Sabi, a financial aggregator for Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs), faced challenges with lengthy and complex financing procedures.
These inefficiencies in connecting ecosystem builders and financing institutions posed a risk of profit loss for MSEs due to delayed access to funds.
To address this issue:
How might we streamline financing processes to ensure timely and efficient delivery of financial aid to MSEs, reducing profit-loss risk?
Financing flow improvement.
Company
Sabi
Duration
1 month (2023)
My Role
Researcher and Operation
Responsibilities
Research Plan, Stakeholder Interview, Participatory Design
Impact
The initiative achieved measurable success:
Faster Delivery: Optimized financing workflows reduced processing time, ensuring MSEs received financial aid more promptly.
Reduce Complexity: Simplified service flows minimized touch points, lowering the risk of human error and improving efficiency.
Approach
Over the course of one month under COO oversight, we started with stakeholder interviews to see the process from each perspective, including ecosystem builders, financing institutions, and KYC providers. Short co-design workshops followed to identify pain points and propose improvements.
By leveraging participatory design and stakeholder insights, the approach emphasized actionable, user-driven solutions that addressed inefficiencies while fostering stakeholder alignment.
Journey/ Process
We mapped the financing process end to end and confirmed the main bottlenecks with stakeholders. Document verification took too long, handoffs were frequent, and applicants had little visibility. By drawing the current service flow, we could see redundancies and delays.
In co-design sessions, we worked with partners and internal teams to outline a leaner path. We reduced touch points, added automation where it could reliably check documents, and clarified roles so each step had a single owner. We prototyped the new flow and tested it with simulated cases to check usability and speed.
Finally, we conduct piloting. The pilot phase involved selected MSEs and partners. We tracked processing time, user satisfaction, and error rates to verify that changes worked as intended. The updated flow cut steps, improved speed, and increased confidence for both applicants and stakeholders.
Result
The project delivered impactful outcomes:
Optimized Service Flow: Reduced touch points by around 40%, decreasing the average financing process time by almost 30%.
Increased Stakeholder Confidence: Built trust with stakeholders by ensuring transparency and accountability in the updated process.
MSE Impact: Enabled faster financial aid delivery, minimizing profit-loss risks and improving overall business resilience for MSEs.
By streamlining processes and fostering collaboration, the initiative set a new benchmark for efficient financial aid delivery, enhancing both stakeholder engagement and MSE sustainability.
