B2B platform for cooperation in the IT field

Solution

The back-end part is implemented on .NET and the front-end using Angular. The implemented system is a complex solution for companies with existing software teams and for customers with need to hire a team of developers. In brief, the development team implemented the B2B platform from scratch and was responsible for the following tasks:

• Planning, Requirements analysis and creation of the design scheme
• Design and architecture of the system
• Front-end and back-end development
• CI/CD configuration
• Testing
• Deployment and system maintenance

How does developer search service work?

In short, the designed web B2B platform has the following parts of functionality:

Companies module

Each registered company fills in general information about its business. In general, the firm defines company name, address and brief description. Additionally, there is an option to add such info as industry, focus technology, amount of employees, founding year, hourly rates etc. The firm may download the company logo and the user can edit his profile. The company represents itself on the platform and showcases its focus areas and services.

The hiring platform has an extensive company search, where interested parties can find cooperation partners. It is an easy way to find possible service providers with respective experience. A simple filter enables the selection of companies by their location, technology focus, industry as well as rates. For instance, the customer is a FinTech start-up. He is looking for a service provider in Germany with experience in financial software development. This customer will find the list of matching companies by setting the respective filtering criteria.

Developers module

This module is exciting for the service providers. Here the company creates employee profiles of its IT experts. These may be not only software developers, but also other IT specialists. F.e. SEO managers, lead generators, designers and so on. Service providers have the option to create either anonymous or specified profiles. Employee profiles include the information about skills & qualifications of the person and language proficiency levels.

Developer search service – is one more valuable feature of the B2B solution. This is a search, where companies are found based on the employee profiles. The team search algorithm was implemented using Munkres. The company appears in search results if it has an employee profile with matching skills. Each firm gets a calculated match ratio. It shows how well this company matches search criteria and your expectations.

The main advantage of this B2B platform is the possibility of hiring a software development team within one company. Hiring software developers as one dedicated development team is more beneficial in comparison to hiring separate freelancers. Such a model simplifies management and brings its benefits to the customer.

Projects module

This part of the system is interesting for both sides: customers and service providers. On the one hand, customers post their IT projects on the digital platform. Potential clients define their needs and what they are looking for. 

On the other hand, service providers, who are interested in IT projects, can send the application. For example, an IT firm is focused on mobile development services. It finds the customer project related to Xamarin app development. IT firm can send the request with some brief message. The customer, after viewing the application, will decide whether he wants to continue communication with this company. 

Indeed, service providers do not see the name of the customer who publishes the project. This is done to avoid direct spam to the client. Anyway, the customer can share his contacts at any time with an exact service provider. Digital platform enables the finding of cooperation partners in an easy and fast way. Also, IT firms are searching for potential projects and as a result, make deals.

Messaging module

The designed system has a messaging module, where B2B platform members communicate with each other. Project requests and developer requests are received in this conversations module.

Payment module

For the activation of each employee profile, the company needs a licence. Companies, who have no active profiles will not appear in developer search results. Portal gifts a few licences for the company after registration, additional licences can be purchased. Using a payment module companies may also order Memberships.

The digital platform has Stripe integration. The system offers an option for online payment, where payment by card is possible. VISA, Mastercard and American Express are accepted.

Memberships

The B2B platform offers its users 5 Membership models, free and paid. Depending on the type of membership, each company gets the benefits by service usage. For instance, membership influences company ranking in searches, amount of active employee cards, etc.

Dashboard

The dashboard gives a statistical overview of the registered company. In general, visual graphs inform about company profile visits and appearance in searches. In addition, the firm sees in one view the number of licences, employees and project/developer applications. 

Admin tool

The solution has an admin tool. It is available only for the platform owner team. In the admin tool is available the following information:

• Statistics about the most popular skills and technologies in searches
• List of registered companies/users. The admin has an option to delete companies/users from the system
• List of projects. The admin has a right to delete the project if it includes points against the rules of the platform

Admin tool helps to manage the platform easily.

Multi-user feature

The administrator has the right to add users to his company and assign roles to them. In particular, each role grants access to a limited part of the functionality. Due to multi-user functionality, administrators can transfer to their colleagues some responsibilities. For example, a sales representative has access to the functionality for searching new clients for the team. On the contrary, another user role enables easy search and selection of cooperation partners for the implementation of their projects.

Business Impact

The platform development team provided a stable web application to the customer. For now, B2B service for the cooperation in IT field is gradually expanding in terms of functionality and marketing. Every day the companies join the platform. Among them are companies that are looking for contractors to implement their IT projects and companies that, on the contrary, are looking for IT projects.