Pedro Rosa

pmro

Content & Digital Communication Technician

A new era starts now: the new Xpand IT office

The year 2023 has marked the beginning of new chapters in Xpand IT’s history. After presenting a new corporate identity to the market in June, which included updating our logo, visual materials and reinforcing our strategic positioning, the time has come to move to a new home.

Over the course of our 20 years of existence, we have always focussed on excellence, people, integrity and collaboration, and the new space mirrors our ethos.

Located in Parque das Nações, in the AGEAS Tejo building, this office has more than 1800 square metres, 14 meeting rooms, 7 „phone booths“, an auditorium equipped with the latest audiovisual technology and ready to host talks, events and conferences, as well as a terrace with a vertical garden. Our goal is to continue to promote innovation, strengthen links and boost synergies in a space that is fully adapted to our vision of an even more technological future.

Lisbon Auditorium

The Lisboa auditorium is the heart of the new office. With a multi-purpose platform that can be adjusted to the needs of each event, the space is equipped with a LED wall and several screens that deliver the best audiovisual quality to the audience. The sound system is also another differentiating factor of this space. Several speakers can be found throughout the auditorium, built, and positioned so that the acoustics are as refined as possible.

Meeting rooms and phone booths

In addition to the more than 90 workspaces across the 1800 square metres of floor space, the Xpand IT office is built and designed for collaboration between all the teams. There are 14 meeting rooms, fully equipped and integrated with Teams, making it as easy as possible for teams to share information and hold meetings. The 7 phone booths, on the other hand, are designed for moments that require more concentration or meetings that need greater focus. All these spaces are equipped with technology that allows for complete soundproofing so that the comfort of every meeting moment is optimised.

Outdoor terrace

In addition to the highly collaborative spaces, we can also find an outdoor space with a vertical garden and a bar ready to welcome all employees looking for a moment to relax and socialise. This space is set up with several tables and counters to prioritize comfort.

The AGEAS Tejo Building

Xpand IT’s new office is located in the AGEAS Portugal Group’s new building, which is equipped and adapted to current and future working circumstances, and focused on environmental concerns, sustainability, and social responsibility. Inaugurated in May 2022, the building has 12 floors in its more than 17,400 square metres and has already won the „Best Development of the Year“ award for 2022, the most prestigious award in real estate in Portugal. Another of this building’s distinctions is its sustainability, with an increasingly green future in mind. It was while it was still under construction in 2021 that the project was honoured with the „Sustainable Construction and Energy Efficiency“ award, one of the categories of the SIL – Salão Imobiliário de Portugal Awards.

Another feature that marks this space out is the social aspect, as the building has partnerships with two leading social inclusion organisations in the food sector: CRESCER – Associação de Intervenção Comunitária (Community Intervention Association) and Café Joyeux, which employ people with special and developmental needs. These two spaces, as well as a fully equipped cafeteria, are available to Xpand IT employees.

The outdoor space is also fully accessible to our employees for socialising, as is the building’s community garden, where all Xpanders can participate in its development.

Finally, the building also has other facilities, such as indoor parking for both cars and bicycles, changing rooms and other spaces to ensure the well-being of all our employees.

Some information about the new Xpand IT office:

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This Lisbon office is another step towards Xpand IT’s affirmation as a technology company of national and global reference, with a new, highly technological space that fosters collaboration, excellence and organisational culture among our employees, clients and partners.
The new space is located in a place of reference for innovation and marks the renewal of a long history that began 20 years ago and has been the result of the dedication, trust, and expertise of all our teams. We are ready for the future.

Paulo Lopes. CEO da Xpand IT
Pedro RosaA new era starts now: the new Xpand IT office
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Xpand IT is the ‚Partner of the Year Portugal‘ for Microsoft

Xpand IT won the ‚Microsoft’s Partner of the Year Portugal‘ award for the second year in a row. The announcement was made at the Microsoft Inspire event – an event that promotes the partner community’s connection and recognises companies that, in different countries, developed exceptional solutions based on Microsoft products during the previous year. The distinctions were divided into several categories, and those honoured were chosen from a pool of more than 3,900 nominations submitted in more than 100 countries.

