B2B Portal: Take Your Business to the Next Level. Experience of the LightTech Team.

What is a B2B Portal

A B2B portal is a platform where all participants in business processes meet. Each of them sees the features they need for their work. Repetitive tasks can be automated to increase efficiency. 

A B2B portal simplifies interaction between sellers and buyers. Clients can independently choose products, place and pay for orders, track their status, and handle documents. The user account allows users to see all stages of a deal and manage them efficiently. 

All operations on a B2B portal, from placing an order to payment, occur online and without intermediaries. It's a kind of self-service checkout with a set of handy tools. Employees do not need to send price lists, reserve products in the warehouse, or send paper documents. This approach increases the company's efficiency, allowing it to serve more clients quickly and without delays.
 

Benefits of a B2B Portal

Implementing a B2B portal brings the following benefits to companies:

• Automation. A B2B portal allows for automating order processing, freeing employees from routine tasks, and optimizing company resources. It can be compared to an online bank: instead of visiting a branch and talking to a staff member, clients can independently perform financial transactions online. Similarly, a B2B portal automatically manages orders, significantly improving the user experience and increasing company efficiency.

• Quality of Service Improvement. Clients find it faster and more convenient to order through a B2B portal's user account rather than through a manager. This also results in fewer errors due to the human factor.

• Process Transparency. In the user account on a B2B portal, all actions of each participant are visible. This makes it easier to track the course of a deal and resolve disputes.

• Identifying Additional Opportunities. Implementing a B2B account allows businesses to identify additional opportunities through improved analytics and understanding of client behavior. By collecting and analyzing purchase data, the company can optimize its assortment, launch targeted marketing campaigns, and make personalized offers. For example, in retail, implementing a CRM enables better understanding of clients and adapting strategy, leading to increased sales and improved service. Similarly, a B2B account helps businesses find new paths for growth and optimization.

• Sales Increase. The marketing tools of a B2B portal allow serving more clients, increasing sales volume and conversion at each stage of the sales funnel. Clients can place orders 24/7, as the portal is not dependent on staff working hours.

• Business Efficiency Improvement. The B2B portal offers a flexible reporting system, allowing real-time business insight. Reports can be generated based on average check, demand, product ratings, and other parameters. This enables performance analysis, hypothesis testing, and implementing changes to optimize business operations.

Who Needs a B2B Portal

Industries where implementing a B2B portal will be particularly relevant:

• Manufacturing companies. A B2B portal simplifies order management, tracking their status, and providing technical information, facilitating business expansion and entry into new markets.

• Distributors and wholesalers. Implementing a B2B portal allows ordering online without manager mediation, providing easy access to the product catalog, accounting for bulk discounts, and real-time tracking of the supply process. This also simplifies the introduction of new products to the market, significantly increasing companies' efficiency and speed of operations.

• Tech companies and IT services. A B2B portal enables access to software, subscriptions, updates, and technical support, providing convenient interaction with clients and improving their user experience.

• Financial and insurance services. Banks, insurance companies, and other institutions can manage contracts, generate reports, and provide services to corporate clients, optimizing interactions and improving service quality.

• Product suppliers. Companies with complex supply chains can integrate with partners, coordinate purchases, and manage inventory efficiently, improving interactions and increasing responsiveness.

If your company achieves an annual revenue of 100 million rubles and has a large staff for technical support or accompanying managers, it's time to consider implementing a B2B portal. This innovative tool not only automates business processes but also significantly increases your work efficiency, turning routine into productivity.
 

B2B Portal Functionality for Business

Standard modules often repeated in B2B portal projects:

• User Account within the Assigned Role. It's a tool that transforms interaction with the system into a simple and intuitive task. Its functionality reduces administrative costs and enhances efficiency by simplifying workflows.

• Counterparty Document Block. Here, all necessary documents for each counterparty are collected. They are used when placing an order and make interactions transparent.

• Product Catalog. It should be simple and understandable so that users quickly find the needed items. It should also contain information about discounts and stock availability.

• Logistics Block. This section contains all information about product delivery. It's crucial to provide clients with information about all stages of transportation — from dispatch to receipt.

• Marketing Block. Includes auxiliary materials, mailings, loyalty systems, and helps increase sales.

• Integration with 1C, ERP, CRM, and other services and tools. Facilitates order placement as all services are in one space.

Box Solution or Custom Development

To «develop» or «not develop» — everyone places the comma differently. Choosing between a box solution and custom development of a B2B portal is ambiguous. A box solution, although a ready-made product, requires implementation and adaptation to the company's existing services. Custom development, on the other hand, offers a unique project that precisely meets business needs. 

