Sime Darby
from 0 to 1, build a CRM eco-system that can serve for our unique SOP
context
a 8-month full-time work project @ Coherence
team
3 designers(Me), 1 design lead, 3 project manager, 5 developers
contribution
UIUX design for CRM backend and 2 mini-programs
main contributor to user research
outcome
delivered a digitalized CRM eco-system solution that contains 1 SCRM backend and 3 mini-programs embedded in Wechat
project context
our client/ Sime Darby, the BMW dealership
Sime Darby is one of the largest BMW dealership groups in the Asia-Pacific region, operating a broad network of stores with diverse sales and service operations. To stay competitive and obtain more flexibility outside the conventional BMW manage system, the company set out on a digital transformation journey to streamline processes and strengthen its overall sales performance.
what is the problem?
Sime Darby’s dealerships in China were required to use BMW’s standardized digital system from Germany, but it did not fit the realities of the Chinese market. While the tool was designed for a unified SOP across dealerships, sales practices and consumer habits in China differ significantly. This led to several gaps:
limitations of the current BMW system
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Not streamlined with Chinese SOPs/ Workflows did not match how Chinese dealerships actually sell cars and interact with customers.
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Limited marketing support/ The system lacked flexibility for localized marketing, even though Chinese sales teams rely on diverse, dynamic marketing channels.
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Mismatch with consumer habits/ Chinese car buyers expect different service touchpoints and communication styles that the system could not accommodate.
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Diagnostic data exists but is scattered across different systems, making it hard to act quickly.
Beyond the system itself, daily operations revealed inefficiencies for different roles and at the organizational level:
user pain-points across different roles
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Sales - High Volume of Manual Work/ Sales relied heavily on hand entry and offline records, slowing in-store interactions and increasing errors.
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Sales - Inconsistent Customer & Lead Management/ Each salesperson or store managed data differently, making it difficult to ensure quality and standardization.
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Store Manager - Outdated Store Operations/ Daily reporting was still handwritten and shared manually, creating inefficiencies and delays in communication.
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Marketing team - Fragmented Marketing Practices/ Marketing assets varied from store to store, and headquarters struggled to unify and control campaign quality.
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Consumer - Uneven Customer Experience/ Consumers lacked consistent digital touchpoints tailored to Chinese market expectations, leading to varied service quality.
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Fragmented Marketing Practices/ Marketing assets varied from store to store, and headquarters struggled to unify and control campaign quality.
my delivery…
a brand new CRM designed for Sime Darby dealership stores + 3 Wechat mini-programs tailored for sales, customers and the marketing team
CRM/
As the core of our digitalization solution, this CRM backend platform serves as a centralized hub where Sales, Marketing, and Executives can manage their daily operations with role-based access.
Key modules include lead/customer management and sales task management(CRM), marketing assets management(CMS), order processing and a variety of service management tools(DMS), along with general authorization settings, etc.
mini-programs/
Marketing Assets Mini-program
This WeChat mini-program serves as a centralized marketing asset hub, enabling sales teams to quickly activate leads and engage customers directly from their mobile devices.
All asset usage data is tracked and visualized
Clear insights into campaign performance and marketing impact
Help inform future strategy and optimize sales and marketing actions
Sales Daily Work Management Mini-program
This WeCom mini-program is designed to help salespeople manage their daily work directly from their mobile devices.
Quick access to leads and customer information
Browse and manage campaigns, test drives, tasks, coupons, and the entire customer lifecycle
Consumer Mini-program
This WeChat mini-program is designed for consumers.
E-commerce
Referral
Test drive appointment
Maintenance and repair service
✨ ✨ ✨ Note: In this case study, I’ll emphasize the 0 → 1 problem-solving process rather than detailed UI outcomes. The final CRM and mini-program designs follow familiar enterprise patterns, but the real challenge lay in defining the problem space, mapping user behaviors, prioritizing features across multiple products, and collaborating with developers. ✨ ✨ ✨
what is the biggest challenge?
challenge/ Building a CRM ecosystem from 0→1 meant unifying fragmented workflows across dealerships, integrating with legacy backends and the WeChat/WeCom ecosystem, and balancing the needs of sales, marketing, and management. The scope required aligning diverse stakeholders while designing a scalable, future-proof solution.
how did we do?
converge-diverge process/
We applied a repeating converge–diverge process throughout the project. At each stage, we first diverged to explore broadly—collecting user insights, mapping pain points, generating solution ideas, and outlining possible architectures. Then we converged to synthesize findings, prioritize opportunities, and define clear deliverables. By cycling between exploration and consolidation, we ensured our solution was both comprehensive and actionable, grounded in real user needs yet architected for scalability.
systematic thinking/
Entity-first mapping
defined lifecycles for Leads, Customers, Vehicles, Orders, Campaigns, Tasks, Coupons, etc.
