Business to business (B2B) social media platform

143 BUSINESS TO BUSINESS (B2B) SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM B.D Shashini Amasha1, C Ranil Peiris2 1University of Sri Jayewardenepura, [email protected] 2University of Sri Jayewardenepura, [email protected].lk Background Small businesses are the grassroots of a certain economy. As Sri Lanka is a developing country, small business plays a vital role for the development of the country. It is important to grow the small businesses, help entrepreneurs to do more and more innovations to achieve the growth in our economy. Though there are many encouragements from the government there is a little amount of technology facilities for small businesses in Sri Lanka. Therefore, a digital platform for their day to day businesses work will be very important for them. Overview of the Existing System Today social media has become a popular thing among people. According to many statistics many people in the world use social media every day. The social media are basically for individuals who like to communicate each other. Also, there is an opportunity for businesses to reach the customers easily. There are E-commerce web sites which are more popular today among people. Basically, E-commerce web sites do businesses activities, sell online, do promotions and so on. Problem/Issue identified in the system Though there are common social media platforms for businesses and ecommerce solutions, there is little amount of social media platforms that are specially for small businesses. There is no platform to all small businesses in Sri Lanka to get together and communicate with each other about the business matters. 144 As there is no proper communication between small businesses, it is very difficult to being sustainable in the market because the awareness about competitors and the market is little. That problem will be addressed from this application, “B2B social media platform”. Proposed system The proposed system is a web application which act as a social media platform that facilitate a common place for all small businesses in Sri Lanka. In this platform, small business owners can sign up their own accounts and publish their business information. They can make friends, chat with them, post the news about the businesses and also read others’ posts and also comment for them. System Analysis Problem Analysis Though there are many platforms for the businesses to do their transactions, those systems have some limitations. Some of them are, • Some platforms have the B2B online transaction and sell the products facility, but there is no option to become friends. • There is no specific application for the small businesses to make friends with other small businesses and share information. Requirement Analysis Business Requirements As there are many limitations in the existing systems, the proposed system will address those limitations by giving many benefits. 145 • Provide an online platform for the SMEs to interact with each other The proposed solution can provide a social media platform to make friends (SMEs) and interact with them share the business knowledge, know other’s strategies. Know about competitors and so on. Functional & Non-functional Requirements Functional Requirements Non-Functional Requirements • Create user account • Login/Logout to the user account • Publish posts • Become friends with each other • Comment others’ posts • Delete posts • User account management • Delete all user posts • Login to administration account • Reliability • Usability • Security • Performance • Capacity • Maintainability Objective of the system • Create an online platform for small businesses to interact with each other, share information and communicate through it in order to make the small business’s transaction easy. • Provide a solution for the unavailability of the social media platform for small business in Sri Lanka. • Establish effective and efficiency social media platform for small businesses. 146 System Development System development Requirements For the B2B social media platform, “Visual studio code” was used as the IDE to develop the application. The front end of the application was coded using HTML, CSS and JavaScript while the back end of the application was coded using PHP language. To create databases MySQL was employed by creating a virtual server using WAMP server. Database Development For the B2B social media platform following are the tables of the database. • Admin • Comment • Friendship • Post • Users According to the cardinality and the relationship types, relevant primary keys, foreign keys and fields were added into the database. To have a virtual server for the system, WAMP server was employed as it has high performance, highly secured, programmable and manageable. Interface development Visual studio code was used to create the interfaces for the B2B social media application. The interfaces comprise of the buttons, navigation bars, logos, input fields and so on in order to have a best user experience while having the simplicity of the interface. HTML, CSS, JavaScript were mainly used for the interface development. Conclusion To solve the limitations of the existing systems, B2B social media platform was developed. 147 As there is no particular organization for this system, the requirements were gathered from SME owners. After analyzing the requirements, the system design was done using various diagrams and tools. Then the development of the system was done using HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP. The database was developed using MySQL. After developing the application, a proper testing process were conducted using a proper test plan. Achievements, Benefits and Limitations Achievements • Could develop an accurate, effective web application because unauthorized person can't access to system and this system • Could use the theoretical and practical knowledge that got throughout degree program. Limitations • Messaging module and auction module is not included. Future enhancements • The auction module and the messaging module can be added. • Sharing the GPS location, connect through other social media platforms can be added • Project can be done using web development framework. References App.diagrams.net (2021) Flowchart Maker & Online Diagram Software. Available at: https://app.diagrams.net/ (Accessed 15 June 2021). Stack Overflow (2021) Stack Overflow - Where Developers Learn, Share, & Build Careers. Available at: https://stackoverflow.com/ (Accessed 15 June 2021). 148 www.javatpoint.com (2021) Tutorials - Javatpoint. Available at: https://www.javatpoint.com/ (Accessed 15 June 2021). W3schools.com (2021) W3Schools Online Web Tutorials. Available at: https://www.w3schools.com/ (Accessed 15 June 2021). Youtube.com. (2021) Available at: https://www.youtube.com/ (Accessed 15 June 2021).