Research Project:
How do Businesses Manage their spend?
Project: Insights into business spend behaviours, pain point and needs with a focus on card management
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Research Methods: Qualitative Interviews, Competitor Analysis
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Client: Fintech Company
The Problem
A B2B fintech company offering debit card services to business customers was informed via customer feedback that its card system does not fulfil customer needs. While the company was aware of some issues, it lacked insights into customer usage patterns and clarity on what customers wanted improved. This knowledge gap prevented the company from optimising its product and delivering a solution that meet customer expectations.
I was asked to do a 3 month research study and present a report with actionable insights that would create, in the words of the Director of Payments, 'a customer-led world class spend management system'.​​
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Note: Original findings have been modified for confidentiality purposes
Plan
Objectives | Methodology | Process
Research Method
Interviews, competitor analysis, quant data analysis
Timeframe
3 months
(alongside other projects)
Industry
Finance
Tools
Dovetail (analysis tool), Teams, Miro, MS Suite, Askable (UXR tool)
My Role
UX Researcher (project lead)
Skills
Planning, interview script writing, affinity mapping, synthesising, report writing, presenting
Research Objectives
Understand business spend processes and motivations
Explore how businesses manage spending, their goals, and what drives their financial decisions.
Identify user needs, pain points, and behaviours
Gain insights into user challenges, preferences, and financial habits with current spend management features.
Evaluate usability and prioritise high-value improvements
Assess current feature usability, compare with competitors, and identify key areas for enhancement to boost user satisfaction.
Research Methods
Customer Interviews
Interview Process
We conducted one-on-one interviews through remote video calls to gather and analyse qualitative data, providing us with rich, in-depth insights into user experiences and needs.
This method facilitated broad accessibility, enabling us to include a diverse range of participants from across the UK, which enriched our understanding and insights.
Structure
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Friendly Introduction: Started with a warm welcome to set a comfortable tone and explained purpose and impact of the interview.
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Data Protection: Explained data protection, with an option to opt out.
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Open-Ended Questions: Used open-ended questions to guide the discussion.
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Follow-Up Questions: Probed deeper to understand motivations, pain points, and behaviours.
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Summarising Questions: Gathered final suggestions and thoughts.
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Wrap-Up: Thanked the participant and explain the next steps.
Questions
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Please explain your spend management process.
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How do you manage employee spend? Explore controls and customisation
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How do you currently categorise your card expenses?
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How do you identify which employee is making each payment?
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Are there any concerns or risks ?
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What is the main pain point you currently experience when managing business spend?
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What would the ideal process to manage your business spend?
Interview Participants
11
Financial Decision Makers
4-670
Numbers of employees
in businesses
7
Industries explored
3
Minimum years of financial experience
9
Different Locations
Findings
Behaviours and processes | Needs and Pain Points | Competitor Analysis
Affinity Mapping
​To analyse and synthesise the data collected, I identified relevant insights in Dovetail and used Miro for affinity mapping, a technique where related pieces of information are grouped together to identify patterns and themes. This method involved categorising insights from customer interviews, competitor analysis, and data analysis into clusters based on commonalities.
The value of affinity mapping lies in its ability to visually organise complex data, making it easier to identify key trends, pain points, and opportunities. This structured approach ensured that all insights were comprehensively analysed, leading to more informed and targeted recommendations.
"We usually find out a branch has gone over budget some weeks late which is incredibly frustrating"
Credit Controller of a Restaurant Chain
Spend Processes
Two processes for managing business spend were identified:
Pre-payment approval and post-payment approval.
Process 1:
The pre-payment approval process was used for non-urgent office-based expenses, requiring approval before any expenditure to manage budgets and control costs. While this method helped in planning and authorising expenses, it caused delays for routine or frequent purchases.
Process 2:
In contrast, the post-payment approval process was employed for expenses tied to specific card allocations (such as individual accounts, site cards, project funds, or branch budgets) allowing payments to be made first and reviewed afterward. This approach offered greater flexibility and efficiency for handling diverse business needs and facilitated detailed tracking of expenditures.For my research, I focused on the post-payment approval process as customers stated this was the more commonly used method and held the most pain points and risk to their business.
Behavioural Insight:
Democratising business spend is becoming more commonly seen in business behaviour
What does this mean?
Traditionally, finance managers and their teams were solely responsible for overseeing all expenditure within the business. However, in recent years with the increased uptake in expense management software, there's been a shift and the responsibility of spend has been decentralised.​
Positives
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Gives time back to management and finance teams to focus on financial management rather than admin tasks.
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Minimises delays caused by managers being the sole gatekeepers of all expenditure.​
Negatives
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Less control over business spend.
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Higher risk of incorrect expenses, overspending and out of scope expenses.
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Increased vulnerability to fraudulent activities.
"If one person managed all payments, that would be another full time job for them. It's down to the individual needs to use the card to do the admin themselves."
Finance Manager at an Architectural Firm
Customer Pain Points
1. Control
Customers highlighted a significant lack of control and limits on their business cards, leading to issues such as discovering over-budget payments only after they've been made. They also experienced challenges with employees spending on unauthorised items post-factum.
2. Visibility
Customers faced difficulties with managing multiple cards, which often led to overspending and higher administrative efforts in viewing and reconciling accounts. This complexity also increased the risk of lost cards and fraudulent activity due to employee neglect.
3. Reconciliation
The reconciliation process was inefficient and manual, with challenges in tracing expenses back to individual users when shared cards were used. Missing receipts further complicated the process, causing delays, extra emails, and potential for blame.
