When BAT Agrar, a leading player in the German agricultural sector, needed a tool that could keep up with millions of daily price requests, complex contracts, and field operations, we redesigned PreisAktuell from the ground up. The result: a scalable, intuitive, and high-performance platform trusted by farmers, field reps, traders and back-office agents alike.

CLIENT
MY ROLE

BAT Agrar & Co. KG

Product Designer, UX/UI, UX Researcher

DURATION
TEAM

12 months (2024-2025)

10-20 person team

To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted and obfuscated confidential information in this case study. All information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of BAT Agrar & Co. KG.

The problem

When complexity outgrows the tools

As markets accelerated and margins tightened, BAT Agrar’s existing system became a bottleneck instead of a support tool.

The platform struggled with:

  • Slow performance during peak demand

  • Fragmented workflows across pricing, contracts, and field operations

  • Manual processes and multi-step flows that confused even experienced users

  • High technical debt, making changes costly and slow

  • Low trust in the system — a critical risk for daily decision-making

This wasn’t a usability issue alone. It was a systemic problem at the intersection of user workflows, technical constraints, and business risk.

Design challenge:

Create a future-ready, scalable platform that could support BAT Agrar’s operations through 2030 — while remaining usable, trustworthy, and efficient for expert users working under real constraints

This was a 12-month, enterprise-level redesign, where I acted as lead product designer, owning the design process from discovery to delivery.

  • Led end-to-end design initiatives

  • Partnered closely with product and engineering

  • Conducted and synthesized user research

  • Designed and tested workflows and prototypes

  • Contributed to system-level design decisions

  • Mentored a junior designer and raised design quality across the team

My role

User-centered + systems thinking

To make the system usable at scale, I focused on how decisions are actually made in the field.

  • Mapped workflows across all user roles to identify friction, dependencies, and edge cases

  • Identified where users needed speed, transparency, and control — not simplification at the cost of accuracy

  • Translated technical and business constraints into clear UX principles

  • Used rapid prototyping and testing with power users to validate assumptions early

Rather than hiding complexity, the design focused on removing unnecessary friction while preserving decision confidence.

Designing for expert users and real constraints

System-level design for scalability

To support long-term growth and performance, I contributed to system-level design decisions:

  • Unified component library using Ant Design and Tamagui

  • Flexible architecture supporting role-based workflows

  • Interfaces optimized for low bandwidth and mobile-heavy environments

  • Consistent interaction patterns to reduce training and onboarding time

This ensured the platform could scale technically and operationally.

Results & impact

The redesigned platform quickly became a core operational system.

Within two weeks of launch

  • 500,000+ price requests processed

    → A volume the previous system could not handle reliably

Within 60 days

  • 1,000+ digital contracts completed

    → A major increase in digital adoption, one of BAT Agrar’s key KPIs

Platform-wide outcomes

  • Reduced cognitive load for operations and trading teams

  • Faster, more reliable workflows under peak seasonal demand

  • Increased trust in the system as a daily decision-making tool

The result: a scalable, user-centered system that improved operational efficiency and supported business growth.

Selected screens

Farmers and sales used to rely on calls, in-person meetings which often require long-hours of travel to request prices, sell crops, and arrange delivery.
Now, farmers gain price transparency, control over when to sell, and efficiency through shortcuts like favoriting crops, reducing repetitive data entry. Sales reps spend less time traveling for routine tasks, while interactions can still happen when needed. The platform is faster, clearer, and gives both farmers and reps control and visibility like never before.
Back-office agents used to spent hours handling contracts manually — approving, tracking, and managing them through paperwork and phone calls. We designed a digital end-to-end process that lets them create, approve, and manage contracts in just a few clicks.

A consolidated table and dashboard give agents view of all contracts and key operational details at a glance, helping them stay on top of multiple tasks efficiently. Paper contracts are still available for records, but the workflow is fully digital, faster, and far easier to manage.
Before, every trader worked differently — and the platform had grown into a maze of one-off features built over 20 years. By deeply understanding how traders actually create price for crops, we defined a single end-to-end workflow that serves all of them.

Now, traders manage products, price lists, trading hours, and freight costs in one place — and the platform is leaner, clearer, and far easier to maintain.
Admins needed a simple way to manage users. We provided a streamlined workflow that lets admins create, view, and manage users efficiently.
Now, admins have a clear overview of all users, while keeping the platform secure and maintaining confidentiality — a simple but crucial part of keeping the system reliable for everyone.

Cross-functional collaboration

This project succeeded because design was embedded deeply in the product team.

I worked closely with:

  • Product managers

  • Engineering leads

  • Domain experts (pricing logic, contracts, field operations)

  • Customer-facing teams

  • A junior designer

A key part of my role was driving alignment — translating complex requirements and constraints into clear, shared design decisions that product, engineering, and business stakeholders could commit to.

“The collaboration was characterized by professionalism and openness right from the start. The team was able to understand complex processes very quickly and the workshops were consistently solution-oriented. The performance and support were remarkably good and communication was excellent at all times.”

-Felix Hirth, Head of Digital Sales (BAT Agrar)

Design leadership & mentorship

Although this wasn’t a people-management role, I contributed design leadership by:

  • Mentoring a junior designer on decision-making, tradeoffs, and stakeholder communication

  • Leading weekly design reviews to raise craft quality

  • Shaping design processes for clarity, consistency, and cross-team visibility

This increased team velocity and design quality without adding overhead.

What is your next challenge?

I’d love to hear about it. Let’s connect or leave me a message!

florarichardfrs@gmail.com