Designing for Financial Inclusion in Indonesia

Designing for Efficiency, Trust and Speed

Role: Research and Design Lead

Timeline: 6 months

Client: FinTech startup digitizing last-mile delivery ecosystem in Indonesia

Summary: Conducted foundational research to discover what’s holding warung owners back from using digital finance, and designed a product strategy to launch a successful pay-later product package. Current product revenue: $2.7M per year.

Context

As a member of Quicksand’s venture design studio, I worked with a client who was building a last-mile delivery platform that employed staff to fulfill orders between the grocery wholesaler and retailers.

The goal of this research project was to explore digitization opportunities within Indonesia's warung network, focusing on understanding the cultural, social, and operational dynamics that influence technology adoption among small retailers. We employed mixed research methods, including interviews, surveys, participatory design and data analytics to gain deep insights into the warung ecosystem and develop culturally appropriate digital solutions.

Research Goals

Impact

Financial Inclusion

Enable tech adoption by owners of mom-and-pop stores
Promote digital bookkeeping for better insights
Build business intelligence to identify optimal stocking decisions

Financial Growth

Training and education to help users leverage micro-credit to grow their businesses

Business

Revenue Goals

Increase total order volume through the platform
Business revenue is primarily through a percent fee collected from wholesaler for the delivery service, and predictable order volume

Partner goals: Microsoft

Build user-facing technology in a conversational interface using Microsoft’s Kaizala

Product

Build Trust

This demographic of users generally do not trust technology especially when it came to finances
Technology, convenience, credit, etc were considered unfair and unethical advantages

Build Tech-supported Finance Habits

Move from sporadic ordering to predictable restocking system to ensure the store never loses customers due to unavailability of goods

Process

Methods

Our field team identified potential respondents from the network of retailers who were already customers on the network, as well as retailers who were not yet brought on board.

24 respondents, 6 in each stage of study. Balanced for gender, age and store sizes.

All material was prepared in English, translated to Bahasa. Transcripts were translated back to English for analysis

Research Stimuli Sample

Product Strategy

Communications Design

Reward System

Behaviors to be promoted:

Timely orders to keep up with demand
Prompt repayments
Steady growth in sales volume
Digital bookkeeping
Exploring new products
Wallet payments instead of cash

Based on analysis of orders placed in the preceding 12 months, the following benchmarks were created. Rewards and incentives would be used to nudge stores into tiers above their current level with achievable goals. These levels are designed to ensure early success and encourage long-term adherence.

Interface

For the early launch, the team had used a default theme similar to the Kaizala interface. As part of brand exploration research, we tested some variations of the interface to detect UI preferences.

Findings

We found some preference for the familiar interface already in use

The more formal the interface appeared, the more it was perceived to require training to use, even though there was no functional difference

Since the brand was moving towards a rewards system, we tested the gamified interface and found a clear preference for variation 2 due to a non-intimidating appearance

Summary

This report was an outline of our foundational research processes and product strategy recommendations for a last-mile delivery app in Jakarta. Early product strategy was implemented based on a successful pilot, and evolved with continuous feedback from the field team. With a product strategy supported by deep cultural insights, the team has been consistently reaching revenue goals.

Annualised revenue as of 2024 stands at USD 2.7M from operations in Indonesia and Philippines. Participating stores have been largely transitioned to digital finance and order management, with direct positive impact on growth for small businesses.

Thanks for reading this case study! If you have questions, comments, or want similar design services for your product, please get in touch!

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