A live product running on instinct, with no process written down
The operating layer for a device-subscription programme, built from a blank page while the product kept selling.
Zension Technologies (Zaam), Dubai · D2C and B2B, UAE
Context
The programme was live and growing, and the way it ran lived in a handful of people's heads. Orders were processed the way whoever picked them up had processed the last one. Nothing was documented, so nothing could be delegated, measured or handed over. Average order processing was around three days, and no one could say which part of those three days was the expensive one.
What I did
- Wrote the SOPs from scratch for both the direct-to-consumer and the B2B programme: requirements gathering, workflow mapping, role assignment, and a sign-off at each gate.
- Mapped the full journey with the retail partners in the Apple ecosystem, iStyle and Virgin, so the in-store experience and the back office were describing the same process.
- Covered the parts everyone forgets, which is where the real time goes: device capture at handover, warranty and AppleCare claims, and reverse logistics for returns and swaps.
- Selected and onboarded the logistics partner for delivery and returns, then held them to stated numbers rather than a general service promise.
- Left the exception path deliberately open. The standard flow covers what repeats. Genuinely unusual cases route to a person rather than being forced through a form that was not designed for them.
Average order processing, with manual fulfilment steps cut by more than half. Logistics ran at 96% on-time delivery with returns closed inside 48 hours.
Average order processing time
Most of the saving came from removing manual fulfilment steps rather than from anyone working faster.
What I would tell you in an interview
Standardise the 80% that repeats and leave room for the 20% that is genuinely exceptional. The temptation with a blank page is to write a rule for everything, and over-standardising quietly kills the edge cases that matter most to the customer. I do not trust a process until I have seen what it does with the case it was not designed for.
Where this transfers
Every product that grows faster than its operations ends up here, with the how held informally by the people who happened to be there first. The work is the same whether it is devices, logistics or a service business: write it down, give each step an owner, then find out where the time actually goes rather than where everyone assumes it goes.