The Partner of the Year Microsoft award symbolises a unique moment in Portugal, as it is the first time a company has won this award at a national level for two years consecutively. 

This recognition results from the commitment and work developed between Microsoft and all our business units. It also confirms our expertise and our vision of changing the world through technology.

But there’s more!

Xpand IT won 3 more categories. In addition to the ‚Partner of The Year Portugal‘ award:

  • Digital and App Innovation Partner of the Year;
  • Analytics Partner of the Year;
  • Corporate Partner of the Year.

Image: Ricardo Pires and Sérgio Viana, Partners at Xpand IT, receive the Partner of the Year Portugal award.

In an official statement, Abel Aguiar, Executive Director for Channel and Partners at Microsoft Portugal, says that „it is an honour to hold yet another edition of what is the largest global partner event“. Plus, Abel Aguiar said that „in addition to honouring our entire ecosystem of Microsoft Partners in Portugal, who help us deliver value and solutions to customers daily, a special thanks goes to Xpand IT. This recognition, and this being the first time that we have awarded the Partner of the Year award to a company for two consecutive years, is a way of praising the fact that, through our technology, they have implemented excellent and truly innovative services in the market“.

Sérgio Viana, Partner & Digital Xperience and User Experience Lead at Xpand IT, said, „we are very proud of this recognition from Microsoft Portugal, with whom we have worked for several years, in different aspects“. „We believe the relationship we have been building with Microsoft Portugal is based on trust. The teamwork we have been developing across very different areas has allowed us to achieve better results, leading us to face future challenges even more enthusiastically“, he added.

See the Microsoft Partner of the Year Portugal 2022 announcement video:

Pedro RosaXpand IT is the ‚Partner of the Year Portugal‘ for Microsoft
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The best Big Data events in 2022

5 SECONDS SUMMARY:
  • The world of Big Data continues its journey in the year 2022;
  • This article presents the best events for this year (you won’t want to miss them!).

After uncertain times and intense digital acceleration in the last two years, companies are now being challenged to respond in an increasingly powerful way to their customers, partners and employees Companies can support their decision-making with data, thus fostering productivity, efficiency, and even costs. This topic deserves the best attention from your company: data can become a powerful ally for your business, and we can help you! In the meantime, and if the data world is already part of your day-to-day, this article may interest you.

Here are our suggestions for the best Big Data events in 2022:

big data world 2021

Big Data & AI World 2022 | London, England

02 – 03 March 2022 | Get me there »

Considered one of the most important technology events in the UK, Big Data & AI World will occur at the Tech Show London at ExCeL London in March. The event will host hundreds of speakers, one-to-one debates, and more this year. Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence, Data Management and Integration, Data Protection and Privacy are the hot topics in this year’s edition.


bda europe 2021

BDA Europe, Big Data Analytics 2022 | Amsterdam, Netherlands

10 March 2022 | Get me there »

This event is one of the leading events on Big Data in Europe. This year, the event will return to its original format, with the city of Amsterdam hosting companies specializing in Big Data and Advanced Analytics solutions. The day will be full of talks about the new trends, innovative projects, new technologies and best practices for the Big Data world.


kafka summit europe 2021

Kafka Summit 2022 | London, England

25 – 26 April 2022 | Get me there »

Kafka Summit is the ideal event for Developers, Operators or Data Scientists. The Apache Kafka community meets at the end of April to disseminate best practices and share new trends and opportunities in streaming technologies. You can also expand your contact list by networking with companies like Microsoft, Cloudera, or Google, as this event returns to the face-to-face format (at least for now!).


kafka summit europe 2021

J on the Beach | Malaga, Spain

27 – 29 April 2022 | Get me there »

