PwC Treasury Intelligence

PwC (NZ) faced the challenge of having a cumbersome process for working with their corporate treasury (CT) clients. Updating client data involved emailing spreadsheets back and forth, and analysis of the data was presented intermittently over video conference. There was no element of self-service for clients.

I was hired to help design and build the frontend of a new SaaS web app that tackled this inefficient system. It would be PwC New Zealand's first public-facing app.

With the help of PwC's industry leading corporate treasury advisors, I first understood the core problems to be solved and the common pain points faced by both the clients as well as the corporate treasury team. I rapidly iterated through low-fidelity prototypes (with Balsamiq) to arrive at a design that organized the various tasks in a structure that aligned with the mental models of corporate treasury users. The next stage was a high-fidelity design prototype in Figma, which we tested with corporate treasury staff and current clients. Discussions around design also took into account what was technically feasible from a backend perspective, especially in the timeframe we had to deliver the app. This involved working with senior backend engineers to collaboratively develop an API specification.

In a couple of months, I had designed a cohesive app experience that would allow clients to log into and accomplish the core tasks of keeping their data up-to-date, visualizing their data with various useful charts, consuming customized financial reports, and planning their portfolio with a one-of-a-kind strategy simulator feature.

Once we had a reasonably settled design, I started the frontend development phase. The technologies used to build Treasury Intelligence were NextJS (a ReactJS framework) using client-side rendering, TypeScript, and TailwindCSS/CSS, and HTML. Industry best practices were used to deliver a performant and accessible end result. Weekly consultations with the corporate treasury team meant development maintained focus on delivering value for the firm and its future clients. The frontend client was completed well in advance of the targeted date of delivery. On the DevOps side, I set up the continuous integration and continuous deployment pipeline for the frontend on Azure DevOps. Leading up to launch, I also helped guide the content on the SaaS product information page as this was a new endeavor for PwC New Zealand.

Treasury Intelligence was a success. The app was nominated as one of the submissions from PwC New Zealand for most innovative app across the global PwC network. Customers who saw the app during alpha-stage testing loved it and committed to signing up for the app as soon as it was officially released.

Elsewhere at PwC, I designed an app for PwC partners to track their goals, progress, and yearly evaluation. As the development team at PwC was relatively young, I worked with other senior developers to help cultivate a growth mindset that focussed on going slow and steady while learning new technologies, and enjoying the learning process itself. Over time we upskilled junior developers in ReactJS and UI testing with Cypress.