Tathastu

Overview

FutureGroup's sales and CRM data existed in completely separate systems. Store managers and CRM teams had to manually pull data from multiple sources, compile it into reports, and then make decisions — a process that was slow, error-prone, and dependent on individual effort. The result was delayed responses to market shifts, missed patterns in customer behaviour, and no single place where leadership could see the full picture at once. The question I was designing to answer: how do you give a store manager the right information to make a decision in under 30 seconds? The design challenge wasn't making the data look good — it was deciding what data to show first.

Four decisions that made the data usable

Summary cards always at the top — every view opens with 4–5 metric cards, so a manager opening the dashboard at 9am gets their answer within 3 seconds, before any scrolling
Delta indicators for instant context — every metric shows its change from the previous period, direction and magnitude readable at a glance
Two-level member data — a quick-scan list view for daily use and an expanded detail view for account management, two use cases served within one clean section
Offline / Online split in navigation — mirroring how FutureGroup managers actually think about their physical stores vs. digital channels

From scattered data to clear hierarchy

The process started with understanding how managers actually make decisions day-to-day — not how the data was structured in the database. Stakeholder interviews with store managers and CRM executives surfaced the key finding: most users needed only 5–6 metrics every morning but were drowning in 40+ data points with no hierarchy. Working with the business team, I defined a tiered metric hierarchy — daily-check metrics at the top, weekly review in the middle, deep-dive data at the bottom — which became the skeleton of every dashboard view. A data source audit with the dev team clarified what was available in real time versus what required manual refresh, directly shaping what could be shown live versus as a report.

Scannability system

A consistent visual language for data — green/red delta indicators, percentage progress bars, and bold headline numbers — so a manager can scan the dashboard in seconds rather than reading tables.