Execon One

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of the web development division for a telecommunications company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Execon?

We needed someone to develop our e-commerce website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Execon designed and developed our e-commerce site and did A/B testing. They created the whole visual interface, starting by making the MVP version. After they did the A/B testing, we changed the graphics and user design to get the final results. We did an A/B test for 50% of our traffic for a couple of months. Additionally, they did some content writing.

What is the team composition?

We had two testers, five UX designers, and five other people.

How did you come to work with Execon?

We evaluated different companies and chose Execon. We checked references; they were very known in the Polish market for A/B testing. Also, we’d worked with them on a prior project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from May–August 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Firstly, they created a dynamic product. We measure the conversion from the traffic to making sales. The second metric is the duration of the visit and how many products the visitor saw. We’ve had an increase in sales by 4% on the mobile version.

How did Execon perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management was good. We used Google Chat to communicate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were outstandingly experienced with A/B testing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At the beginning of the project, we could’ve made some decisions quicker.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Use internal tools for communication rather than having to gain access to your provider.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

The company is a leader on the telecommunications market in Poland. My position: Head of Web Development Division.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Execon, and what were your goals?

Front-end development, Project Management, UX Designers, Web analysis

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Selection by verification of the entire IT market in Poland. Deciding factors: time to market and costs.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Replacing the monolithic systems responsible for online sales (ecommerce) for several markets by building micro-services systems in cloud-native environment. Including building devops environments, CI / CD processes, performance and functional tests and optimization of the solution in terms of cache and performance on production.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Around 20 people, from developers, testers to project managers, UX and UI designers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Significant increase in platform stability, adaptation to the latest performance and security requirements, speed of loading system components for the end customer.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

The work system was unified, the supplier adapted to the tools and work style prevailing in the internal team, thanks to which we had common measures of work on the project and we used the current work flow.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

We were impressed with the speed of their delivery.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

A minor thing to improve: unifying the licensing software available on consultants computers. However, in the event of problems, problems were solved immediately

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

AVON Cosmetics Polska is part of the global NATURA & CO group and a leading cosmetic brand on the Polish market. My position is Field Digital Experience in the Sales Department

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Execon, and what were your goals?

A team of Execon One specialists has been supporting us since 2018 in various projects in the field of business consulting, UX / UI design and the implementation of various e-commerce optimizations.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Execon One is our proven, reliable supplier. During our cooperation, they showed that we can count on high-quality work and a lot of interesting ideas helping to develop our online business.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The aim of the project was to introduce a new service to the AVON offer - the possibility of online ordering perfumes with personalized engraving. Poland was the first AVON market that decided to implement such a solution, so it had to be planned from the scratch.

We invited Execon One specialists to cooperate with us at the stage of creating requirements for the front-end part of the project. Execon analysts conducted a series of workshops with the AVON team, which resulted in the preparation of a functional specification with over 300 very detailed requirements.

Then, UX / UI designers from Execon One developed mockups and graphic designs for the flow of ordering engraved products for our three online sales systems.

In the next step, the supplier's team of front-end developers implemented all elements of the agreed process, using the capabilities of the Abee Cloud platform provided by Execon One. At each stage of implementation and after implementation, the correctness of the solution's performance was verified by the software tester also from the supplier's team.

An experienced project manager from Execon One was responsible for coordinating the work of the supplier and AVON teams and for efficient communication among them. After 3 months of intensive joint work of our teams, the service of ordering individual engraving was implemented on the planned date.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

The supplier's team consisted of:

• 1 Project Manager
• 1 Business Analyst
• 1 IT Architect
• 2 UX / UI Designers
• 3 Front-End Developers
• 1 Software Tester

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We are proud to be the first AVON market in the world to introduce a perfume personalization service to its offer. Our clients and our consultants are very happy to order engraved products for themselves and as gifts for their loved ones.

