Vattenfall - VLink
Vattenfall is one of the largest producers and retailers of electricity and heat in Europe. For over 100 years, the company has been providing energy to individuals and industrial enterprises and is active in all segments of the energy value chain: from generation to distribution. Vattenfall aims to continuously modernize how customers live - through innovations and collaboration with partners. The goal is also to achieve a supply without fossil fuels within a generation.
With the white-label platform VLINK, realized by us, Vattenfall has centralized the marketing and processing of energy services on a single platform.
The task
The main task of the digital end-to-end service platform VLINK is to bring together and manage all participants for the sales and processing of various energy services on one platform.
The multi-tenant platform aims to support customers and energy providers comfortably throughout the entire sales and processing process: from initial contact, through ordering and order processing with craft partners, to billing, service, and operation.
Energy services from photovoltaics and heating to energy certificates and customized products from energy providers are to be represented flexibly.
We fully rely on a collaborative and long-term partnership with Beyonder to provide our customers with excellent solutions. By the way, the results-oriented collaboration is a lot of fun!
Georg Auffarth, Senior Product Manager, Product Owner VLINK.com, Vattenfall Smarter Living GmbH
The solution
VLINK consists of three core components:
The end customer creates requests for energy services through frontends based on React; for example, these ask about the orientation and inclination of the roof surface when the customer is interested in a photovoltaic system. In the customer portal VLINK Home, the customer then tracks their request throughout the sales and processing process. The VLINK backend is used by employees of the involved companies, such as municipal utilities, sales service providers, suppliers, and craftsmen.
Their processing processes are fully mapped. Through a REST API, third-party systems can be connected to VLINK, such as CRMs or billing systems. The application is operated by us in a Kubernetes cluster of the Open Telekom Cloud.
The biggest challenges have been and are the large scope of the solution and the high degree of customization within all components.
Core elements such as products and processes can be customized just like all names, texts, and documents. All this without negative impacts on flexibility, functionality, or speed.