Without a doubt, this is the event with the most original name: „J on the Beach“ is an international conference for Developers and DevOps who, over two days, will talk about the world of Big Data at the… beach! Yes, that’s right! The coastal area of ​​Malaga will host several talks and technical workshops with internationally recognised speakers. In addition to these moments of sharing, you can also participate in a Hackathon! Prepare your cocktail and enjoy the event!


idc data monetization management

Data Innovation Summit 2022 | Stockholm, Sweden

05 – 06 May 2022 | Get me there »

Sweden’s capital will host the seventh edition of the „Data Innovation Summit“, with a hybrid format this year. With more than nine stages and 200 speakers, this is the perfect event to learn about technologies and innovation in northern European countries. Top companies such as Spotify, NASA, META AI, Bayer, Shell and EA will be present in early May in Kistamässan, Stockholm.


idc data monetization management

IDC Data Monetization & Management | Lisbon, Portugal

18 May 2022 | Get me there »

IDC Portugal presents a new edition of the IDC Data Monetization & Management. The event will take place in Lisbon and will feature numerous speakers from prestigious organisations in the data market. And the best news? We will be there! Join us!


data ai summit europe 2021

Data + AI Summit 2022 | San Francisco, USA and Online

27 – 30 June 2022  | Get me there »

From June 27th to June 30th, San Francisco will host, in a hybrid format, a four-day event dedicated to the world of data with speakers from various industries, technical sessions, hands-on workshops and unique networking opportunities with professionals from all over the world.

As Databricks partners, we will certainly be keeping our eyes on this event.


idc data monetization management

AI & Big Data Expo 2022 | London, England

01 – 02 December 2022 | Get me there »

The year ends with an event about the next generation of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data technologies. London invites you to explore, together with experts in the fields, the trends, opportunities and challenges of AI and Big Data strategies to boost your business in 2023. In addition, the event will take place in a hybrid format, so you won’t need to leave your house to attend all the talks, workshops and conferences!


Final Notes

We believe the Big Data challenge is the ability to manage large volumes of data generated at high speeds, either by deriving valuable insights or simply by ensuring data gets where it needs to.

Our secret is a multi-disciplinary team with top of the line skills in leveraging distributed data processing technologies, mixed with an agile and interactive approach and a set of power technology partners like Cloudera, DataBricks and Confluent.

Are you looking for experts in Big Data? We have a data-driven team for hire! Feel free to contact us: [email protected].

Pedro RosaThe best Big Data events in 2022
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6 best Big Data events in 2021

Big Data universe is ready to follow the digital transformation trends that the past year has forced to accelerate. With new challenges happening in people and companies‘ daily lives, consumers habits are changing. In this new era of organization and event management, the conference centres are (even more) present online, appealing to proximity and expanding the range of opportunities to share and acquire knowledge. Reflection and discussion will continue to happen in Big Data with several events available to all, and just a click away. Here are Xpand IT’s suggestions with some of the Big Data events in 2021 you won’t want to miss this year.

Big Data events in 2021:

data ai summit europe 2021

Data + AI Summit Europe 2021

17 – 19 November 2021 | Get me there »

Formerly known as the “Spark + AI Summit”, Databricks presents the Data + AI Summit Europe 2021 to the online world. Apache Spark’s success accelerated data teams‘ evolution. This event promises to bring together thousands of professional teams in the field, students, leaders, entrepreneurs and the creators of Spark, Delta Lake, MLFlow and Koalas.


kafka summit europe 2021

Kafka Summit: Europe 2021

11 & 12 May 2021 | Get me there »

This is an ideal event for developers, operators and data scientists. The Kafka Summit is a reference event for streaming technology. There will be plenty of opportunities for learning from professionals and networking. Joining a community dedicated to the Apache Kafka platform could be on your to-do list this New Year.