"I would every manager to take responsibility for expenditure in their team and I'd like full control over it all"
Financial Director at a Manufacturing Plant
Customer Needs
1. Flexible Controls
Businesses required customisable spending limits for users based on roles and responsibilities, including per transaction, monthly, online spending, and cash withdrawal limits to keep expenditures within budget.
2. Full Transparency
Users needed real-time tracking, individual card statements, and oversight of multiple cards in a central place, with spending alerts for nearing limits or suspicious transactions, to maintain control.
3. Ease of Use
Setting up, reconciling, and categorising multiple cards needed to be straightforward. The ability to quickly freeze or cancel cards and integrate with accounting software improved efficiency.
Motivational
Insight:
Customers want credit cards facilities from their primary financial provider
...but why to customers want credit cards?
Deferred Payments
Credit cards allowed businesses to defer payments, providing flexibility during periods of fluctuating income. This helped with cashflow management and reduced dependency on overdrafts.
Rewarding Payments
Many credit cards offered rewards or cashback on business purchases, adding extra value to business spending. By strategically using these cards, businesses could maximise rewards, reduce costs, or reinvest savings back into the business.
Emergency Funds
Credit cards served as a readily available source of emergency funds for businesses. In urgent situations requiring immediate cash to cover unplanned expenses or losses, access to credit cards provided peace of mind and ensured smooth business operations.
Secondary Data Insights
An analysis of external data on spend management corroborated my findings, increasing the reliability and credibility of my insights through data triangulation. Below are key findings from reputable financial companies and research agencies that align with my research.
Spending Control
Real-Time Tracking
Businesses with strong spend control systems reduce their fraud risk by up to 50%. This supports customer needs for flexible controls and limitations to enhance internal security and reduce risk of fraud.
Businesses with real-time expense reporting are 23% more likely to maintain compliance with spending policies. This aligns with the user demand for real-time tracking to maintain control.
Quant and Qual Surveys
Source: Deloitte
Source: Aberdeen Group
Credit Cards
59% of small businesses use credit cards for their everyday operations. This underscores the role of credit cards in managing cash flow and providing financial security for businesses.
Source: National Small Business Assoc.
Rewards
Businesses using rewards credit cards saved an average of 1-2% on their annual expenditures through cashback and rewards. This supports the customer interest in leveraging rewards to maximise value.
Source: Mercator Advisory Group
Transparency
Lack of transparency in financial transactions contributes to 41% of occupational fraud cases. This highlights the necessity of providing clear, real-time visibility to reduce fraud risk.
Source: Assoc. of certified fraud examiners
Emergency fund
43% of small businesses rely on credit cards as a backup for unexpected expenses, highlighting the importance and value for businesses to have quick access to emergency funds for operational continuity.
Source: Experian
"What I want is full visibility at all times of how much each employee is spending. It doesn't have to be complicated."
Financial Manager of a Hotel Franchise
Competitor Analysis
The competitive analysis of eight key players in the financial market provided valuable insights into why customers had higher expectations for our spend management features. It became evident that competitors were offering greater flexibility and functionality, with advanced spend features that surpassed our current offerings. Additionally, competitors provided significantly better incentives, such as excellent reward schemes offering event tickets, flights, and hotels, which further enhanced their appeal.
Our findings revealed that while our features were comparatively simplistic, we excelled in offering superior cashback and interest rates. This analysis highlighted the areas where we needed to improve to meet and exceed customer expectations.
10 Customer-led Opportunities
Ability to flag unusual/fraudulent card spend early
Desktop and mobile access to the card solution
Identify who's making a payment on shared cards
Excellent reward, benefit and points schemes
A solution that accommodates business growth
Gambling blocks and other unapproved activity
Ability to search with filters
Ability to easily track payments awaiting approval
"If you could combine a credit card with an expense system software like Spendesk or ExpenseIn, that would be fantastic."
Art Gallery Director
Summary
1. Security, Control & Transparency
Customers need confidence that their money is secure from internal (via control and transparency over spend) and external (fraudulent activities thwarted or detected early) threats.
2. Financial Ops
Enhancement
Customers seek innovative solutions to boost efficiency, but innovation must not compromise control and transparency.
3. Credit Card
Opportunities
Effective cashflow management is essential, and credit cards play a vital role in providing financial security for businesses.
4. Learning from Competitors
The industry boasts excellent solutions; by combining these insights with customer feedback, we could to create a world-class spend management system.
Outcome
Research Findings | Next Steps | Impact
Key Research Insights
Next Steps
I presented my findings to a team of product owners, designers, and developers, sharing key insights and discussing potential options for improvement. This presentation set the stage for a series of collaborative ideation workshops, led by the Product Owner with my support as the customer feedback expert.
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Black Hat Session: We critically evaluated the current user experience, providing annotated feedback on designs to identify weaknesses and areas for improvement.
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Lightning Demo Session: We explored great solutions from various companies, capturing innovative ideas through quick whiteboard sketches to inspire our design process.
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Sailboat Session: We identified what was working well and what was holding us back, helping to clarify our strengths and challenges in spend management.
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How Might We Session: We reframed problems as opportunities, brainstorming creative solutions to address customer pain points and enhance our product offerings.
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These workshops fostered a collaborative environment, allowing the team to leverage diverse perspectives and generate actionable ideas to refine our spend management system.
What impact did my research have?
My research insights were shared to the executive committee of the fintech company (Chief Product Office, CEO, Chief Technology Officer and other relevant stakeholders), leading to the creation of a dedicated squad focused specifically on developing a new card management system for business customers. This initiative is directed by the customer feedback detailed in my report. The team is currently in the design phase, ensuring the new system aligns closely with customer needs and expectations.
"A card is a card at the end of the day, it's been done for decades now. But when you offer little things that make my job easier, it stands out and makes a difference."
Financial Controller in a Retail Company