Everon


Scalable as a service charging point platform

The goal of Everon is to play a worldwide role in the electric vehicle ecosystem.

Everon is the software division of EVBox, a worldwide manufacturer of charging points for electric vehicles and charging management systems. They faced an increasing importance of charging point management and fast growth in the market.

What we were asked to deliver

The charging point management platform needed to be set up to be entirely scalable as a service and Levi9 was asked to help realizing this.   “Our assumption has been a partnership with maximum business results. For us, it’s a unique opportunity to grow in this relatively young and, above all, promising market.” says Joeri Kamp, COO of Everon.

Levi9 supports in raising the quality and working methods within the development teams. The software professionals from Levi9 bring knowledge and experience to the table with the Agile methodology, continuous improvement, attention to security and architecture. Everon has opened up their first public APIs. Levi9’s work here was to set it up, configure it to expose public APIs of the various Everon services and configure a developer portal for exposing API documentation for both the external customers and Everon developers.

It’s the experience.

Working with Levi9 means lots of face-to-face contact, both with Levi9 in Amsterdam and the thirty or so developers who are working on the various teams, says Joeri Kamp   

“They have a reputation as a reliable partner, so you know they deliver, and you know you can count on satisfaction as a customer." 

— Joeri Kamp, Chief Solution Officer EVBox - Managing Director at Everon


Levi9 is pet friendly! Home office at its finest.

Levelling Up Logistics

When Levi9 was tasked with the challenge of building integrated solutions for a ‘smart port’ for a specialist technology customer, we quickly mobilised a multinational software development team and got things moving.

While a project like this would be complex even in ideal conditions, the fact it landed during the COVID-19 lockdown made it even more of a challenge…

Lifeblood For Commerce

Global supply chains have never been more important. Marine traffic remains the lifeblood of international commerce. Given the 24/7 demands, the infrastructure of a busy commercial port has to be, well, watertight.

Every single process – from the moment a ship docks to container pick up; as well as lorry loading and exit to the onward journey – needs to run like a well-oiled machine.

The never-ending challenge to improve efficiency and effectiveness drives the logistics sector – which is why the technology is being fast-tracked in the race to convert shipping hubs into smart ports.

So when we were contracted to help develop software solutions to transform one of the world’s largest, most advanced, and most environmentally friendly container terminals into a 100% automated smart port, the Levi9 team couldn’t turn the opportunity down – particularly given our long track record in the transport sector.

Involving An International Team

However, one major disruption that no-one could have foreseen was the COVID-19 lockdown.

This was to be a multi-country development – one that required a 60-strong expert group, composed of several Levi9 teams – from Kyiv and Lviv in Ukraine, and Iasi, Romania – alongside customer teams based in the UK, so communication was essential throughout.

As a result of the lockdown, physical onboarding wasn’t possible – nor were onsite visits or knowledge sessions to get the team up and running. But as well as teams working remotely from the client, they also had to work remotely from their peers, which posed a new challenge for all.

But possibly the biggest challenge was absorbing the large volume of information needed to understand the customer’s business; which had to be imparted via video-conferencing – not easy given the scale and scope of the smart port and the need to have every function automated.

Results While Working Remotely

Despite all of this, our team carried on regardless; delivering parts of the software in sprints using Agile methodology. This approach actually helped a great deal given the additional challenges, as constant reviews and daily planning were required – helping us stay focused on the mission and ensure prioritisation – even with a project with so many variables and incremental additional requests.

Although our teams missed out on sharing their workspace, remote working also helped in maintaining focus – and in some areas increased productivity. It was important to keep teams together and to share information through online video sessions and scrums.

Our team was primarily concerned with coding the port gate operating systems – integrating this info and making it compatible across different systems. As a result, the range of development tools used was extensive and involved the use of other third-party systems to make the entire thing come together.

Groundbreaking Work

All in all, working under these conditions really helped to shift our mindset. And despite what were initially seen as ‘setbacks’, we remained super-focused and even hit the original deadlines – which were set before the pandemic hit.

This really has been excellent progress, undertaken in arduous conditions. However, it has set the bar for further exciting programmes for the development of solutions at this ‘smart port’ – and for potentially rolling out the tech across other transhipment centres worldwide.

And, for Levi9, well, we knew our teams were great – but it’s been a real confidence boost for them. Remote working under these conditions has been a challenge, but it’s one they’ve risen to.


Levi9 team member with covid19 mask

[Past Event] Webinar with Microsoft

November 5th 2020

Cloud security by design and security trends

During the event, guest speaker Hans van der Meer (Sr. Business Group Lead Microsoft 365 at Microsoft) will share the principles of cloud security by design, trends in the market, and how customers perceive security.
He will explain how Microsoft is using Azure to help customers in this increasingly complex security area.

Hans is working for Microsoft for almost 30 years in different roles with a passion for technology, customer focus, and a growth mindset. He is helping customers and partners with the right mix of technology. People and culture are one of his most important focus areas and he is really passionate about that, which is exactly why we at Levi9 are a great match.

