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IQGeo Europe
Perhaps you recently had a fiber network connection installed as well? There's a very good chance that the Comsof Fiber tool was used for the installation. It's a tool that 8 Axxes employees work on daily with great pleasure. Let's have Jeroen Vanhaverbeke and Jonas Van Nieuwenberg from IQGeo explain what this tool does and how it is maintained.
Jonas started at Comsof, now known as an IQGeo business, in 2013 and is Head of R&D. "I am responsible for the department that develops the core product." Jeroen has been with the company since 2015 and is Head of Client Delivery. "My team works mostly with our clients. Jonas' team works on the standard product that satisfies a portion of our clients. However, there are also some larger clients who would like to see some modifications. That's where my team comes in. We engage with the client, provide demos, conduct analysis, define their needs, and then proceed to develop the tool to meet their requirements effectively."
Which products do you develop?
Jonas: "We have several. Comsof Fiber is our flagship product, our largest one. It's an auto-design tool for fiber optic networks. Everyone at Axxes contributes to it. The telecom business accounts for 95% of our activities. Additionally, we have Comsof Power and Heat; these are two similar products but for other sectors. With these tools, you can plan electricity and heating networks. We also have several supporting tools like our license server and our cloud application. All of these are developed within my team."
What do your tools assist with?
Jeroen: "Historically, the construction plan of a network was always drawn with pencil and paper on a large A1 paper. But we've gone through a revolution over the years, in the sense that we've digitized everything. It's relatively logical. Geographic information, think of Google Maps and all that you can do with it, is roughly the starting point from which we add additional information about the location of poles, cables, etc. Where are the elements that we can reuse? Do we need to hang cables on the facade? All this information is put into a model, and our software then has intelligent algorithms to determine a new network in the most cost-efficient way possible. It's essentially a tool for network planners. There's a lot of knowledge and complexity behind it, which shapes our daily activities."
Are there many companies doing what you do?
Jonas: "Within Belgium, we are the only ones. Globally, we're also one of the few. If there are 5 real competitors, that would be a lot. There's a big player in France, also a major one in Australia and Germany. Beyond that, there aren't many major players. What we often still see as the biggest competitor is manual work, where people still manually design without relying on auto-design tools."
Are you a Belgian company?
Jeroen: "Originally yes. Comsof was acquired in the summer of 2022. Until then, we were a purely Belgian company with around 60 employees, started as a spinoff of UGent in 1998, with a subsidiary in Toronto, Canada. At the moment, we are part of IQGeo (editorial note: 200 employees) with headquarters in Cambridge (UK) and also branches in Denver (US), Japan, and a small office in Germany. But the UK and US have become the major hubs alongside Ghent. In terms of legal structure, our company is now called IQGeo Europe NV. The auto-design products made in Ghent will still be marketed as Comsof tools, but Comsof will be no more than a brand name."
What is IQGeo specialized in?
Jeroen: "They are active in the same market: software for planning, deploying, and managing networks. But they are also a bit more active in other utilities: water, electricity, and gas. So, that's positive for our newer products. However, they don't necessarily have that auto-design function, but more of an end-to-end solution. We fit into their puzzle to improve the total workflow for our clients. And for us, it's useful because now we have a standard solution for the end-to-end story."
Within Belgium, we are the only ones. Globally, we are also one of the few. If there are 5 real competitors, that would be a lot.
Who are your clients?
Jeroen: "Proximus, Fiberklaar, UniFiber, and Telenet are the big names in Belgium, along with a number of construction companies. But we are an international company, and these Belgian clients have only come on board in the last 7 years. Before that, we had clients worldwide in other markets that rolled out fiber optic networks earlier than Belgium, such as Deutsche Telekom (DE), CityFibre (UK), AT&T (US), and major clients in India and New Zealand."
When did the collaboration with Axxes start?
Jonas: "Our first contact with Helene, an account manager at Axxes, was in June 2020. COVID had just started. The first candidates were introduced in September."
Did you have any experience with consultancy before?
Jeroen: "Yes, but meanwhile, we have fewer consultants from other companies. Within IQGeo UK, however, it's certainly more common."
How does your hiring process proceed?
Jeroen: "We have a standard selection process where we present candidates with a fairly in-depth technical test. With this test, we can determine the candidates' capabilities, how they react under pressure, how they ask questions, how they behave in as realistic a scenario as possible. But also for the candidates, the questions we ask, the problems we present, already give them a fairly good impression of what will be asked of them once they start working. So, we invest quite a bit of time, but it adds value for both parties. These tests were conducted with some Axxes employees, where Luka and Martijn were the first to stand out at the time."
In the past, we have also utilized other profiles from Axxes for shorter projects. A Scrum Master helped us with additional coaching when we were scaling from 1 Scrum team to multiple teams. We also collaborated with Gertjan Roggemans for DevOps for a while.
How do your teams look like?
Jonas: "Both of our teams consist of about 14 people each, spread across 2 Scrum teams. Currently, I have 3 Axxes employees in my team, and Jeroen has 5: 4 QA engineers and 4 Java developers."
Jeroen: "In the past, we have also used other profiles from Axxes for shorter projects. A Scrum Master helped us with additional coaching when we were scaling from 1 Scrum team to multiple. We also collaborated with Gertjan Roggemans for DevOps for a while."
What does your technology stack look like?
Jonas: "The back end of the application is written in Java, and the front end is mainly in Angular with some variations. Within IQGeo, it's mostly Python and React."
I think it's more of a characteristic of people who are interested, but I find all the Axxes employees enthusiastic, eager to learn, and really willing to take on tasks and see what they can do to help out.
How do you experience our Axxes employees in terms of technical knowledge?
Jonas: "Good."
Jeroen: "Technical knowledge is part of our responsibility as screeners during the recruitment process. We have a relatively low pass rate. Even people on the payroll undergo this test. We see that not many people pass it, only about 20-30%. But once we are sure they can deliver quality, it has actually never disappointed. So I think we are strict enough in the selection."
How would you describe an Axxes employee?
Jeroen: "I think it's more of a characteristic of people who are interested, but I found them all enthusiastic, eager to learn, and really willing to take on tasks and see what they can do to help out."
Do you perceive us as a collaborative partner?
Jonas: "Absolutely. Helene already knows very well what type of profile we are looking for. She can assess who will match with Comsof in terms of people skills. I appreciate that in the partnership. It's not just dropping 10 CVs; there is already some pre-screening involved."
Jeroen: "With previous consultancy partners, the account manager would sometimes change. That meant a few months of work for us to clarify who we are looking for again. Helene is stable; she has always been the contact person, and we also have a good feeling about it. It's certainly going very well."
What are your future plans within Comsof?
Jonas: "We are working hard on integrating the two software suites of Comsof and IQGeo. An integration tool that makes it seamless that they are two different tools. Not easy, as with Comsof, we have already had 20 years of product development. It's similar with IQGeo. So that's our challenge today: restructuring, rethinking things to seamlessly integrate them and stay ahead of the competition."
