The challenge centered on using detailed user research and competitor analysis to design a unified Transport Management Solution (TMS). The goal was to overcome existing market gaps and tool fragmentation by consolidating complex fleet management functions into one intuitive platform, directly driving customer loyalty and maximizing client operational efficiency within the DKV ecosystem.

As Discovery Lead, my first objective was to deeply understand how the crucial small- and mid-size segment actually worked across digital, non-digital, and existing TMS tools.

I systematically contrasted those behaviors and needs against competitor offerings to find clear room for differentiation — mapping daily tasks, pinpointing inefficiencies, and surfacing the pain points in how they used their current tools.

Those insights were what made the new TMS specific rather than generic — tailored to this segment’s real challenges, closing gaps in the market, and fitting cleanly into the wider DKV ecosystem.

From there I ran the hypotheses-generation stage — the bridge between discovery and solution design that kept the work evidence-based and aimed at the right problems and outcomes.

I synthesized three inputs — analysis of key business processes, the specific pain points from user interviews, and competitive weaknesses — into testable hypotheses that tied each proposed solution to a measurable customer behavior, which set up the definition of the new TMS.

The UX stream delivered interactive prototypes across four critical dispatching scenarios, which I tested in remote moderated sessions with participants from several European markets — Germany, Romania, Slovakia, Latvia. The analysis gave data-backed confidence in the TMS direction and set up the refinement phase.