Aquila Indirect Contracts

Pernod Ricard faced significant challenges in standardizing and managing indirect beverage contracts across its diverse revenue growth markets due to an inexistent automatic process. My role as the full-stack developer on the Aquila Indirect Contracts project was to address this by building a modern, transactional, and responsive microfrontend-based solution. This involved leading development across frontend, backend, and database layers, while also influencing key design decisions.

The project aimed to streamline and automate the entire lifecycle of indirect beverage contracts, ensuring consistency, compliance, and efficiency across multiple global markets. We specifically chose the microfrontend approach to modernize and enhance an existing internal tool.

The system serves distributors and internal stakeholders within Pernod Ricard's Revenue Growth Markets, who operate across various countries with unique currencies and units of measurement.

We developed it as a standalone microservice with its own dedicated database, designed for seamless integration with existing internal company systems.

As the lead full-stack developer (collaborating with a peer lead and supported by a broader tech lead for high-level architectural guidance), my responsibilities were extensive, addressing complex challenges across the stack:

Spearheaded the development of core features and critical integrations across frontend, backend, and database. Led architectural decisions for business logic, transaction management, and data storage.

Ensuring end-to-end transactional integrity, achieving high data saving/loading speeds for millions of registries, and managing complex custom business logic while designing an intuitive UI/UX.

Tech Used: Vue.js (Frontend), Node.js, Express.js, TypeScript (Backend), MSSQL (Database), Azure (Cloud infrastructure), Azure Blobs (Document Storage), Pinia (Due State Management), REST APIs (Inter-service communication).

Contributed to design decisions, focusing on user experience, responsive design, and document handling.

Creating a user-friendly interface for complex contract creation and execution tracking, ensuring responsive design across devices, and secure, efficient document storage.

Implemented with critical third-party DocuSign for legally binding electronic signatures, and consuming various Internal Company APIs for data access (e.g., listing and sales structures).

Optimized application performance and ensured scalability for global deployment.

Handling large datasets efficiently, implementing robust cache management (including unstable cache scenarios), and designing for multi-region and multi-language support.

Tech Used: MSSQL (query optimization, custom type-safe integration), Azure (scalable deployment), custom caching mechanisms, multi-language libraries.

Aquila Indirect Contracts functioned as a comprehensive microservice, offering a suite of features tailored to the beverage contract lifecycle:

Contract Creation & Templates: Enabled the generation of new contracts using highly customizable templates, which I was involved in implementing. This standardized contract format and simplified initial setup.

Listing & Sales Structures Access: Provided direct access to relevant product listings and sales hierarchy data, crucial for accurate contract terms.

Approval Workflow: Implemented a sophisticated approval process where contracts routed to specific approvers based on predefined budgetary constraints, ensuring financial governance.

DocuSign Integration: Full integration with DocuSign allowed for secure, legally binding electronic signatures, drastically speeding up the contract finalization process.

Execution Tracking: A robust module to track contract performance against forecasts, actuals, and provide a "latest view" via intuitive tables and graphs, offering critical business insights.

Payment & Cashback Mechanisms: Managed payment schedules and, in specific cases, facilitated cash-back payments based on met contract conditions.

Addendums: Supported the creation and management of addendums, allowing for post-signature modifications to contracts while maintaining version control and legal compliance.

Inbox Notifications for Approvers: Developed a dedicated inbox for users with approval roles, centralizing notifications and actionable items for contracts, addendums, and payment requests, streamlining the approval process.