TOI TOI & DIXI modernizes its application landscape with Team-as-a-Service

When TOI TOI & DIXI decided to modernize their internal applications, they didn’t have enough in-house developers, so they searched for an international IT partner. The mobile toilet specialist found this partner in Cegeka, which extended the company’s IT team with their Team-as-a-Service proposition. As a result, TOI TOI & DIXI now has a modern ERP system, management system for the collection and delivery of mobile toilets, and other applications, that are all able to grow with them. 

15 years ago, TOI TOI & DIXI developed their own ERP system. “When we decided to modernize our ERP system a year and a half ago, we asked ourselves whether we should still have people on our payroll to do this kind of development,” states Noël Fyen, IT-Business Partner Manager at TOI TOI & DIXI Group. “After evaluating the options, we determined that we should hire this expertise, because an IT partner would give us more flexibility. We have been growing during the last years, and this required us to have a solid IT environment that could grow with us.” 

The mobile toilet specialist had criteria in mind for this IT partner. “We’re active in multiple countries, so we wanted to have an international partner from the start. We were also looking for a company with a certain maturity and breadth of knowledge. And we wanted a real partnership, not something superficial”, explains Noël Fyen. With this shortlist in hand, and after a visit to Cegeka’s nearshoring development team in Romania, the company was convinced that Cegeka was the right partner. “We’re a pragmatic company, and we immediately liked their down-to-earth mentality, engagement and commitment,” concludes Noël Fyen. 

“We’re a pragmatic company, and we immediately liked Cegeka’s down-to-earth mentality, engagement and commitment.”

– Noël Fyen, IT-Business Partner Manager at TOI TOI & DIXI Group  

Essential people management 

Cegeka always pays a lot of attention to people management, because this is essential for its nearshore services to work. Governance and HR for the Romanian project team is arranged in Romania, and Cegeka has the same way of working there as in Belgium, with the same attention to the personal development and training of their employees. The communication lines with Belgium are also close. 

TOI TOI & DIXI still had some of its own developers working on the project, so the Romanian developers began to work within the team of the mobile toilet specialist and were managed by the latter. “Although our and Cegeka’s team were collaborating fully virtually, there really was one team spirit, without any kind of miscommunication”, emphasizes Noël Fyen. 

“Although our and Cegeka’s team were collaborating fully virtually, there really was one team spirit, without any kind of miscommunication.”

- Noël Fyen, IT-Business Partner Manager at TOI TOI & DIXI Group

Building on the momentum 

For end users, the migration to the new system in Germany has been going smoothly, asserts Noël Fyen: “Of course the technology has changed under the hood and the user interface is different as well now. But the underlying processes have stayed roughly the same. So our employees continue to work as they were used to.” The rollout has been done module by module, using Amazon AppStream technology. This way some business departments where still using the old ERP system, while other departments were already migrated to the new one. 

TOI TOI & DIXI had a strict timing for their project. After modernizing the ERP system of the German branch, they now want to use it in the whole group as a standard ERP system. “We want to build on the momentum we have now to replace our ERP systems in other countries too”, declares Noël Fyen.  

Great flexibility  

Having access to a fully-fledged team that modernized their application landscape and developed new applications has optimized TOI TOI & DIXI’s business processes and cost efficiency. For example, thanks to Cegeka’s work on TOI Track, the application that manages the collection and delivery of mobile toilets, trucks drive shorter routes and as a result the company has lower fuel costs and causes less pollution. Cegeka also introduced the mobile toilet specialist to low-code application development with Microsoft Power Apps. This allowed the company to automate repetitive, administrative tasks that were previously done in Microsoft Excel. “We spend less time on manual operations now, and fewer errors are made, for example to reserve workspaces and parking spots, to submit expenses, and to request holidays”, explains Noël Fyen. 

“We always want to move quickly”, adds Noël Fyen, “and of course it’s not always possible to immediately get some extra developers. But Cegeka made every effort to help us as soon as possible. We experienced it as a partnership with great flexibility. They also worked in close cooperation with us all the time, they followed up on everything and thought along with us to help where they could.”