Franchise Management Platform for a Highly-Regulated Industry

The B2B platform that brings business owners and regulators together in a digital workspace, centralizing communications, and helping vendors adapt to evolving business and regulatory requirements.

Franchise management, especially in highly regulated sectors like cannabis, requires exceptional operational precision and constant adaptation to regulatory requirements. Running a business means more than just securing licenses—it requires staying ahead of evolving requirements, maintaining impeccable compliance, and coordinating teams across multiple locations.

The client wanted to build a platform to unite vendors, regulators, and system administrators in a single digital workspace. The vision included:

• Managing multiple locations under one unified account.
• Assigning tasks and tracking operational workflows in real-time.
• Providing real-time regulatory updates and optimized document submission.
• Providing regulators with intuitive tools for audits and compliance checks.

However, as the initial design mockups took shape, it became clear that the need went far beyond design. Internal technical resources were tight, and with a significant industry conference coming up and the launch of a PWA critical to the company’s plans, — the stakes were high. The sudden departure of the client’s CTO added to the urgency, so strategic technical decisions needed immediate support.

Devox Software took on stabilizing, accelerating, and leading the initiative. Our team quickly expanded the engagement from design support to whole technical leadership and delivered:

• A redesigned platform tailored to the specific needs of vendors, regulators and administrators.
• Continuous development cycles focused on performance, scalability, and user-centric workflows.
• A progressive web application (PWA) was developed and launched in time for the conference.
• Interim technical leadership to ensure quick and informed decisions.
• Strengthened project leadership to keep delivery on track under intense time pressure.

By the time the conference took place, the client had a production-ready platform — modern, resilient, and fully equipped to meet the demands of a dynamic, highly regulated industry.

Tech Lead Rapid Replacement

The first urgent measure we took was to provide a tech lead from our side, who thoroughly reviewed the infrastructure and overall technical aspects, including architecture nuances. As a result, we’ve added a DevOps specialist who fixed immediate bugs that existed at the moment of the previous specialist’s resignation.

Tech-wise, we divided the previously unified front-end and back-end, which were utterly insecure. For this, we’ve also hired Node.js back-end specialists who set up a comprehensive back-end infrastructure, securing the database from client-side actions.

We’ve picked Svelte.js as a front-end framework. Being a rare species, Svelte is agile, lightweight, and performative. It also works nicely with reactivity, which was essential given the tight deadline. 

QA Reinvented

The GSP team initially worked with low-quality outsourced QA engineers. In collaboration with Devox, these positions were eventually replaced with a single QA from our team.

UI/UX and Features

Apart from elaborating the platform’s UI/UX and working on its server-side, we abundantly saturated it with different features:

• Implemented the possibility to extract data and tables from the overall shop’s activity. The Vendor can download the information in a PDF or Excel table, viewing relevant Shop statistics.
• Elaborated the dashboard, moving on from a calendar-only view;
• Redesigned initially, not a user-friendly filing system;
• Renewed the design elements, aligning them with the design kit;

Building a PWA

The platform initially lacked any support for mobile devices. We designed and built a progressive web application (PWA) from scratch, allowing users to access key features, such as task creation and resolution, directly on mobile devices. The user interface was fully adapted to smaller screens to ensure smooth daily operations on the go.