Traceability matrix
linked feature → role → platform → data events → KPI to keep decisions coherent.
Governance & constraints
permissions, audit, analytics, and WeChat/WeCom technical limits baked into choices
Scalable architecture
decisions cascade cleanly from opportunities → features → platforms → data → user flows.
01
understand current user behaviors
challenge/ The dealership sales process is complex, with many roles, tools, and workflows. As outsiders to the industry, our main challenge was finding a clear framework to make sense of this ecosystem.
what did I do/ I began by deeply secondary researching the industry and gathering insights from our clients, and discovered that dealerships follow a standard SOP. Using this as our framework gave our team a common language with stakeholders, confidence in our analysis, and a reliable structure to validate solutions.
How do we frame the problem/
We chose to frame the problem by stages of the sales process (before, during, after sale) because this structure mirrors the real customer lifecycle and the workflows of dealership staff. Each stage carries distinct goals, touchpoints, and pain points: generating leads before the sale, converting leads efficiently during the sale, and building long-term relationships after the sale.
Before Sale
During Sale
After Sale
Goal/
❓ Before Sale: How do customers discover, evaluate, and engage with dealerships, and what challenges do sales teams face in generating and managing leads?
❓ During Sale: What obstacles arise in the in-store sales process for both customers and staff, and how do current tools support or hinder efficiency?
❓ After Sale: How do dealerships maintain customer relationships post-purchase, and what gaps exist in delivering consistent service and loyalty-building experiences?
Methods/
📝 Virtual Semi-structured Interview
Insights/ current use journey maps
By interviewing with Sime Darby dealership stores and their customer, we combed the current user journey map of both sales and customers along with their whole process of selling/buying a vehicle.
🌟 I took the responsibility to sort out the current user journey map.🌟
✅ How each user role (sales, marketing, managers, customers) participates at different stages.
✅ Where digital touchpoints —such as CRM tools, WeChat, or third-party platforms—come into play.
✅ The main pain points users face and what they are dissatisfied with.
✅ The aspirations and changes users hope to see in their workflows.
we are still following our workflow：
We are here
02
identify the opportunities
user painpoint -> user needs -> design opportunities
we are still following our workflow：
We are here
03
ideas and feature map-out
challenge/ The main challenge was managing complexity across multiple roles, touchpoints, and platforms. Each opportunity could lead to several solutions, and each solution often spanned different systems—creating risk of overlap or gaps.
what did I do/ I proposed an idea of using a systematic mapping approach to our team—opportunities → solutions → features → platforms. This clarified how ideas connected to needs, created transparency for stakeholders, and simplified decisions while ensuring solutions scaled cohesively across the ecosystem.
🌟 I took the responsibility to complete this feature-map-out.🌟
Opportunities
ABC
Solutions
01
02
03
Product Features
Opportunities are defined through an analysis on user journey and current pain-points to be solved.
All the solutions are listed in the bottom half of the page --- marked as “ABC” letters. One solution may aimed to execute multiple opportunities.
For each of the lettered solution, we have specific product features to make this solution go into effect. They are marked as ①②③ numbers.
we are still following our workflow：
We are here
04
systematic function map-out
challenge/ Having translated opportunities into solution ideas and concrete features, we faced the challenge of mapping them across a complex ecosystem of roles, tools, and touchpoints. In order to ensure every feature had a clear home and worked cohesively with others
what did I do/ We built a platform strategy and functionality architecture. This allowed us to systematically assign solutions to the right platforms—backends, WeCom mini-programs, or customer-facing apps—while clarifying ownership, dependencies, and interactions across the system.
