From the Ground Up

Collections is a critical part of the lending lifecycle, protecting portfolio performance by recovering overdue repayments. Field collections plays a central role where direct borrower engagement is needed beyond remote channels.

Managing this channel demands coordination between agents, team leaders and operations. Agents need accurate information and clear assignments. Leaders need visibility into progress, outcomes and follow-up, with appropriate controls over sensitive borrower information.

Field operations relied heavily on paper printouts, alongside spreadsheets, manual tracking and WhatsApp reporting. Fragmented information made assignments, visits and outcomes difficult to track. Maintaining oversight required repeated manual coordination, while the handling of borrower information created privacy, compliance and auditability concerns.

The challenge was to translate these operational needs into a coherent product: one that supported field execution, accommodated exceptions and established reliable management visibility.

Owned product strategy and delivery for FieldPlus end to end, defining the product direction, scope and requirements.

I examined the end-to-end collections process, drawing on business and operations expertise, external practitioners and direct field observation. This grounded product decisions in the relationship between lender requirements, collection strategies, agent workflows and operational controls.

I defined the product around two complementary responsibilities:

• For field agents: A mobile application to manage their working day, from attendance and prioritised assignments to borrower navigation, visit outcomes and follow-up, with SOS support for agent safety and escalation to team leaders when cases required further action.
• For team leaders and operations: A web application to direct field operations, from allocating and prioritising cases to monitoring agent availability, tracking collection progress and resolving escalations. Reports and analytics supported performance review and operational decisions.

Together, these connected field execution, agent safety and management oversight, with a clear path for cases to return to team leaders for further action.

The central product decision was to treat field collections as an end-to-end operation. FieldPlus needed to support the agent’s working day while giving team leaders the information and authority to direct what happened next.

I translated that direction into connected workflows across the mobile and web applications. Each visit outcome informed the next action, including returning cases to team leaders when intervention was required. Offline capability addressed unreliable connectivity, while agent safety and management oversight were built into the operating flow.

This established the foundation for moving field collections from fragmented manual coordination to a structured, visible and accountable operation.

Compliance and statutory requirements informed product decisions across borrower information, field activity and operational oversight. Traceability extended through case assignments, visits, recorded dispositions and subsequent actions, enabling teams to review what happened, understand how a case progressed and determine where intervention was required.

FieldPlus brought field execution and operational management into a connected product, replacing fragmented manual workflows with a shared view of assignments, visits and outcomes.

For agents, it provided continuity across the working day. For team leaders and operations, it established visibility and a clear path for intervention. This created a foundation for expanding field collections while maintaining operational control.