CROSSBOLT

are where we thrive Complex technology programs WHAT WE DO For over twenty years WHAT WE DO Across industries WHAT WE DO and COUNTRIES WHAT WE DO We Execute WHAT WE DO
aboutus

Safe Hands

On complex technology programs, the difference between elegant execution and at-risk delivery can come down to management competence in several critical areas. We’ve been helping tech companies reduce capital risk across continents and industries for over two decades with an industry-defying track record. For a fraction of the overall capital commitment, let us help swing the success odds in your favor on your technology project.

aboutus

Full-service project management

Crossbolt offers full-service project management to customers in the information systems and technology space. Unlike others in this field, we remain process agnostic and have experience in a diverse range of methodologies at scale.

Learn More

Provision of key technical competence

Crossbolt has an extensive network of high caliber resources that we have worked with over the years. We can leverage our network to help bolster client delivery teams as programs move rapidly from initiation into ‘full steam ahead’.

Learn More

Agile coaching

We offer on-site coaching aimed at helping companies transition from predictive methodologies to approaches involving incremental product development with rapid feedback loops.

Learn More

Project auditing

This is an objective governance service offered to company PMO’s or Steering Committees. We visit your site and spend time with the project stakeholders to produce a report covering project management governance and an opinion regarding balance points between pragmatism and effective risk management.

Learn More

Team building

Cohesive teams are the key to successful initiatives! Crossbolt offers several tailor-made team building products depending on the client’s requirements.

Learn More

Why Crossbolt?

We are a technology delivery specialist agency based in Johannesburg and Brisbane with a team of experienced professionals who love doing what they do, and have fun building high performance delivery teams.

Track Record

We have been doing this for a long time, at scale with a stellar track record.

Confident

We are comfortable enough in this domain to have fun doing it.

Trustworthy

We prioritize our clients’ interests, believing their success and satisfaction are key to ours. We build lasting trust through transparency in all our dealings.

000

million USD CAPEX managed

Experienced

We have traversed many different industry domains working with, and learning from client-side experts to quantify and manage program risk and response strategies.

Equitable

We treat our Suppliers with the same reverence as we treat Clients and believe that equitable treatment throughout the value chain creates the right symbiosis for chasing it, day-after-day, at speed.

Focused

As a smaller company with relatively low overheads, we can commit our focus to your initiative without needing to chase simultaneous commitments at scale or subject you to the ‘hard-sell’ of picking up a non-billable bench of resources.

Roadmap

Highlights

2001:

Company formed and started servicing a US manufacturing client

2002:

Pioneered automated tea blending recipe formulation for Harris Freeman (an industry game changer)

2003:

Fully integrated warehouse to packaging line solution rolled out to multiple US sites

2004:

MES solution transitioned into commercial offering for client

2005:

Assisted with launching the iRely commercial venture

2006:

Awarded South Africa’s largest MES project with Nissan as client

2007:

Assisted SA company with grant funding and patenting of a novel camera blindfold.

2008:

Launched vehicle tracking and control system with zero downtime (global first for Nissan)

2009:

Delivered technology program for FIC (South Africa’s anti money laundering watchdog)

2011:

Agile coaching at enterprise level for entire technical department of Multichoice (Africa’s largest broadcaster)

2012:

Delivered ESB subsystem and SAP (stock and distribution) for MultiChoice

2013:

Pioneered new Critical path networks-to-Kanban consumption mechanism for large commissioning teams.

2014:

Multichoice new billing system pilot taken live (> $100million USD investment)

2015:

Multichoice billing system for South Africa taken live (over 12 million accounts migrated). Delivery process attracted global attention.