🌟 I took the responsibility to lead the team meetings to come up with the following work.🌟
01
02
03
Product Features
we are still following our workflow：
We are here
05
consolidate data flows w/t developers
Having mapped out solutions and features across platforms, the next step was to define how data would actually flow between systems. In order to bring clarity and make our ideas technically feasible, I worked closely with developers to translate abstract user needs into a concrete data flow architecture.
This process required aligning business logic, user touchpoints, and technical constraints, ensuring every feature was supported by the right backend connections. By facilitating this communication, I helped consolidate multiple ideas into a unified system design—resolving overlaps, settling ambiguities, and providing developers with a clear blueprint to move forward.
🌟 I led alignment meetings with developers and proactively refined the designs to incorporate technical constraints. 🌟
06
new user hero-flow & touchpoint map-out
Having consolidated all features and functionalities, we shifted our focus back to the user experience.
In order to evaluate how the proposed platform solution would reshape end-to-end interactions, we developed a new user hero flow that mapped tasks, actions, and touchpoints across the sales journey.
To further bring these scenarios to life, we created detailed storyboards that visualized how different roles—sales, managers, and customers—would engage with the system in real contexts.
These deliverables served as a blueprint of the solution, enabling our client to clearly see not only the functional coverage but also the human impact of the digital transformation.
🌟 I took the responsibility to lead the team meetings to come up with the following work.🌟
To further bring these scenarios to life, we created detailed storyboards that visualized how different roles—sales, managers, and customers—would engage with the system in real contexts.
These deliverables served as a blueprint of the solution, enabling our client to clearly see not only the functional coverage but also the human impact of the digital transformation.
all above is all how my team and I
had tackled this complex problem.
holding a robust feature and function architecture,
now
we are so ready to start design!
We are here
07
design - user flow
✨ ✨✨ Up to this point, I’ve focused on showcasing the 0 → 1 problem-solving process. Next, I’ll walk through the overall UX design process, while keeping the emphasis at a higher level rather than detailing every individual feature. ✨ ✨ ✨
new user flow/
🌟 I was responsible for designing the “during sale” stage of the user journey, while collaborating with the team to align all stages and ensure cross-stage interactions were fully considered. 🌟
challenge/ The biggest challenge in mapping the new user journey was the sheer scale and complexity, involving many roles and touchpoints. Covering multiple roles and touchpoints made it difficult to keep a complete picture without losing efficiency or overlooking important details. Team collaboration was critical to ensure consistency and coverage.
what did I do/ We split the work into three parts based on the problem framework, with each designer owning a section. To stay consistent, we aligned on the level of granularity: first creating a high-level journey together, then refining into detailed user flows once alignment was reached.
User journey was refined onto specific actions happen on a certain platform
my wireframe responsibility/
The core CRM backend - 2 designers
The supportive marketing mini-program used by marketing team- solo designer
The work management mini-program used by salespeople - solo designer
briefly show the process of creating the backend
08
design - function & info architecture
step 1. look back on the systematic function architecture for the entire eco-system (refer to section 4), isolate the function needs of the CRM backend.
step 2. map out a function and page-based information architecture for the CRM backend.
step 3. start wireframes, always keep a mind on the new user flows (refer to the section 7), we split pages by functions.
Below is a showcase of our wireframe playground. A lot of team meetings and design iterations happened during this stage.
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this case study would be only emphasized on
the early stage 0 -> 1 problem solving process,
more design details could be discussed if you are interested!
contact me: zelialiu@outlook.com
✨✨✨
09
design - hifi showcase
backend key frames gallery/
END
Now the CRM backend and all of three mini-programs are online.
They are impacting 2000+ sales' and marketing teams' daily work and improving customers‘ experience across 40+ stores.
reflection
bridging complexity with structure/ Learned how to turn a highly complex, multi-role ecosystem into a structured problem space by using frameworks like SOPs and systematic mapping.
collaboration at scale/ Gained experience working with one of the largest, most cross-functional teams I’ve joined, learning to align across designers, developers, and business stakeholders.
from opportunities to platforms/ Practiced connecting abstract opportunities to concrete solutions, features, and platforms, ensuring clarity across layers of design and development.
navigating technical constraints/ Strengthened my ability to collaborate with developers, adapt designs to technical realities, and balance user needs with feasibility.
multi-platform UX thinking/ Expanded my perspective from designing within single products to orchestrating experiences across multiple platforms and touchpoints.