while our stakeholders agreed we were moving in the right direction, we hadn't yet nailed down a definitive solution. During our continued exploration, we learned from the business team how the contract compliance ratio is calculated. This deeper understanding provided us with valuable subject matter knowledge about contract compliance for pharmaceutical wholesalers, from customer onboarding to the actual calculation of contract compliance. Armed with this formula, we gained clarity on what would truly assist and empower our customers in making quick, informed decisions.
The second round of iterations incorporated our newly acquired subject matter knowledge and the application of the Connect Design System.
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B. Roadmap to final solution
Despite the excitement within the Contract 360 business unit about the achieved solution for Contract Analytics, our biggest hurdle was preparing the backend engineering for:
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Automating contract analytics calculations, previously done manually by the rebates team at the end of each month.
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Prepping the backend platform for the Generative AI and ML engineering framework.
Due to the lack of available data and the need to prepare the backend platform to truly empower our customers, we required more time. However, instead of waiting until the entire solution was ready, we decided to deliver it in incremental steps. This approach allowed us to provide immediate value to our customers by enabling them to constantly view their contract compliance and performance. At the same time, it mitigated business risks, saved time by reducing manual explanations of contract performance, and helped avoid financial losses if customers failed to maintain compliance.
Phase 1 of Connect Contract Analytics
Highlights for Phase 1:
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Easily accessible and always available Contract Performance ratios.
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Clear indicator showing "You are here" relative to achieved contract performance.
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Clear comparison between Purchase Amount and Dispense Amount.
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Tooltip with a question mark icon explaining the business logic behind contract analysis calculations.
Phase 2 of Connect Contract Analytics
Highlights for Phase 2:
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Non Disruptive, organic design solution that scales from Phase 1
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Clear and distinct visual comprehension of incremental steps
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User-friendly icons and colors to guide customers through the contract journey
Phase 3 of Connect Contract Analytics
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Filters to enhance efficient decision-making for customers for suggestions and select tab.
Highlights for Phase 3:
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Non Disruptive, organic design solution that scales from Phase 1 through Phase 3
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Ready suggestions on how to address the information they are provided
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Familiar conventions and iconography to find product options
Results & Impacts
A. Concept Validation by Pharmacy Sales Consultant
Once we finalized our solution, it was time to validate our concept with the Pharmacy Sales Consultant. Since they regularly interact with our customers and currently assist them by verbally communicating their contract performance, it made sense to seek their input on how customers might respond to our solution. We decided to validate our three-phase design solution with the Pharmacy Sales Consultant.
We decided to gauge the situation by individually interviewing three Pharmacy Sales Consultants (PSCs). During these interviews, our goal was to understand the current state of affairs, discuss the users' perspectives, and identify their needs and pain points before revealing our three-phase design solution.
B. PSCs reactions to our 3 Phases of Design solution
Phase 1
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Phase 2
Phase 3
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C. Insights into future opportunities from Validation Feedback
Key Insights to Enhance Usability:
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Link to month-over-month (MoM), quarter-over-quarter (QoQ), and year-over-year (YoY) trend of performance metrics in a dashboard format on a compliance page.
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Link to see all rebates in dollar value gained by the customer (Rebate Report).
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Automated email or link to send the customer their Leakage report.
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View of contract performance compliance at an aggregated level (performance at a group level of customized group of stores).
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Scrub GCR% and/or purchase amount of GLP specialized items to help customers calculate Scrub GCR%.
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Timely alerts nudging customers to buy optimized items, especially towards the end of the month.
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Month-end performance prediction and monthly performance trend.
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Performance hits and misses by dollar value.
D. Current Status of the Project
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Phase 1 is ready for release and is about to be actively rolled out. We received outstanding support from EPAM Front-End Engineers in developing Phase 1. Through our collaboration, we crafted the User Interface for various scenarios based on the provided data. Here are a few examples of these scenarios.
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Phase 2 still requires significant backend work. According to our roadmap, it was scheduled for rollout by the end of Q4 2024. However, the project will be delayed as we currently lack the automated data needed for Phase 2 functionality. We will hold off on releasing Phase 2 until the automated data and backend engineering are complete.
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Phase 3 The backend engineering and framework necessary for machine learning and generative AI are already scheduled to be in development by the end of Q2 2025.
When Customer's Compliance performance is 100%
When Customer's Compliance performance is 300%
When Customer's Compliance performance is 200%
When Customer's Compliance performance is 150%
When a customer's compliance performance data is not being updated for some reason...
E. Future Opportunities from scenario planning
In the future, if the purchase amount exceeds a certain threshold, we would like to incorporate a feature that links excess purchases to...Mckesson's Inventory management tool PPCS
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