bda europe 2021

BDA Europe 2021

09 March | Get me there »

This event aims to be a showcase of the best technologies to be used in Big Data systems. The importance of databases in the business world or innovation through digital disruption will be the main focus of the event that will feature companies specializing in Big Data and Advanced Analytics solutions, capable of providing the best advice for what you are looking for your organization.


big data world 2021

Big Data World 2021 | Londres

07 & 08 July 2021 | Get me there »

This is the event where data management and integration will be the main topic. From machine learning to Artificial Intelligence, Big Data & AI World is the leading event that focuses on real company problems.  Hours of knowledge share from multiple speakers and one-on-one discussions with leading experts and companies in the field are guaranteed.

The event will take place in London, on the 7th and 8th of July, depending on how the current pandemic situation unfolds.


data fest 2021

Data Fest 2021

Data Fest 2021 definitely lives up to its name; it’s just like a festival! But instead of musical artists, it puts the most competent IT specialists, students of computer engineering and professionals in the field on the stage. Over the last three years, the concept has gone through 3 „stages“: Data Summit, Data Talent and Data Tech. This year’s idea is the same, but the Scottish cities that hosted this event will be replaced with an online offering, allowing people to participate anywhere in the world!


idc data monetization & management

IDC Data Monetization & Management

11 & 12 May 2021 | Website not available yet

IDC is hosting an event on data management and monitoring, in partnership with NOVA IMS University. More information coming up.


We believe the Big Data challenge is the ability to manage large volumes of data, generated at high speeds, either by deriving valuable insights or simply by making sure data gets where it needs to.

Our secret is a multi-disciplinary team with top of the line skills in leveraging distributed data processing technologies, mixed with an agile and interactive approach and a set of power technology partners like Cloudera e Confluent.

Looking for experts in Big Data in London, UK? We have a data-driven team for hire!

Pedro Rosa6 best Big Data events in 2021
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Managing Marketing teams with Atlassian tools

Organising work is a daily topic for all companies. Who delegates what? How is that project that can’t really fail going? How do we evaluate the team’s workload?

All of these are legitimate questions, which is why we will help you take advantage of Atlassian tools to enhance your team and organisation. We will also present a use case, using the Xpand IT Marketing team as an example, so that you can better understand the true potential of these tools in teams outside the scope of software development.

Confluence

Let’s start with Confluence. Regardless of the organisation’s area of activity this knowledge management and sharing platform allow teams to display projects in which they are involved, and share results, initiatives and even personal content that may be useful to the organisation.

Thanks to its structure we can almost call it an internal social network which allows information flows to run effectively, allowing all the people involved in the company to stay up to date on each other’s daily work.

Let’s look at the case of the Xpand IT marketing team. With access to Confluence, it is possible to get visibility over all the marketing initiatives (and not just marketing!) taking place in our company. Easy access to information makes all our employees feel involved about the same projects, increasing and fostering a teamwork culture. With Confluence, everyone has a voice and can share and give feedback.

For example, we can see the impact of Confluence in an interaction between the Marketing team and the Sales team. Even working on different levels, the platform allows both teams to give their inputs in support of Xpand IT’s participation in an external event.

Through the quick and easy editing of the event-dedicated page, it is possible to increase the agility of the entire organisational process and simplify bureaucratic work that could easily become time-consuming carried out over the usual email exchange.

This is just an example of the benefits that Confluence software can bring to your team. It is also important to understand that the platform requires some attention from your team because it can be easily forgotten and get out of date. In another article, we explore the 10 reasons to update your version of Confluence and make sure that everyone contributes to your team’s success.

Through Confluence it is also possible to create meeting notes, project plans and service specifications, among others. You can learn more about Confluence here.

Jira Software

The name may seem complex, but any issues ends there. This work management platform allows your teams to view all tasks to the current work period in a practical and intuitive way.