At the beginning, we started with one product, and in the following months we expanded our offer to over a dozen fragrances and even cosmetic sets. Today, the online engraving service is important part of the AVON Polska offer allowing us to attract new customers.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We worked with the Execon One team in an agile model, gradually developing the elements of the solution in subsequent workshops, verifying the status of work in daily meetings, addressing all threads as tasks in Jira and incrementally creating technical documentation in Confluence. I appreciate the ability of Execon One specialists to work in agile project management methodologies. I find this cooperation extremely effective.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The Execon One team works with exceptional commitment. I have the impression that they feel good in difficult situations, when you need to deliver a complex solution in a very short time, analyzing a lot of dependencies along the way, eliminating subsequent pitfalls.

And they understand well the conditions of working with large corporate clients. They are patient and assertive at the same time, sometimes even demanding the necessary decisions to keep the project moving forward.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

On behalf of the project team, I can say that we were fully satisfied with the cooperation with Execon specialists.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

BNP Paribas Faktoring is a company based in Poland, with its head office in Warsaw. Its principal business is factoring payment receivables from its clients that need to improve the timeliness of repayments from their debtors. I am the IT Project Manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Execon, and what were your goals?

We wanted to improve, automate and monitor the credit process in the company.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We chose Execon because we were satisfied with the delivery of the two previous projects and as such we had a built a trusting relationship.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The Workflow project is one of the largest projects in the area of process automation at BNP Faktoring. It covers the credit process leading to the credit decision for our clients. Work on the project began with familiarizing the vendor with the business processes.

Based on the data analysis, the MVP was defined, i.e. the process for new customers and the most common product. In the first iteration, a dashboard was made that aggregates tasks and information. Then, work began on creating a customer search engine.

These two features were the scope of the first development stage. The next stages consisted of creating forms for sales employees, necessary to obtain data about the client. During the works, integration with external systems was performed, which automated some activities in the process.

Subsequent stages assumed the performance of further procedural steps, ending with a credit decision. Each of these stages was accompanied by mailing to the users involved in the process. The functionality for automatic document generation was also delivered. This completed the first phase of the project.

The next step was to expand the product range and provide the possibility to apply for more than one product at the same time. The next update was based on adding more factoring processes, such as reviewing the existing contract, changing the terms of the contract and increasing the limits for existing factoring customers.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

1 pm

1 analyst

1 tester

4 developers View / Bonita soft, Java

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The system enables the processing of factoring applications which supports the key business process on our client's side and includes a number of integrations with external systems.

Users have the opportunity to prepare a complete application based on data obtained from clients (entering data, importing contracts, attaching documents) and carrying out a risk assessment.

At the end of the process, a factoring decision is generated, in accordance with the defined template of the decision document. The big advantage is the in-built logic that verifies the compliance of the application with the internal credit policy of BNP.

The digitization of the process allowed BNP's employees to move away from many complicated Excel and word formats and transfer their work to a coherent system where they can place all customer data.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We participated in scrum events. The communication was really good, and their responses were always quick. The team was focused on our needs.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The vendors communication with us throughout the project.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Despite the different communication platforms, the information flow was smooth.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

The HES-NG system from Execon will enable us to meet the regulations on the power market, but it will also allow us to offer our solution to other entities involved in the acquisition of measurement data, as well as to use the system for the mass implementation of smart meters, thanks to its open and flexible architecture. E.ON is one of the leading electricity suppliers in Poland. Its domain is the electricity trading market. The E.ON Group serves approximately 53 million customers in 15 European markets. It employs a total of over 78 thousands people, including 3500 in companies belonging to the group in Poland.

It is one of the largest European and world energy groups. Stoen Operator is one of the largest companies belonging to the E.ON Group in Poland. It provides energy to over a million customers in Warsaw and the surrounding areas. Thanks to a high-class service, significant investments, as well as modern environmentally friendly technologies, it maintains the highest standards of network operation. E.ON in Poland is part of the international E.ON Group, a leading international energy concern. It is one of the largest European and world energy groups.

As a Group, it serves approximately 53 million customers on 15 markets in Europe. It also employs a total of over 78,000 people, including 3,500 in companies located in Poland. I am a communication specialist in E.ON Group.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Execon?

