Ocado Technology’s mission is to transform online grocery retail and enable some of the world's most forward-thinking retailers to do grocery online profitably, scalable, sustainably, and offer a world-class customer offer.
The founding vision was to use cutting-edge technology and automation to transform the online grocery space. They developed the technology needed to move the industry to the next level from scratch.
Today, the Ocado Smart Platform (OSP) is the world's most advanced end-to-end eCommerce, fulfilment and logistics platform. It is backed by proven economics and driving a leading customer proposition.
Ocado Group's technology and logistics model was developed in one of the world’s most competitive and mature online grocery markets, powering Ocado Retail Ltd in the UK. Today Ocado Group is powering live online operations for eleven grocery retailers worldwide, with more to launch imminently.
As a UX Manager, I was tasked with two key responsibilities - people/workload management and product leadership. I was leading the team of 6 UX Designers (direct reports) and 3 UX Researchers (‘dotted line’).
As a people manager I’ve built the whole department from scratch, hiring 6 UX Designers (direct reports). I was involved in the recruitment process as a hiring manager, introduced working methodologies and process, established ways of cross-functional cooperation (Solutions Team, Product and Engineering), took part in regular department SLT sessions to agree priorities and roadmaps.
I regularly supported my team making sure they had the best possible working environment. I had regular weekly 1 on 1 sessions with each of my team members making sure we discussed both ongoing projects and also their personal growth. I was regularly organising trainings and sessions making sure I help my designers growth professionally (I’ve managed to promote two designers to a Senior level).
It was also very important for me to have a team that feels good being and working together, so I regularly organised social events that helped us get closer.
The second part of my responsibilities was to act as a product expert making sure I help my team make the right product decisions. I’m proud of the fact that the team I’ve created was actually working as a team on various levels. We’ve established our internal ways of working making sure we supported each other as much as possible ( regular feedback or ideation sessions, pair designing). I was responsible for the design decisions in our department, but at the same time I didn’t want to tell in most cases experienced designers what to do and how to achieve the goals.
When it comes to the ways of working, we were following a double diamond model, working closely with the embedded research team.
My department was responsible for various initiatives that were key to the business, on top of the regular new retailer’s onboarding.
General merchandising - introducing non-grocery products to the platform. Today, OSP is optimised to sell, fulfil and deliver groceries. Providing a broader range beyond core grocery is key to a compelling proposition online. Grocery retailers must meet consumers needs for freshness, availability, quality to attract and retain customers, while differentiating in market. Broader range drives increased customer and business value - on average, ~40% of grocery retailers’ sales are in non-grocery categories, which typically over index online.
On-demand - fast delivery orders under 1h
Instalments - payments system
