Helping the C-Suite stay ahead with automated insights from the world’s top news sources
Year
2023
Client
Coca-Cola Bottlers Africa
CCBA’s C-suite needed a better way to stay up to date with fast-moving developments across their competitors and operations.
Before, valuable industry information was scattered across sources and took too much time to find, making it harder for executives to stay truly informed. To solve this, we designed an internal news hub that pulls real-time updates from trusted providers like Dow Jones Factiva and Bloomberg.
The platform delivers curated news on competitors, country developments, customer trends, and key macro factors like exchange rates, GDP, and inflation across African markets. Each article is paired with an AI-generated image that brings complex topics to life, turning dense business news into clear, engaging updates that help leaders stay ahead of shifts in their industry landscape.
My role
UX Design
UX Research (Collaborative)
End-to-end visual and interaction design
Development Integration
Output
Responsive website
Developer guidelines
Challenge
C-suite executives at Coca-Cola Beverages Africa needed a faster, more reliable way to access accurate market, competitor, and financial news. Their existing approach relied on individually searching, browsing, and subscribing to multiple sources, each with varying credibility. This fragmented process often led to misinformation, duplicated efforts, and significant time lost verifying data instead of acting on it.
For leaders responsible for high-stakes, time-sensitive decisions, delays or inaccuracies in market intelligence could result in missed opportunities, flawed strategic choices, and a weakened competitive edge.
Building a centralised intelligence platform
To address these challenges, we developed an internal responsive website tailored specifically for Coca-Cola Beverages Africa’s C-suite executives. This platform aggregates and curates information from a range of verified and credible news sources, delivering timely and relevant market, competitor, and financial data.
We collaborated closely with multiple data providers to understand the scope, freshness, and usage rights of their content. The resulting system offers a comprehensive view, combining news articles, financial market data, and competitor insights that are relevant to CCBA’s operational regions and business context. This centralized and reliable resource significantly reduces search time and ensures executives have access to accurate and up-to-date intelligence for informed decision-making.
Flexible Layouts for a more varied exploration experience
A key part of the UX was designing flexible content layouts that adapt to different types of news and reports. By giving editors control over how content is displayed — from short updates to in-depth articles — we made it easier for users to scan, dive deeper, or pick out what’s most relevant to them. This flexibility keeps the experience clean and intuitive, helping busy teams find the information they need without feeling overwhelmed.
Customising AI images with a smart CMS
To give CCBA control over their AI-generated article visuals, we built a custom CMS that lets teams easily update or replace any images that don’t fit or miss the mark. We used Filament as the CMS framework to get it up and running quickly without compromising on good UI and UX. Familiar patterns and clear workflows make it simple for teams to keep news visuals accurate and appropriate.
Expanding the platform through user feedback
The platform received highly positive feedback from C-suite and senior staff, prompting us to enhance its capabilities further. Incorporating user feedback, we introduced features such as article and report search, AI-generated summaries, audio versions for convenient listening, a ‘report an article’ option to flag concerns, and discussion threads to encourage engagement on key industry topics.
Additionally, we integrated a trained AI chatbot that serves as an Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) host, enabling users to explore content through natural, conversational interactions.
