Task Management tool for the Content and design teams at JUMIA group (Emerging Countries)

In Detail

1) Business Problem with Context: In 2018, Jumia Group was preparing for its IPO on the NYSE and operated under a two-tier country model:

• Big Five: Nigeria, Egypt, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Kenya

• Emerging Countries: Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon, Uganda, Tanzania, Algeria, Tunisia

Most internal systems and tooling were designed primarily for the Big Five, and rolled out to Emerging Countries with limited customization, support, or prioritization

Specific Content & Design Problem

• Content teams in Emerging Countries were using Basecamp. Basecamp proved unintuitive and insufficient for Scaling with seller volumes, SKU image uploads, Photoshoot scheduling, and Content production workflows.

• Requests were fragmented and hard to track

• There was limited visibility into queues, ownership, and progress

Urgency: Content production directly affected product listings, seller satisfaction, and marketplace growth. As seller volumes increased, the existing setup became a bottleneck.

2) Objective / Success Criteria

• Objectives

  • Replace Basecamp with a more intuitive task management workflow

  • Centralize seller content requests

  • Automate task creation and routing

  • Improve visibility and coordination for Content & Production teams

  • Deliver a solution with zero allocated budget

• Success Criteria

  • Successful pilot in at least one market

  • Adoption by all Emerging Countries

  • Improved handling of seller SKUs and content requests

  • Endorsement and rollout by Group Management

3) My Role & Ownership: As the IT Representative for Uganda, I:

• Fully owned solution design and implementation

• Acted on direct request from management due to prior success with IT ticketing

• No team, no budget, no external vendor

I was responsible for Tool selection, Integration design, Pilot execution, and Regional rollout support.

4) What I Did;

• Reviewed multiple task management platforms

• Selected Trello based on Simplicity, Visual workflow model, and Ease of adoption

• Designed a Google Form for seller-facing requests based on Team requirements.

• Integrated Google Forms with Trello using Zapier

• Built automated workflows where Sellers upload SKUs and images, Sellers schedule photoshoot dates at Jumia studios, and Submissions automatically generate Trello cards

• Structured Trello boards for Queuing, Monitoring, and Triaging work across Content and Production teams

• Ran a pilot with the Uganda Content team

• Supported rollout to all Emerging Markets

• Continued support as the solution expanded

5) Technical Depth

• Solution Stack

  • Google Forms for Structured request intake

  • Zapier for Workflow automation

  • Trello for Task and queue management

• Workflow Logic

  • Seller submits request via Google Form

  • SKU data, images, and schedules captured

  • Zapier automatically creates Trello cards

  • Cards enter predefined queues

  • Content & Production teams triage and process cards

  • Progress tracked visually in Trello

• Design Principle was based on being Lightweight, Low-cost, Rapid deployment, and easily Scalable across markets

6) Results & Impact (Before vs After)

• Before

  • Basecamp not fit for purpose

  • Poor visibility into content queues

  • Manual coordination

  • Growing inefficiencies as seller numbers increased

• After

  • Automated task intake and card creation

  • Clear queues and ownership

  • Faster processing of seller content

  • Improved coordination across teams

  • Successful adoption across all Emerging Countries

  • Later adopted by the Big Five

Strategic Outcome: The solution proved scalable and effective enough to influence Group-level tooling decisions.

7) Challenges & How I Solved Them

• Zero Budget: No approval for paid tools initially. I simply leveraged free tiers creatively, and delivered measurable impact before the budget was requested.

• Feature Limitations: Some Trello features required paid plans. The new light-weight system demonstrated usage growth and operational value, and I got word after I left that Management later approved budget for another Enterprise tool as scale increased

• Scaling Across Markets: Due to different seller volumes and team maturity levels, together with the Head Content & Production for Emerging markets, I ran a Pilot in Uganda and did Gradual rollout with local support in respective markets.

8) What I’d Do Differently Next Time

• Push earlier for budget approval once value was proven

• Document scalability limits more formally

• Accelerate transition to a purpose-built in-house tool

• Add deeper reporting and analytics earlier