Helping Tangent build a brand-new sales hub for a global workforce

For more than a decade, Vega IT has been delivering innovative solutions for digital agencies from all across the globe. We pride ourselves on collaborating with some of the most prominent industry names, including Tangent. 

A 100-person team of strategists, designers, and engineers. Enviable cross-sector experience. Long-term partnerships. Those are just a few of the values Tangent, a digital agency from London, lives and breathes. 

As a technical partner, we have collaborated with Tangent on multiple projects. One of them is the development of a sales hub for the world’s largest workspace network. 

The challenge: Creating a sales platform for a global workforce

Tangent has collaborated with the largest workspace network in the world on building their new sales hub. Their client needed a comprehensive platform for brokers and sales teams to generate custom solutions for their prospects. The aim of the project was to create a centralized solution that would bring their multiple products together into a single location.

The client already had a sales app that needed to be updated. Difficult to scale, the platform no longer met their growing requirements. They wanted a brand new app, built from the ground up. 

The project required advanced technical knowledge and experience in software development. A team with a solid understanding of .NET, React, GraphQL, Azure, and Elastic search technologies. That is where Vega IT stepped in.  

An 8-person squad to build a sales hub from scratch

The client had in-house technical architects, project managers, DevOps, and front-end developers. They required external software developers as an extension of their team. We formed a team of eight people – five back-end developers and three front-end developers.

The solution: A stable platform, built from scratch

We created an intuitive and user-friendly sales hub for the client’s internal use. Scalable. Flexible. Designed to support the client’s global workforce. 

Most importantly the platform soon won the hearts of the client’s employees from 130 countries around the world. As soon as they recognized that the new platform was quicker and easier to use compared to the old system, staff members started transitioning to it.

Finding elegant solutions to unexpected problems 

At Vega IT, we are not just thicket-solvers. Our primary goal is to find elegant solutions that work for the client even in the most unexpected situations. And, that is exactly what happened during the sales hub development. 

Using advanced monitoring techniques, we were able to detect many pain points with the upstream systems. We presented them with as much detail as possible, which led to positive outcomes. Namely, other client IT systems were equipped to resolve those issues and even introduce improvements on their end. 

As a result, the app is now more stable, performant, and user-friendly. This is best reflected in the reduced number of service incidents. Right after the app rollout, the number of service incidents amounted to 150. Today, this figure is 10.

Creating an app that can withstand massive amounts of data

6000 centers. 400.000 offices. 320.000 pricing data. The app collects and processes this information on a daily basis. Additionally, this information is being continuously modified by employees. Hundreds of thousands of changes made every day. 

The client required a stable platform capable of handling large volumes of data without experiencing any slowdown. Creating such an app was one of the greatest challenges we faced along the way. That is where we implemented a solution using Elastic search which made the platform far more intuitive, faster, and user-friendly.

Implementing the microservice architecture

That means that the application is developed as a collection of services on the back end. Each of these services has its own realm of responsibility. That enables simpler, more independent deployment, scaling, and maintenance. 

Integrating the sales hub with other internal apps

The client had their own API – and we integrated the system with it to enable the functionalities required. Given that the client had numerous internal applications, including a CRM system, applications for contract creation, legacy database systems, etc. – each communicating with each other directly or via the client’s API – our primary goal was to integrate with them without compromising the overall functionality of the system.

Since all internal applications are highly interconnected and affect each other, the entire system integration process requires extensive knowledge and experience, and that’s exactly what we could provide.

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The tech stack

• .NET Core (.NET 6)
• React
• Node.js
• GraphQL
• Microsoft Azure (DevOps, App Services, Functions, Service Bus, Storage accounts, CDN, Application Insights, Workbooks, etc.)
• Elasticsearch
• Cosmos DB
• Redis memory cache