From a manual process to a digital employee counter in just five weeks

Indukern Group, made up of the pharmaceutical laboratory Kern Pharma and the animal health laboratory Calier, has more than 1,000 employees in Spain who had an internal service for purchasing medicines and pharmacy products at a discount for employees.

Despite its potential, adoption of the service was very low. The issue was not the value proposition itself, but the way it was managed: a fully manual process based on spreadsheets and emails, with little visibility, limited traceability and a confusing experience for both employees and the business. The real challenge was to turn this service into a genuine value lever for employees and a driver of product prescription, without taking unnecessary risks or making large upfront investments.

The project began with several overlapping challenges. On the one hand, there were unvalidated business assumptions pointing towards a large e-commerce platform focused on catalogue prescription, even without showing prices, and with no clear evidence that this model would actually be relevant for employees. At the same time, historically low adoption made it difficult to justify an ambitious investment without first validating real usage.

This was compounded by a chaotic operation, with unstandardised orders and little clarity around timings, pick-up, payment or prescription management, all within a particularly demanding context: just five weeks to discover, design and develop an MVP from scratch.

All of this had to be addressed in an environment with technical and security complexity — passwordless login, corporate domain control and the handling of sensitive medical and prescription data — and with a product, client and business context entirely new to Runroom.

From the very beginning, we framed the project with a clearly impact-driven mindset. The goal was not to build the “ideal” product from a theoretical standpoint, but to decide what to build, and in which order, based on the real value it could deliver to employees and the business.

Project goals

The project aimed to digitalise the internal pharmaceutical purchasing service, improve employee experience and adoption, and gain traceability, efficiency and control without oversizing the solution. At the same time, it sought to validate product hypotheses quickly through an MVP.

Discovery Express: learning fast to make better decisions

The first week was dedicated to an intensive Discovery Express. Interviews were conducted with employees, the real users of the service, to understand how they purchased products, which barriers they encountered and what they expected. In parallel, an impact session with the business helped align objectives and define the behavioural change the product needed to drive.

To accelerate learning, an interactive prototype supported by AI was built and tested early on with employees in a validation focus group. The insights gathered were synthesised using an LLM-powered notebook and turned into an executive report that became the basis for decision-making.

This process led to a key shift in approach: moving away from the idea of a “catalogue designed for prescription” towards an internal e-commerce experience that was genuinely useful for employees, where price transparency, savings and ease of purchase became decisive factors.

Impact metrics and Sprint 0

Before development started, the team focused on defining how success would be measured. During an impact metrics workshop, a primary impact metric was defined, along with leading and lagging metrics to understand both adoption and behaviour. The necessary events were also designed to ensure measurement was in place from day one.

In parallel, Sprint 0 laid the foundations of the product, defining the technical setup with Payload, the functional and content architecture, backlog prioritisation based on expected impact, and sprint planning, with user stories aligned to both business and experience goals.

Delivery: build, validate and adjust

Over the following three weeks, the MVP of the internal digital counter for employees was developed. The product included passwordless Magic Link login, a modular homepage, a catalogue with visible prices and discounts, an advanced search system, and the management of both out-of-catalogue products and public, private and veterinary prescriptions.

The MVP was completed with a structured email system for employees and the pharmacy, a full Payload back office for managing catalogue, content and pick-up points, and analytics integration via GTM. Continuous alignment with the business allowed priorities to be adjusted after each validation, keeping the focus firmly on impact and adoption.

The main value of the project lay in its approach. Every product decision was made with real adoption and employee experience in mind, rather than feature accumulation. This made it possible to challenge key business assumptions and shift the initial mindset, reinforcing the idea that prescription starts with offering a service that is genuinely useful.

The project also addressed product and service design as a single whole. Beyond the interface, the entire service was designed: timings, communication, discounts, the relationship with the pharmacy and order management.

From a technical standpoint, the choice of a modern and scalable architecture made it possible to validate quickly without compromising a solid foundation for future growth. All of this resulted in the standardisation of what had previously been a chaotic process, unifying orders, communication and prescription management into a single, clear and traceable flow.

In just one month, employees at the Indukern Group went from placing orders using Excel spreadsheets and emails to having a functional internal e-commerce MVP.

The service became completely clear, defining steps, timings, pick-up and payroll-based payment, and aligning business needs with user expectations for the first time.

The impact was immediate: in a single month, employee purchases multiplied, surpassing the order volume of the past four years. The architecture, the metrics, and the lessons learned have created a solid foundation for scaling the service, integrating new systems, and continuing to evolve the experience.

The MVP is currently in its early stages of internal use, with adoption and behaviour metrics already active and guiding the next evolution of the product.

Looking to validate an internal digital product without oversizing the initial investment? 

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