PGIM - Digital Transformation
How might we create a single, global brand that supports the 8 unique PGIM businesses.
Project Goal
To develop a consistent, yet flexible, CMS platform and design system for Prudential's eight independent PGIM businesses.
As the Director of Product Design, my role within this digital transformation was to lead the creative work with our external design agency and ensure the CMS and design system being created solved the needs of all eight PGIM businesses.
Challenges
Streamlining the system
Getting all eight businesses to feel supported by a streamlined set of components was a bit challenge within this project. Every business had developed workarounds for their websites to give them the flexibility they needed in the past – some had dedicated developers on their teams, spinning up custom experiences, whereas others had investing in white label content creation tools that they could embed into their sites with little UX or coding experience. We had to help them reimagine their experience through the lens of shared components and highlight the benefits of a streamlined system.
Localization
Another challenges was in the global nature of PGIM's businesses. PGIM Japan was included with the eight sites, meaning we needed to work with the team in Japan to make sure the design system suited their business needs as well. Communication was difficult between time zones and language barriers, and a few unexpected issues came up through the project. For example, the Japanese character font selected to align best with the font being used on the other sites, was deemed inappropriately informal for the industry by the team in Japan. We were able to work with them to find a better typeface.
Attestation
There was also complexity because financial intermediaries and institutional investors from specific companies can only legally view information on certain funds. This led us to need to create a simple end-user experience that took complex attestation logic and presented it in a clear and straight-forward manner.
Streamlined, yet flexible.
One of the most challenging, and exciting, parts of this project was sitting down with each PGIM leadership team and helping them reimagine their website in the new system. I lead workshops where we mapped out key experiences and identified unmet requirements.
