↓ Problem
↓ Insight
↓ Idea
↓ Implement
↓ Impact
Insight: Confidence & Stocking Gaps
My team and I conducted nearly 1,500 hours of user research and created roughly 40 personas to represent different stakeholders within the Frito-Lay ecosystem. This included frontline sales reps, store owners, merchandisers, and management.
Our research methods included field interviews, observational studies, and journey mapping exercises with sales reps and store owners to uncover pain points and workflow inefficiencies.
Ride-Alongs and Store Visits
To go beyond assumptions, we embedded ourselves in the field:
- Ride-alongs with sales reps surfaced pain points in delivery routes, stocking routines, and daily task flows.
- On-site interviews with storeowners exposed inventory stress, missed sales due to stockouts, and anxiety around ordering wrong products.
A pain point tracker documented recurring frustrations and inefficiencies, informing design priorities and creating a shared backlog for product, business, and engineering.
- Reps lacked real-time tools, which made it difficult to adapt on the fly, optimize delivery routes, or respond to in-store issues. They relied on memory or outdated paperwork.
- Retailers relied heavily on guesswork, unsure of which products to reorder or when. This led to frequent out-of-stock scenarios or excess inventory that didn’t sell.
- Training new employees was time-consuming, often taking 20+ hours due to the need to navigate multiple disconnected systems and undocumented processes.
- Communication gaps between field teams and central operations created delays, confusion, and redundant tasks. No shared view of performance or product needs.
- Legacy tech limited visibility, leaving frontline workers and storeowners flying blind on stocking decisions and inventory levels.
Frito-Lay needed a system that could bring clarity, coordination, and confidence to every step of the operation from the warehouse to the shelf.