Alexela's Latvian gas sales platform
Key Objectives
- —To quickly create a fully functional sales platform for Alexela that meets the Latvian market’s needs and requirements and supports the company’s sales growth.
- —Provide flexible and efficient solutions for invoicing and contract management, also data exchange with local system operators.
- —The platform must allow easy and cost-efficient execution of necessary transactions.
Uptime's Solution
- —Uptime took the Estonian gas sales solution as a starting point and quickly adapted it to the specific requirements of the Latvian market, providing a fully functional sales platform in just three months.
- —Uptime created a self-service portal and mobile app, Mana Alexela, which enables customers to manage contracts, view invoices, and make payments.
- —They integrated the local system operator, GASO, through a universal middleware layer to ensure a seamless data exchange.
A working solution in just three months: Uptime helped Alexela implement a sales platform in Latvia
According to Raimo Seero, Uptime’s CTO, the primary challenge was to launch the new platform swiftly. During the development phase, Alexela continued using an outdated system that hindered expansion and lacked the necessary flexibility for effective contract and billing management. Given Uptime’s prior experience with Alexela’s Estonian platform, the team opted to adapt and enhance the existing solution for the Latvian market. “When time is of the essence, reinventing the wheel isn’t necessary. The best approach is to leverage existing technologies and models,” said Seero.
The core principles of gas sales in Estonia and Latvia are similar; however, differences in IT infrastructure, interfaces, taxes, and invoicing must be addressed. Consumption data management also differed, necessitating adjustments to the platform. Uptime also had to take into account the fact that consumption data reaches from the balance sheet administrator to the seller in a different way than in Estonia. “The business model is the same, but the data is in different formats and comes at different times,” Seero explained.
The result of the efficient work was that in just three months a fully functional Alexela gas sale platform for Latvian market was ready, which included:
- An administrative environment where Alexela can manage the accounts of private and business customers.
- A self-service portal and a mobile app, Mana Alexela, which enables users to manage their contracts, view invoices and make payments.
- System-to-system interfaces with the system operator GASO services to ensure a fast and secure data exchange.
The Alexela platform is based on .NET, React, and PHP. “We used a flexible approach to choose the solution that best suited the task at hand and was the most convenient and fastest way to complete it,” said Seero, CTO at Uptime. “Essentially, we were able to combine the strengths of different technologies and adapt them to achieve the highest possible quality result.”
The company’s future needs were also taken into account when creating the sales systems: Uptime built a universal middle layer on the platform capable of processing data from Latvia, Estonia, and, in the future, other countries if required. This means that in the future if Alexela needs to make changes to the software, it can be done easily and cost-effectively.
Long-standing experience in the energy sector
Seero stressed that for such projects, it is essential that, in addition to rapid analysis, small software solutions are developed as quickly as possible, which test integrations and business logic. “The additional information provided by these tests will, in turn, allow quick decisions to be made and necessary changes to be implemented,” he said.
Nor can we overlook the fact that time-critical projects need a partner who already has knowledge and experience in the sector. “With Alexela, we have the expertise and experience to make the right decisions. We have been working with Alexela on energy issues in Estonia for decades. This means we know how to talk to the client about what needs to be done and what needs to change without the client having to explain the background at length,” said Seero.
“I believe that is why we were chosen to lead this project – we are easy to do business with, and we can deliver what our long-term partners need,” he added.
Seero also praised the Uptime team for their selfless work over several months. “The biggest challenge was the time, and the fact that we didn’t know in advance what changes would be needed to the Estonian platform to adapt for Latvian sales. We solved this challenge with a superhuman team effort. From the very beginning, the team took a “let’s do it” mindset,” he described.
He also thanked Alexela for being very cooperative and quick to make decisions, which helped to make the project a success. “I believe that Uptime has demonstrated its ability to provide practical solutions for developing energy sales portals, delivering quick results,” he concluded.
