ConnectNed's journey
ConnectNed is a network of electrotechnical partners with national coverage and a strong local presence in the Netherlands. ConnectNed advises and installs charging solutions for electric transportation, including integration with the generation and storage of energy. They run operations, maintenance and energy billing on all chargers for their customers.
ConnectNed offers different subscription models, ranging from operating chargers to full roaming, enabling the EV driver to charge via a charge card or the ConnectNed app.
In 2020 the cooperation ElektroNed decided to step into the world of electric charging. The connected installers got more and more questions from their customer for help with the energy transition of their company and specifically about electrifying their fleet. The new cooperation ConnectNed was born.
ConnectNed offers solutions for home charging, destination charging and public charging. ConnectNed positioned itself as a Charge Point Operator (CPO): All ConnectNed installers are trained, a webshop is created, and an independent service organization has been set up. With the 24/7 Helpdesk and reliable roaming network, the customer is reassured that EV drivers can charge with ConnectNed charge cards and charge cards of other providers.
To enable these services, ConnectNed did profound market research on CPO software, including some piloting and decided to choose the EVEsto CPO platform.
Bram Pollmann, Co-founder and Business manager of ConnectNed explains, “There are a lot of providers available on the market. We looked at most of them, checking our important knockout criteria. We rated the competitors, and Longship was the scalable and economical solution containing all our needed functionality. The reliability of the platform and the open structure helps us to connect our other enterprise systems”.
Journey
Using the CPO onboarding functions of Longship, the first chargers were up and running within 24 hours, so ConnectNed was ready to start immediately.
The easy integration of Longship with the 24/7 EV-driver helpdesk service platform of EVA.global provides all helpdesk agents with the right information regarding the chargers and the ability to support them immediately.
ConnectNed is integrated with the leading roaming platforms Hubject, E-clearing and Gireve. The Longship platform has native support for all these platforms, saving time and money on onboarding.
Bram Pollmann explains, “The next step was adding Peer-to-Peer connections with the Mobility Services Providers (MSP/EMP), a 15 min fully automated job. My experience on other platforms is always a hassle. On the Longship platform, it was a breeze, and it took just a few clicks to create the connection. If needed, support was always available on short notice.”
Longship offers an API that enables ConnectNed to integrate their AFAS back-office system with Longship to support their invoicing process and create multiple entities directly from the AFAS backend.
Today
ConnectNed offers their customers a ‘one-stop shop’ experience: the best suitable charging solution, future-proof installation, maximized availability of the charger and energy billing. The ConnectNed installer network has national coverage with the personal touch of a local operation.
Because of the scalable setup of Longship, the costs of their services are well managed, and they grow with the rising number of chargers.
“Longship is built on top of the Microsoft Azure platform and is designed for scalability and cost efficiency. We are dedicated to facilitating ConnectNed’s growth in the future and continue to partner with them.”, says Sebastiaan Groeneveld, CEO of Longship.
Challenge
| Challenge | Select and run a CPO platform:
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| Result |
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| Longship added value |
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