Highlight
I led the design of a new subscription management system that simplified MSI’s complex, manual process into a streamlined experience. It solved a long-standing issue where one customer order could trigger multiple invoices and contracts.
Spanning two phases, the project redefined how subscriptions are managed and introduced a self-service customer portal, supporting MSI’s strategic shift toward a SaaS business model.
Overview
In this project, I gathered feedback from stakeholders across Sales, Go-to-Market, Renewals, Customer Support, and IT to identify pain points in the current subscription management process.
Our Phase 1 UX goal is to design an end-to-end journey that solves these challenges and sets a scalable foundation for other business lines.
To support this, I:
Mapped the envisioned end-to-end journey to align stakeholders and guide feature planning and technical analysis
Designed an MVP focused on five key self-service use cases for customers
Partnered with researchers to validate solutions, analyze insights, and iterate based on feedback
What I Did
Here’s a breakdown of what I did across for Phase 1:
Led discovery with 8+ cross-functional teams, uncovering 10 critical subscription lifecycle pain points that required a dedicated sales team to manage manually.
Mapped the complete customer journey from purchase to renewal, revealing hidden dependencies between business units and identifying key optimization opportunities.
Evaluated and compared 4 potential solutions for contract management and co-term billing that consolidated 20+ steps into a single automated workflow.
Secured cross-organizational buy-in by presenting solutions to stakeholders across 3 business lines, establishing foundation for a scalable solution.
What I’ve delivered for phase 2 includes:
Established unified design vision for a self-service portal by aligning stakeholders across previously siloed product teams around consistent customer experiences.
Designed MVP with 5 core use cases based on customer pain points, translating complex requirements into intuitive flows while ensuring technical feasibility through close collaboration with PMs and engineers.
Facilitated adoption through demos for cross-functional teams, accelerating implementation by creating shared understanding of user flows and integration points.
As scope grew, I became the UX lead for customer experience across multiple business units, ensuring proposed solutions could be adopted between departments. My Phase 2 work established a foundational guide that other UX designers now use for implementation.
Throughout the project, I've delivered executive-level reporting on UX progress and impact, communicating the value of our unified approach to leadership.
Results & Impacts
Currently, the overall UX proposal has been approved by leadership and it's used for technical analysis.
Envisioned Journey Overview
To redesign the subscription management journey, I worked closely with our product manager and solution architect to understand the current complexities and explore solutions for key pain points.
The journey map below outlines each step, along with new experience ideas. It captures the full flow—from purchase to termination—and reflects cross-functional collaboration through multiple working sessions with stakeholders.
Here’s a breakdown of key pain points gathered from stakeholders, along with the proposed solutions that were approved:
Problem Space
Through interviews with internal teams and public sector customers, we identified three key challenge areas:
Customer Experience
Public sector customers—like counties, cities, and agencies—faced a fragmented experience with misaligned activation dates, multiple invoices per order, slow transfers, and limited visibility into active services or renewals.
Internal Operation
Managing subscriptions required heavy manual effort across 20+ teams, with tracking handled via spreadsheets and Tableau. The renewal process was especially time-consuming and error-prone.
Business Needs
MSI’s free trial promotions lacked a tracking system, risking service disruptions and missed opportunities to convert trials into paid subscriptions.
Overall Approach
We took a collaborative, research-driven approach to ensure design decisions were guided by both research insights and business goals.
By working with product managers, engineers, and solution architects, we identified pain points and defined the problem space. We then validated our solutions with data from internal teams and customers, ensuring the final design was both scalable and aligned their needs.
1/5 Ordering Experience Explorations
Based on the key pain points and conversations with the ordering team, I explored ways to redesign the ordering process to support more efficient subscription management and billing operations.
Challenge
A major source of complexity stemmed from the current offer structure and limitations in the ordering system.
Our Approach
Working closely with the solution architect, we:
Identified specific gaps in the internal system that prevented smooth billing and invoicing
Proposed targeted updates and process changes to support new subscription requirements and reduce manual effort
2/5 Reducing Invoice Complexity
Challenge
Co-terming customer contracts means aligning multiple end dates so subscriptions renew at the same time—simplifying billing and subscription management.
Currently, due to offer structure and system limitations, the renewal sales team must manually review each contract in an order, understand their dependencies, calculate pro-rated costs, and align renewal dates—often starting this process a year in advance. From the customer’s perspective, receiving multiple invoices per order is confusing and creates a desire for customizable, consolidated invoice summaries.
To explore better co-terming methods, we reviewed industry best practices such as:
Using a single anchor date for all renewals
Limiting co-terming to products within the same tier or service family
Applying automated co-terming using weighted average time calculations
Our Approach
After working closely with the sales team and solution architect, we proposed treating each subscription as its own contract. This gives more flexibility in managing terms, supports customizable invoice summaries, and lays the groundwork for smarter co-terming strategies.
3/4 Streamlining the Renewal Operation
Challenge
The current renewal process is entirely manual. The renewal sales team has expressed the need for automation to reduce repetitive tasks and focus more on strategic customer engagement.
Our Approach
As subscription information will be surfaced in the Customer Hub, we saw an opportunity to introduce light-touch automation and empower customers with more control over their subscriptions.
I designed a new process that allows customers to submit non-renewal requests directly through the Customer Hub:
Auto-renewal is the default setting for all subscriptions.
Customers can select specific subscriptions they don’t wish to renew and submit a request.
The system then routes the request to the renewal team, who follows up to confirm the customer’s decision.
4/4 Enable Customer Self-Service
Challenge
Customers need a centralized place to manage subscription provisioning—including linking subscriptions to hardware and activating services.
Currently, there’s no self-service option. Customers must submit requests to the support team, who handle provisioning manually in the backend. This creates delays and a lack of visibility for both internal teams and customers.
Our Approach
Working closely with product managers, I developed a high-level design concept for a self-service provisioning experience within the subscription management portal—aimed at improving transparency, speed, and user autonomy.
Result and Next Step
The north-star experience for the new subscription management system has been approved by key stakeholders and leadership. Technical analysis is currently in progress, with development planned to begin in Q3 2025.