At LightTech, we offer both ready-made box solutions and custom developments, selecting the optimal variant based on a detailed business audit. Our experience includes successful projects where box solutions based on ready-made components yielded significant results. When necessary, we also create unique solutions using hybrid models for maximum efficiency and adaptation to specific business tasks.
 

How to Understand if a Box Solution is Sufficient

To understand if a box solution is appropriate for your business, you need to evaluate the uniqueness of your processes. If they are standard, then "Bitrix" or 1C will be suitable. Specific processes and plans for scaling require custom development. It is also important to consider the budget and strategic readiness to invest in IT. During the audit stage, we conduct a brief, analyze the business, and help choose the optimal solution.
 

What to Consider When Developing and Implementing a B2B Portal

Before implementing a B2B portal, several tasks need to be performed to increase the platform's efficiency, avoid possible errors, and achieve the set goals. The table presents the main preparatory tasks carried out by the LightTech team.
 

Stage	What's Included
Requirements and Goals Analysis	Defining the goals of the internet portal; Identifying business needs; Analyzing the target audience, their "pains" and needs; Analyzing competitors, identifying their strengths and weaknesses.
Formulating functional requirements for the platform	Choosing the main sections and functions, such as: product catalog, order processing system, personal account, CRM integration options, etc.;
Formulating technical requirements for the portal	Choosing the development technology and platform for implementation; Creating the system architecture; Integrating with external systems and services — 1C, EDI, CRM, and others.
Ensuring security	Implementing data security policies; - Creating user authentication and authorization forms;  Protecting the portal from various attacks and vulnerabilities, for example, DDoS, SQL injections, and others.
Resource planning	Estimating the development budget and timeframe; Choosing the project team based on the set tasks: developer, designer, tester, and others;       Creating the project plan and work schedule;   Assessing risks and determining ways to minimize them.
Documenting requirements	Writing a detailed technical specification (technical task);  Documenting business processes and user scenarios.
Preparing infrastructure	Choosing and setting up servers and hosting; Setting up tools for project management and team collaboration.
Interface design	Creating the interface design project; Optimizing UX/UI; Developing detailed page layouts and testing prototypes on the target audience;
Content planning	Preparing content: text, images, and other materials.
Data upload	Importing data about products, customers, as well as uploading other important information.
Working on legal aspects	Ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements. Preparing legal documents — the user agreement, privacy policy, and others.

Stages of Developing a B2B Portal

Here are the main stages performed by LightTech in the framework of developing a B2B portal.

Filling in the Brief and Defining the Product Concept

At this stage, we communicate with the client, ask them to fill in a brief and answer important questions. All this helps us understand the client's needs and goals and prepare a concept for the future product — determining what tasks the portal should solve.

Preparing Proposals

Considering all aspects, we offer the client several options for achieving the goals. The client can choose the optimal strategy based on cost, timeline, and functionality. After that, the main priorities and tasks are determined based on the chosen option, and a work plan is drawn up, including a detailed TOR for specialists.

Breaking Down the Project into Analytics and Pilot Project Phases

We conduct an in-depth company analysis to collect the maximum amount of data and prepare a roadmap for the project's implementation. The analytics phase includes tasks such as:

• Analysis of Architectures and Codebase (current state of used technologies, libraries, frameworks, IDEs used), existing IT solutions AS IS and TO BE within the problem-solving framework.

• Presentation of revisions and acceptance criteria within the existing IT solutions for subsequent implementation. This is done based on the possibilities and limitations of existing systems.

• Writing user stories and acceptance criteria within the implementation framework.

• Design development.

• Team composition definition.

• Development and approval of the project roadmap.

• Preparation and creation of project architecture and upper-level documentation.

• Preparation of project infrastructure, calculation of infrastructure costs.

• Preparation and updating of the project budget.

• Organizational issues: creating repositories, task management setup, intra-team interaction.

After that, we launch a pilot project: test hypotheses and get the first results.

Development and Launch of the Platform

Based on the results of the analysis and pilot project, we create an innovative product. After the development is completed, we successfully launch the portal into operation and provide its technical support. If necessary, we promptly make the required improvements.

Talking About Cases and Figures

We will talk about our experience in developing and implementing B2B portals. Business platforms deliver impressive results for our clients. For example, Bayer began to interact more effectively with product distributors and soon achieved the following results:

• Increased the average check;

• Increased sales;

• Optimized the speed of creating custom commercial offers;

• Eliminated errors in interactions with end consumers caused by human factors.

These results were achieved through the all-in-one concept. Distributors collected commercial offers in one place only with the latest data, uploaded customer bases, and made mailings. Upon a positive response, they formed a package of closing documents on the same platform. Bayer gained access to unique data, based on which they developed new lines of offers. This increased revenue and the average check. Read more about Bayer's experience.