2016:

Initiated Africa rollout for Multichoice

2017:

Awarded management of build of “V1”, the world’s first behavioral change platform for Discovery

2018:

Delivered Discovery’s V1 in time for large scale wellness program launch in Japan

2019:

Ran Discovery’s white label technology program delivery with Apple in the US

2021:

Welcomed new COO and partner Pierre van Lelyveld to run Crossbolt’s operations in South Africa

2022:

Initiated business development in Australia

2023:

Delivery of a patient management system across Australia (as sub-contractor)

Roadmap
team

The Team

The Crossbolt core is a close knit, highly experienced management team who look after a responsive and evolving group of project execution and technical people that reside across the globe

PierreB&W
PierreB&W

Pierre van Lelyveld

Chief Operating Officer

Pierre is a goal-driven manager of complex technology programs. As an ex corporate CIO, Pierre can empathize with the stresses in the client executive teams as initiatives traverse their execution path. With an MBA on his resume, Pierre is also able to focus on leading strategic change in the business while managing continued improvement of IT. Pierre’s areas of expertise and experience are:
– Conceptualizing and leading complex technology projects
– Building capable, resilient delivery teams through leadership and mentoring
– Building the technology architecture for a business that needs to scale from a customer growth and product development perspective
– Re-engineering and modernizing legacy systems to be nimble, scalable and future-proof
– Enabling change while maintaining operational stability
– Conceptualizing and implementing a centralized integration model for systems to successfully work with each other
– Mentoring and coaching technical experts to take ownership and lead change

Pierre has managed large internal and external IT teams to deliver systems based on business requirements. He has extensive knowledge and experience in all aspects of IT including hardware, software, and data. Pierre’s ability to understand business problems and deliver innovative and cost-effective solutions are based on his experience as a developer in his early career and subsequent roles across the software development lifecycle.
Domain wise, Pierre has extensive knowledge in FMCG (Fast moving consumer goods), Medical (Radiology), Financial Services (Home loans, Short-Term Insurance and Life Insurance) and Real Estate industries.

farid-grayscale
farid-grayscale

Farid Essack

Portfolio Manager

Farid is a project management professional (PMP) with extensive experience in the delivery of technology solutions across a diverse industry spectrum. He has spent over twenty years running complex initiatives with stints in the US, Australia, Japan, India, and many years in Southern Africa.
Farid has significant exposure to both agile and waterfall implementation methodologies with expertise in technology-driven corporate transformations and complex digital product development programs. These programs have ranged from smaller strategic interventions to multi-year initiatives with budgets up to $100 million USD and dedicated team sizes over a 100 people.
Domain-wise, Farid has delivered solutions in mining, automotive manufacturing, FMCG, food and beverage, insurance along with an array of system migration transitions. The last few years have seen him running product development in the health-and-wellness area, driving behavioral change through an incentivized health eco-system. This resulted in interactions with large insurers as well as global rewards and technology partners.
Farid can leverage his skills as a public speaker and a trained crisis counselor (with LifeLine) to sell concepts and to manage relationships with client and project team resources. It has also equipped him to support his teams through the mental health challenges often arising from pressured delivery.
In addition to his consulting work, he is an entrepreneur having owned several businesses, is a performing electronica artist and a volunteer crew of Brisbane Marine Rescue.

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Derek-bw

Derek Smith

Senior Program Manager

Derek is a senior project and program management professional with over 30 years of experience in the technology industry. He is a servant leader with a solid track record of delivery on tough targets and large budgets within global programs and on key accounts across many sectors. Project rescue is a speciality of his. He has held many diverse senior roles such as account executive, CIO, PMO lead
and global compliance officer. He has strong leadership abilities, having led many large teams. He is a lateral thinker with a good technical acumen and has tough negotiation skills.

Derek has won numerous awards and is a certified coach and mentor having put much back into the PM community through volunteering and involvement in corporate and PMI internships. He has been an executive board member for 2 publicly listed companies and an Exco member for PMI international. (VP Technology and Communication). His work ethic is impeccable, and his superpowers are conflict resolution, ideation and dedicated leadership. He always goes the extra mile and brings the best out of people.

Domain wise, Derek has contributed to finance, shipping, motor/retail, fitness and technology verticals. He has setup many PMO’s from inception and managed many large software and infrastructure projects, making local news and publications. Wellbeing and fitness are key aspects of his life, and he is a qualified fitness and boxing trainer with a passion for teaching and learning. He is a techie at heart and is driven by his intrigue in technology and exploiting the incredible potential of people to reach collaborative outcomes.

