A B2C platform for DPD in 14 countries
Three portals that gave a B2B parcel carrier a direct relationship with recipients in 14 countries and 13 business units, each with its own rules.
- Client
- DPD Group
- Years
- 2015–2018
- Scale
- 14 countries, 13 business units
- My role
- Java Architect & Team Lead
- Delivered via
- eo Networks
- Stack
- Spring Boot, Spring Cloud, microservices, REST/SOAP, PostgreSQL
Context and problem
DPD worked mainly business to business. The company wanted a direct relationship with the people receiving parcels, across 14 countries.
Constraints
13 business units with different rules had to run on the same solution, and every portal had to integrate with the operational systems already in place.
My responsibility
I was responsible for the whole architecture and the infrastructure sizing, and I led the development team.
Decision
A portfolio of three portals on Spring Boot microservices, configurable per business unit: a customer portal with everything a recipient can do in their country, a parcel portal for tracking and redirecting parcels to a Parcel Shop or PUDO point, and a returns portal.
Result
One platform delivered for all business units, with local behaviour configured per country.
Able to create a big picture design and also to go top-down even in very complicated environments. He still has his hands deep on technology.
He was able to fully understand where all of us were coming from, and at the same time offer new, futuristic, way-ahead-of-us kind of solutions.
Facing a similar decision?
Tell me what you are deciding and where the risk is. I will tell you honestly whether I can help.