Beauty Cluster opens a tender to subcontract the international integration of a Virtual B2B Marketplace for the project GCC.eu.

Within the framework of this project, specifically in the Acceleration Program for the internationalization of SMEs, Beauty Cluster has to develop a virtual marketplace focused on B2B activity. The main requirements of this development are that it must have an international integration that allows all project partners to actively participate and that it should be accessible especially to SMEs in the beauty and personal care industry in order to boost their international business.

Beauty Cluster currently manages a virtual marketplace for the industry (www.beautyconnectingbusiness.com), but focused only on the Spanish market. The company selected to implement this project should work on this basis which is already working to enable an international integration that gives access to all project partners and to future potential European clusters that would like to expand our network and enhance B2B relationships in the beauty and personal care European industry.

Further details on the expected features of the platform are provided below.

These features will be implemented in 2 different phases:

1st Phase: International Integration

We want to create an international multiplatform in which each country/region represented will have its own space to manage all publications and registered SMEs in their region.
Users linked to SMEs will be able to make publications demanding needs that they need to solve for their projects or businesses in an agile way and enhancing the scope of their demand through different categories, filters and alarms to be solved by other registered users.

On a first level, there would be the different regional filters of the platform where each corresponding project partner will moderate all publications, users and registered SMEs. The regional sections should replicate the existing one for the Spanish industry.

At a higher level, we would find an international section which would be a homepage where all publications from all regions would be included, with the objective of fostering international relations between registered SMEs. For the international section, all regional publications will be shown or each user can decide their regions of interest by filtering so that related publications are shown in this section.

Features to be implemented:

  • Creation of the different administration roles of the platform.
  • Interface for these roles to manage users, companies and publications from the user Dashboard.
  • Automation of the registration of companies and users (will require validation by the project partners but must be able to be created both simultaneously).

 

2nd Phase: B2B Networking features

The following functionalities will be oriented to enhance and facilitate networking and B2B relationships among the different users of the platform.

Below are some examples of features that would meet the purposes of this phase. The following examples can be developed in the proposal or modifications or new developments inside the platform can be proposed in order to achieve the objectives set in the project:

  • Consultation forum: in a standard forum format, a consultation on a specific topic can be published and can be answered on the same thread as many times as necessary.
  • Social network features that encourage networking (adding contacts, messages between contacts…).
  • Possibility of arranging meetings with other users.
  • Enable meetings on the platform by audio or video call.

Requeriments from company to be contracted:

    • Whole platform must be available in English and ready to implement new languages in a long term.
    • Experience in digital projects for the beauty and personal care industry.
    • Experience in similar projects involving of SMEs.
    • Years of experience: 5 years
    • Previous projects in the Beauty Industry
    • The expert/company must justify their capability to be contracted for a project funded with public money.

 

Offer:

    • The offer has to be all costs included (new developments, hour of support for the partnership, other costs linked to this tasks). The maximum value accepted for the offer is 12.500€
    • Any offer that could be considered unsustainable will be rejected. Unsustainable offer is that one with 20% lower than maximum budget proposed.
    • The maximum lenght for the proposals is 15 pages.
    • Beauty Cluster will provide the necessary support for the proper implementation of the platform new feature’s.
    • First phase has to be developed before March 2021.
    • Second phase has to be developed along 2021.

 

Evaluation criteria: as a responsible in the project for this task, Beauty Cluster will select the proper expert based on the quality of the proposal with the following criteria:

  • Excluding criteria: new independent developments outside the existing platform will not be evaluated, the project is looking for a unique integrated tool available for all partners.
  • Quality of the proposal – (49 points)
    • Technical quality of the proposal. Work methodology and planning: [19]
    • Match between the new platform features to be developed and the objectives of the project: [10]
    • Expertise and background in digitalisation at the Beauty Industry: [10]
    • Expertise and background in projects for clusters or other competitiveness organisations: [10]
    • Economical analysis of the proposal – (51 points)
      • Calculation formula: (51 points to be evaluated compared with the minimum quotation received (quotation vs. minimum quotation). Unsustainable offer with 20% lower than maximum budget proposed will not be considered.

 

Application: The proposal must be sent by email to hellomember@beautyclusterbarcelona.com with the subject “GCC.eu B2B Marketplace” before February 18th, 2021.

ABOUT GCC.eu

Global Cosmetics Clusters – Europe is a partnership of European Cosmetics clusters to boost SMEs international business opportunities toward third markets. It is composed of 6 structures (Cosmetic Valley, Beauty Cluster, Polo della Cosmesi, Transilvania Lifestyle Cluster, Beira Baixa Business Association and Istanbul chemicals and Chemical Products Exporters Association, covering 5 European Member States (FR, ES, RO, PT, IT) and Turkey.

Our ESCP-4i has set 6 specific objectives:

  • To encourage business, international and R&D cooperation across sectorial boundaries;
  • To focus on supporting SMEs in international accessing markets in particular through an Acceleration Programme tackling these 5 targeted countries;
  • To foster cooperation among cluster organisations and its members in the ESCP-4i;
  • To support the establishment of value chains (in particular in health, digital, agroindustry, circular economy) along with the cosmetics cross-sectorial industry, geared towards international markets, based on inputs and needs from SMEs;
  • To develop a governance system and a common branding for the ESCP-4i to ensure active and sustainable collaboration among the different stakeholders;
  • To promote and increase the visibility of GCC.eu as a cluster representing the whole value chain on cosmetics: Production of plants, raw material or ingredients, beauty brand (cosmetics, perfumes, devices…), manufacturing and formulation, distribution and retail, testing and analysis, packaging, research and training, engineering, machines, tools, instruments.