There are 4 phases linked to this platform’s success and which have a positive impact on teamwork:

Plan: task distribution across the team;

Track: task prioritisation and monitoring the success of each project where your team is involved;

Release: execution time of various tasks. Throughout the work period, every team member can change their status to bring the rest of the team up to date;

Report: at the end of each work period, it is possible to prepare a report that identifies where your team has been successful and the improvement points.

It’s based on these four phases that we can give you another example from the Xpand IT Marketing. Within a team there may be several work methodologies to be adopted (in this article you can read about 5 agile methodologies). For this case, we will explore the SCRUM method. This working method is characterised by cycles or stages of development, defined as sprints, and by the maximisation of time development for a series of tasks.

There should mainly be daily meetings of 15 minutes, the daily scrum, which act to synchronise activities and as a way to plan the working day. With 15-day work periods, called ’sprints‘, the team start their work cycle with a meeting where each team member uploads their tasks to the platform and assigns several metrics to them: story points (from 1 to 8), which help to understand the degree of difficulty of each task; hours, providing a more reliable count of the time to be spent on each task; priority, allowing the entire team to perceive the urgency of each project; and assignee, the person responsible for fulfilling it. It is also possible to create several labels using tags that allow a better visualisation of where the team spent their time, in the final report for each sprint.

Then, the SCRUM Master – the person responsible for the team – starts the sprint.

At the end of the sprint, the team meets again for another briefing to learn about areas for improvement in their working methods and task difficulties, amongst other things.

team management

Let’s take a look the following example:

In this case, an issue was created in Jira Software for creating this blog post. It was assigned estimated story points and the number of hours in which to write this article and given a priority.

As you can see in this image, a total of 12 hours were allocated for the development of this content (1 day and 4 hours). The difficulty was maximum (remember, the scale is from 1 to 8), and 3 tags were created: Blog because it is an article for our blog; CS, because it is our business area associated with the technologies referred to; and Atlassian, because it is the theme that this use case portrays.

After uploading, this task will be displayed in the “To do” column and will then change status, depending on the progress of the task. In this case, if you are reading this article, the task is now in “Done”, but before this, it went through “In progress” as it was being developed.

With this, as a team, we are able to understand the workload necessary for each project and consequently optimise the work and the effectiveness of the human resources allocated.

Jira Service Desk

team management

This service order management platform is the ideal solution for resolving issues that can arise in your daily work. The resolution’s team mission is to respond to a request with the best and highest level of quality support while simultaneously being able to optimise the management process of their own timelines.

The process of opening a support ticket / request is quite simple. Let’s see a case from our marketing and design teams where a ticket has been opened to produce communication pieces for this blog post. On the Jira Service Desk platform, you can select a category for your order. In this case, we will open a ticket as a “Design Request”.

Next, we give the most accurate briefing possible so that the order has the highest possible success rate. Then you can allocate the ticket to the project (for budget or workload management issues), and select one or more approvers. Finally, you must select the ticket deadline and even attach reference files.

Final Thoughts

In this content we explained in a simple way the two tools that our marketing team use on a daily basis. However, Atlassian tools do not stop there. From Jira Service Desk to Bitbucket, the solutions that improve collaboration between teams are endless.

Since Xpand IT is a global company acting as the only Atlassian Platinum Solution Partner in Portugal, develops top services and products in the IT area to reach the ALM and SDLC.

Our knowhow, combined with our experience in Atlassian technology, allows us to give various specialised consulting services according to client needs, including installation, customisation, app development and monitoring, and support services for the entire range of products. Find out everything here. Our team of experts will help you.

Pedro RosaManaging Marketing teams with Atlassian tools
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Guide to a successful Marketing Automation strategy (with Salesforce and Pardot)

The question may be simple, but creating an effective Marketing Automation strategy is not always easy. To get answers, and to understand how to create a successful Marketing Automation strategy with Salesforce and Pardot, let’s look at it separately. First, what is Marketing Automation all about?

