Amazon Business

B2B account architecture

The short version

The Amazon B2B site was 3 years old and growing fast (over 50% yoy), pushing the limits of our account architecture. Problems were surfacing with existing features and new ones were blocked. I was asked to develop a holistic solution that would scale to meet our needs.

I dove deep, leading collaborative sessions with our three principal engineers and multiple product teams, gathering insights and navigating some very hotly debated topics.

After several iterations, much negotiating, and some compromises, I was able to deliver a model that would serve as a scalable solution for the entire organization and each team would be able to manage their migration plan for their features over time.

The Amazon B2B site was 3 years old and growing fast (over 50% yoy), pushing the limits of our account architecture. Problems were surfacing with existing features and new ones were blocked. I was asked to develop a holistic solution that would scale to meet our needs.

I dove deep, leading collaborative sessions with our three principal engineers and multiple product teams, gathering insights and navigating some very hotly debated topics.

After several iterations, much negotiating, and some compromises, I was able to deliver a model that would serve as a scalable solution for the entire organization and each team would be able to manage their migration plan for their features over time.

The Amazon B2B site was 3 years old and growing fast (over 50% yoy), pushing the limits of our account architecture. Problems were surfacing with existing features and new ones were blocked. I was asked to develop a holistic solution that would scale to meet our needs.

I dove deep, leading collaborative sessions with our three principal engineers and multiple product teams, gathering insights and navigating some very hotly debated topics.

After several iterations, much negotiating, and some compromises, I was able to deliver a model that would serve as a scalable solution for the entire organization and each team would be able to manage their migration plan for their features over time.

The deets

Role: UX Lead (onsite)

Skills: System architecture, stakeholder management

Scope: Redesign of global account structure

Duration: July 2018 - Nov. 2018

Result: Holistic, scalable solution with phased adoption

The backstory

Amazon Business launched in 2015 and has been one of Amazon's fastest growing business units, reporting nearly $3b in sales the first year and growing to $13b (US) as of 2019, currently estimated at over $50b. The concept is to make large scale B2B procurement as simple as shopping on Amazon as a consumer and bring Amazon's significant logistics capabilities into the B2B space. From the beginning, we aimed to serve the smallest of businesses alongside large global organizations across a range of verticals including, but not limited to, education, medical, government, and manufacturing.

A procurement process flow diagram overlaying a Venn diagram representing different areas of the experience and different roles involved. Starting with admins and account management, then moving to buyers selecting products and initializing orders, to managers approving orders, and finally the analytics that feed back into the account to inform future order policies.
A procurement process flow diagram overlaying a Venn diagram representing different areas of the experience and different roles involved. Starting with admins and account management, then moving to buyers selecting products and initializing orders, to managers approving orders, and finally the analytics that feed back into the account to inform future order policies.
A procurement process flow diagram overlaying a Venn diagram representing different areas of the experience and different roles involved. Starting with admins and account management, then moving to buyers selecting products and initializing orders, to managers approving orders, and finally the analytics that feed back into the account to inform future order policies.

What's the problem?

In our rush to market we made quick decisions with scrappy implementations. As we scaled, problems began to surface. The account structure based on the consumer site wasn't able to accommodate large complex organizations and their processes without layers of workarounds and significant manual effort.

Our bottom-up policy that would allow individual departments to engage with us and then later be merged into full corporate accounts was generating duplicate records and required full manual account rebuilds. Workflows were manual without any established hierarchy or authority, orders would simply expire due to broken communication chains.

Where I come in…

I joined the team in late 2013 as the 3rd UX designer working on the launch effort, then transitioned to management to grow the team to over 30 people as we opened additional UX studios in Austin and Madrid. Finally, I moved into the role of UX Lead for approval policies and delivery experience. As the most senior team member with deep knowledge of all areas and features in our B2B ecosystem, I was well-suited to lead the exploration and drive consensus with our many product and engineering teams on a new architecture.

What I did…

With my experience on the team, I was able to immediately begin synthesis of known issues. Additionally, I facilitated cross-functional workshops with multiple teams to explore their use cases and reviewed existing research and documentation.

  • Gathering issues and metrics

  • Anecdotes from customer service and sales

  • Collaborative sessions with product teams

  • Brainstorming with engineering teams

  • Coordinating with design teams

I explored a range of abstract, simplified concepts, including our existing model along with pros and cons so we could have informed discussions with stakeholders and partners. As we debated the opportunities and risks, I continued to iterate on low fidelity diagrams and began building common use case stories with them to further test our hypotheses.
3x3 matrix of simple hierarchical diagrams with vertical axis representing flexibility and horizontal axis representing complexity. Models show different approaches to authoring, modifying, and inheriting policies.
3x3 matrix of simple hierarchical diagrams with vertical axis representing flexibility and horizontal axis representing complexity. Models show different approaches to authoring, modifying, and inheriting policies.
3x3 matrix of simple hierarchical diagrams with vertical axis representing flexibility and horizontal axis representing complexity. Models show different approaches to authoring, modifying, and inheriting policies.

Given the broad nature of this initiative and the fact we were making structural decisions, I limited deliverables to lo-fi diagrams and wireframes to provide guidance. The high fidelity UI work was the responsibility of the designers working with product teams as they implemented the architecture into their features.

Given the broad nature of this initiative and the fact we were making structural decisions, I limited deliverables to lo-fi diagrams and wireframes to provide guidance. The high fidelity UI work was the responsibility of the designers working with product teams as they implemented the architecture into their features.
Given the broad nature of this initiative and the fact we were making structural decisions, I limited deliverables to lo-fi diagrams and wireframes to provide guidance. The high fidelity UI work was the responsibility of the designers working with product teams as they implemented the architecture into their features.

How it worked out…

I was able to drive consensus for a viable model, but it would have to be a phased rollout over multiple years.

This was my last project with the team, so I wasn't involved in the implementation or measuring success. I do know that the visualizations I created were effective and used by other designers and product teams long after I left. While I can't share quantified impacts, these are the success metrics I would use to measure:

  • Unblocking of features and customers

  • Reduction in manual effort onboarding new customers

  • Reduction in support calls for account changes

  • Significant reduction of expired approval requests

  • Elimination of orphaned and duplicate entities

The takeaway

This project reminded me of the fable of the six blind men trying to describe an elephant. Each team had their own needs, challenges, and perspectives without the advantage of a holistic view. Getting partners to step back from their immediate needs and to think about sustainable long-term solutions instead of quick workarounds was challenging.

My takeaway is to always engage by listening first, never assume everyone is starting from the same place and always ask people to confirm their understanding to ensure we have true alignment.