Salim-Essack-bw
Salim-Essack-bw

Salim Essack

Principal Consultant - Prototype to Mass Manufacture

With more than 20 years’ experience in supply chain optimisation and a strong record of accomplishment in FMCG, Salim Essack is a highly accomplished Mechanical Engineer with a Black Belt in Lean Manufacturing. His career includes having successfully led the design and launch of leading-edge manufacturing solutions for high-profile organisations. He has deep expertise in implementing breakthrough improvements and designing optimised facilities. Considered a subject matter expert in his field, Salim is accustomed to driving execution of multi-million rand projects across multiple locations.

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Ezra-bw

Ezra Kahimbaara

Principal Consultant - Software Architecture and Enterprise Application Integration

Ezra is a technology leader with specialist expertise in systems architecture, engineering and delivery. His area of competence includes the planning, design and delivery of technology initiatives and he has an extensive record of successful delivery across the Public Sector, Telco, FMCG, Financial Services, Health, Media and insurance industries. With 20 years experience under his belt delivering large and complex systems at enterprise level, he is equally comfortable with both Agile and Waterfall implementation methodologies and possesses real-world experience with both approaches.

Specific skills
− Software architecture and delivery management
− Enterprise application integration and solution architecture
− Professional services consulting for enterprise software and business process management
− Software product sales and pre-sales

team
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Services

Full-service project management

Crossbolt offers full-service project management to customers in the information systems and technology space. Unlike others in this field, we remain process agnostic and have experience in a diverse range of methodologies at scale.

  • Objectively select the best tools and processes for your initiative
  • Bridge organizational culture gaps by being able to communicate equally well with stakeholders in the agile space as well as executives comfortable with predictive planning techniques
  • Cherry pick tools to find the right balance between incremental delivery and empirical feedback loops while still using predictive tools to provide insight on the critical sequence of activities, identify fast tracking opportunities and easy to understand budget tracking performance.

Over the years we have taken many solutions live at scale (up to and exceeding 100 million USD in capital commitment). These have included:

  • Legacy billing system platform replacements
  • Global digital/mobile app delivery
  • Operational platform replacements
  • Manufacturing system replacements
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Provision of key technical competence

Crossbolt has an extensive network of high caliber resources that we have worked with over the years. We can leverage our network to help bolster client delivery teams as programs move rapidly from initiation into ‘full steam ahead’. The company’s multi-year track record and reputation for honesty allow us to attract the right skills expediently. By keeping our overheads low, we can provide this service with materially better economics than big consulting companies promising the same thing. In addition, our generous supply chain remuneration keeps key people happy and committed for long-haul efforts. We are also able to source competent resources in many international jurisdictions should our clients want to improve on budget performance through offshoring.

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Agile coaching

Crossbolt coaching resources have extensive international experience in the agile delivery space. The company is unique in that it evolved out of a manufacturing systems space – the same birthplace as the philosophies driving the agile movement!
We offer on-site coaching offering aimed at helping companies transition from predictive methodologies to agile approaches

  • Assistance in the agile vs. predictive decision for projects
  • Empower initiatives through the provision of process coaching
  • Assist with progress reporting to management stakeholders including those at the ‘non-Agile’ corporate interface

Our approach differs materially from other providers in that we do not pitch ourselves as a training company offering certifications for short term training courses (which ironically is a more commoditized business model with higher margins for the provider). Our experience has shown that this may have been useful during the initial incubation of the agile movement (which we were blessed to have been a part of) but with agile delivery having become more commonplace over the years we prefer an embedded approach and a longer relationship to facilitate teams progressing measurably towards high delivery performance.

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Project auditing

This is an objective governance service offered to company PMO’s or Steering Committees. We visit your site and spend time with the project stakeholders to produce a report covering project management governance and an opinion regarding balance points between pragmatism and effective risk management.

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Team building

Cohesive teams are the key to successful initiatives! Crossbolt offers several tailor-made teambuilding products depending on the client’s requirements. Teambuilding activities are usually single-day affairs focusing on outdoor activities such as sailing and 4×4 off-road driving. We differ from others in space by ensuring that all team building is facilitated by a professional project manager (PMP) who is a trained counsellor and the sessions are aimed primarily at building trust within the teams.

Contact

1F, 173 Oxford Rd, Rosebank, Johannesburg, 2196, South Africa
Phone. +27 83 701 0948

Level 1 470 St Pauls Terrace, Brisbane, QLD, 4006, Australia
Phone. +61 478 188 237

Contact
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