As its name implies, Marketing Automation refers to the use of software to automate marketing processes. We often focus the efforts of marketing teams on email campaigns, social networking and ad campaign management. The idea behind this is right. These activities allow companies to deliver a more personalised service and experience to their customers. However, the process can be somewhat complex and time consuming, sidelining team efforts into operational rather than strategic work. Fortunately, there are plenty of tools to help us to reduce the time spent on all the fundamental marketing activities at the same time as increasing the effectiveness of your campaigns.

In this paper we will explore two tools that can help our organisational structure and implement Marketing Automation campaigns.

Marketing Automation strategy with Salesforce

First, Salesforce. This is the most widely used CRM application in the world, delivering solutions that help companies and their customers to be completely connected, within a 360º vision.

The tool provides a wide variety of solutions, allowing the platform to be adapted to each of the companies, in order to implement their unique processes and simplify the daily lives of marketers and commercials. (Something we addressed in this content).

Salesforce builds a database of customer records, with all their contacts, and stores the information on the leads generated. After being nurtured and qualified in Pardot, the leads transfer back to Salesforce, in order to generate real business opportunities, giving the sales team a good working base to convert into sales.

Currently, the platform has over 10 million users worldwide.

B2B communication tool: Pardot

Pardot is a B2B marketing communication tool and part of the Salesforce CRM universe. It is an intuitive marketing automation platform that offers the ability to create, implement and manage segmented campaigns, where leads and Salesforce contacts (Prospects in the Pardot namesake) are distributed by several personas, in order to make the Prospects experience unique and differentiated. The reason we say unique and differentiated is because we can make campaigns ever more targeted using data feedback. That’s right, targeted at specific people!

Pardot is particularly useful in email marketing campaigns, offering the possibility to link directly to landing pages created in the tool itself – fast development even without technical knowhow, and with the choice of using or not using a form – or in social campaigns, where it is possible to validate how Prospects have been interacting with company activity on social networks, as well as making publications on several platforms at once, encouraging an increase in the quantity and quality of leads that will later fill through to the sales teams.

So we set out to answer our initial question: how do we create a successful Marketing Automation campaign using Salesforce and Pardot?

There are 4 main characteristics that enhance the strength of campaigns and are associated with both Pardot and Salesforce:

  1. Effective email marketing
  2. Lead generation
  3. Lead management
  4. Reports

1 – Effective email marketing: The most attractive email campaigns are those that are highly targeted to our target audience and get the message across in the best way, thus generating more business leads. With these two tools it is possible to create emails and pages faster and more efficiently, manage automation flows, taking into account the personalisation of recipients and segment leads, and ensure correct sending and consistent visualisation across devices.

2 – Lead generation: To keep the sales pipeline filled, you must constantly nurture the leads that reach companies. By building landing pages, forms using drag-and-drop tools, creating and measuring the actual ROI of the campaigns through interconnection with Google AdWords, and using A/B tests to track the performance of landing pages, it is possible to keep the pipeline fully supplied with a quality flow of leads.

3 – Lead management: means less time spent by the marketing and sales teams on repetitive tasks, to give way to greater concentration on acquiring and maintaining important leads. With this, it is possible to prioritize and qualify leads using automated scoring systems in Pardot.

4 – Reports: Both Salesforce and Pardot offer the possibility to extract complete reports, such as a log of  all the contact points with your customers, understanding their journey from their first click to the moment of conversion and the closing of the deal; reports showing the sales lifecycle, thus, knowing where potential customers are stagnating in the funnel; and search reports to understand how Google AdWords campaigns impact on the organisation’s results, among others.

We can then conclude that using Salesforce and Pardot we get the ability to take a 360º look at our customers; from marketing strategy to sales. This allows us to more effectively manage the acquisition and maintenance of lead quality, check opportunities and improve the results of ongoing marketing campaigns.

Here is an example of how to implement Marketing Automation:

I want to know more!
Pedro RosaGuide to a successful Marketing Automation strategy (with Salesforce and Pardot)
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