Webinar with Microsoft

As Microsoft Gold Partner we aim to bring technology, business and people together. We are proud to present you this webinar where we bundle our expertise to inspire and share knowledge.

Time

14:00-15:00

Date

5 November 2020

Join Now

Encouraging customers to embrace agile way

INTERVIEW WITH ANAMARIJA PETROVIC, DELIVERY DIRECTOR AT LEVI9

Levi9 favours agile way of working when partnering with customers. If they don’t have any experience with it, they can rely on expert support from Levi9. ‘Our customers sometimes tell us straight that they are lacking an experience of taking on a truly agile project,’ explains Anamarija Petrovic, Delivery Director at Levi9 Technology Services. ‘However, we will always encourage our customers to consider embracing agile culture, with our full support.’

‘Agile is very much our standard way of working as it optimally meets the ever-growing demand for rapid development of innovative solutions. At Levi9, we adopt a holistic approach that encourages communication and collaboration between the product management, development teams, and operations, making sure everyone is working together to deliver results to the business. It is essentially a technology value stream for transforming a business idea into a product. Over the years, we have learned that principles of continuous improvement, short feedback loops and practices of flow have enabled software development teams to implement quality assurance and shorter time-to-market into their daily routines thus keeping focus to accelerating business value delivery.’

‘Is it possible to adopt any alternative ways of working?

Yes, we always welcome discussion of the optimum approach to specific projects. However, we have a great deal of experience with agile, so we will always advice our customers to consider this approach. Fixed-price and fixed-scope projects are no longer as common as they were ten years ago and nowadays the time frames are much shorter. However, even with fixed contracts, we will always try to apply agile best practices since an iterative approach incorporating interim results also works well in these types of projects.’

Challenging traditional approach

‘If a customer approaches us with this kind of fixed-price/fixed-scope project, we will definitely ask some challenging questions. Why does the customer favour this method? Is it simply their standard way of working or will a classic approach help to manage risks? If they have no experience, then they can rely on us to provide expert support or to guide them through a transformation.

In such cases, we usually start by determining the business outcomes that the customer wishes to achieve, such as a shorter time-to-market or greater innovative capability.

These desired outcomes often prompt discussion of the need for greater flexibility. The initial discussions often provide sufficient information to decide what the best approach will be.’

‘Sometimes we also witness an organizational fear of change. In some cases, customer companies insist they are already using an agile way of working when this is clearly not the case. If our analysis of the customer’s needs and requirements shows that their preferred approach is not compatible with our culture, then we will be honest with them and explain that their approach simply won’t allow our development teams to unlock their full potential.’

Preparing to transform

‘Even though we try to estimate a project as much as possible, you can never rule out every single risk. Risks stemming from people, organisational structures within departments, resistance to change etc. can cause the project to take longer than was initially forecasted. During the preparatory phase, we examine the maturity of the customer’s agile capabilities. Based on this, we clearly explain to the customer what they can learn, and we determine what we will have to invest in organising workshops, events and sometimes also meeting other Levi9 customers who have adopted agile practices.’

‘Customer that does not have any or has minimal experience with such an approach can rely on our support in implementing and maturing agility.

We’ve been leading or supporting many customers in their transition to the agile software development. Implementing agile practices is not a goal on its own. It is never about adopting some specific practices or culture. While those things are important, if you don’t achieve business outcomes, it is not worth the investment. A journey towards greater business agility starts by identifying what outcomes are most important to the company’s success.

This knowledge helps us lay a foundation for making decisions about how to tailor our approach and guide our transformation to measurably show progress towards our critical business goals (an early ROI, innovation, delivering right product, quality, shorter time to market or any other).

We advise our customer on the changes that would help them to achieve their business goals. Ultimately, we advise them how to establish and grow an approach that maximizes productivity and predictability of product development. A culture that complements lean and agile software development practices with the main goal to ensure fast and reliable delivery of useful software.’

The transition to agile way

‘The benefits of bringing together business and software developers at the earliest possible opportunity are not always clear from the start. Incision – a worldwide education and workflow-support platform for surgical teams – wanted to develop a new product based on cloud technology using benefits of an accelerated development. During our presentation on product discovery, it became clear there was a need and strong intention to move towards agile approach to product development. Our explanation also prompted questions such as why do developers want to contact sales staff directly and why are they asking for user feedback? We have also had a number of customers who have built strong agile capabilities, for example, our collaboration with Essent, in which we have been learning from each other for more than four years. With their approach to clearly defined b2b product vision, design process and bringing business and IT together at an early stage, and our experience with predictable software delivery, DevOps principles and architectural transformation, we have been managing to achieve business objectives and bring value. And we continuously improve together.’

‘The transition to agile is never simple, but the benefits are substantial. Agile demands openness and a clear answer to the question of “why are we developing this functionality or this product?”.

A key aspect of agile is to challenge everyone’s perception and perspective of the why factor.’