Due to the obligation imposed by the EU and the change of law in Poland on distribution system operators (DSO’s) of new obligations related to the installation of smart meters, it was necessary to implement the HES remote reading system. In the case of E.ON, it was about the necessity to start remote acquisition for meters of the tariff group C1x, C2x, BXX, AXX, which require a change in the architecture of systems for remote reading of smart meters.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We picked Execon by a tender procedure. Execon turned out to be the best fit for our needs among other companies.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

In years 2019 – 2021 Stoen Operator has faced a major challenge posed by new judicial regulations and operational complexity in the area of advanced metering infrastructure. Multitude of vendors, devices and IT solutions appeared to be a key barrier to efficiently satisfy legislative requirements concerning installation and utilization of smart meters. Stoen Operator decided to develop its own IT solution which will accommodate the complexities resulting from technological diversity of its metering infrastructure.

Company’s goal was not only to meet new law, but also drive business performance by taking operational efficiency to a whole new level. Introducing HES-NG required bringing into life an interdisciplinary team of 30 business and IT specialists from Stoen AMI team and Execon. Competences required to deliver the solution involved AMI expertise, IT architecture, business analysis, software engineering, development operations engineering, quality assurance, UX design and project management.

The initial version of HES-NG was working with two types of smart metering devices and was able to read 10’000 meters in less than 10 minutes. The solution gained all fundamental capabilities related to meter reading, configuring and monitoring and went live in Q4 of year 2020. In order to increase utilization of the system, additional three models of smart meters were introduced to HES-NG in Q1 of year 2021. Based on previous experiences and gained knowledge, Stoen Operator and Execon specialists developed a universal meter reading component, which is able to work with any kind of smart metering device with no need to conduct any further software development works and system redeployment.

This enhancement let the system administrator introduce to HES-NG four more meter types only through brief parametrizations. Current system development involves incorporation of entirely new type of device – data concentrator – which will allow HES-NG to acquire data for hundreds of smart meters in a single connection with the appliance. This development makes a significant step towards meeting regulatory requirements in year 2028, when Stoen Operator’s infrastructure will have to consist of smart meters in at least 80%.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

• Project management: 2 people
• System architecture: 2 people
• Business analysis: 1 person
• UX design: 2 people
• Backend development: 6 people
• Frontend development: 3 people
• User Acceptance Tests: 1 person

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The current power of the system is evidenced by the fact that its configuration based on 1,200 threads ensures the implementation of acquisition tasks for an exemplary number of approx. 11,000 meters within 10 minutes. The system at the same time, manages a database with approx. 350-380 thousands of documents with profile, temporary and event data. The system is ready to support up to 10 million AMI devices, communicate with MDM and Assets Management systems.

In the future, the system will be further developed by integrating more types of devices, redirecting the burden of data acquisition from currently used solutions towards HES-NG, and further optimization and automation of internal processes. The data hub will also be developed to provide the results with an even greater level of performance and scalability.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We are very satisfied with the project management and timeliness. The exchange of information during all phases of the project was smooth and flexible. Execon showed great proactivity and professional approach in line with the best practices.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Innovative and progressive approach to software implementation. Initial architecture suggested by the client was creatively developed by Execon, according to modern and most suitable software architecture design principles. Furthermore, Execon provided other technical recommendations which ensured system flexibility, scalability and openness. The most impressive about Execon is their innovative approach to meet the requirements. We suggested the architecture initialy. Execon developed it creatively (microservices). Execon, according to modern and most suitable software architecture design principles suggested a database technology different from the planned one (Oracle replaced with MongoDB), which incremently increased the flexibility of the solution.

What distinguishes Execon in are certainly extensive expert and analytical competences. Acting in a professional and creative manner, Execon provided an innovative solution whose attributes include the source code, which allows for independent modification and introduction of changes with internal IT resources. The system can also be expanded with new integrations with E.ON systems. The biggest advantage of HES-NG from the customer's point of view is its open and flexible architecture designed by Execon. As a result, it can be adapted to current needs and supplemented with specific functionalities. The platform also offers an automated data acquisition process.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We are happy about the whole proccess. We can recommend Execon as a proven, reliable and professional supplier of software and consulting services