Xos

Supporting Xos’ Advancement in the Booming EV Sector

To grow within the rapidly evolving electric vehicle industry, Xos, Inc., a California-based fleet services provider and original equipment manufacturer of Class 5 through Class 8 battery-electric vehicles, relies on efficient internal operations to manage the multiple complex parts of its business.

“We manufacture medium to heavy-duty Class 5 through Class 8 commercial electric vehicles, such as delivery stepvans, for companies like FedEx. We also design and manufacture fleet management software and charging infrastructure to drive electric fleet adoption.”
Matt Sommer, Director of IT and Product DevOps

The company went public in 2021, prompting them to onboard Atlassian tools to help streamline research and development, manufacturing, engineering, and quality work, in addition to new tasks associated with being a public operating company.

Having implemented Atlassian tools at high-growth companies like Tesla and GoPro and working with Contegix in the past, Sommer enlisted Contegix for additional support, knowing that the specialized assistance an Atlassian Platinum Solutions Partner can provide would benefit his fast-growing team.

Today, the 400-person Xos team uses Jira, Jira Service Desk, Confluence, Bitbucket, and Opsgenie. They continue to partner with Contegix for routine support as well as future discovery and vetting services as they explore additional Atlassian tools and lead innovation in their industry.

Using Jira to Implement Processes and Gain Efficiency

The high amount of investment and competition within the EV industry requires Xos to operate nimbly and efficiently across the company while also ensuring smooth implementation of new processes. “Going from a pre-IPO company to a publicly traded one, there were many processes we needed to implement in order to follow certain compliance standards. I don’t think we could have done it without Jira,” said Sommer.

Roughly two-thirds of the team is using Jira, getting value from its issue resolution capabilities. If the team has a design or quality issue, users can document it and go through a rigorous process to identify the root cause and resolve the issue. Xos also uses Jira to maintain SOX compliance — a complex auditing requirement that all public companies must comply with.

“When we talk with auditors, having Jira makes our jobs significantly easier. We can create a filter, or use an existing filter and dashboard, and export the data to send it to them, which eliminates a lengthy or arduous auditing period,” Sommer explained.

HR and IT teams are also using Jira for compliance during onboarding and offboarding tasks. Working cross-departmentally can be challenging without the right technology, but with Jira, HR and IT teams’ tasks fall under a parent ticket, and its advanced workflows function help clarify both parties’ responsibilities and next steps.

Working with Contegix to Evaluate and Maximize the Benefit of Atlassian Tools

As Xos has onboarded Atlassian products, Contegix has taken on management of the payment process through an annual purchase order, allowing the Xos team to focus on big picture tasks. Contegix has also provided product evaluation and helped the team understand what options are available as Atlassian rolls out new complex offerings, particularly around procurement and licensing.

It's critical for Xos to maintain a list of their tools, understanding how they’re used, why, and what value they provide—especially for procurement, which uses several tools that can be difficult to manage. Contegix provides a dedicated team to answer any questions Sommer has about tools’ functionality as well as configurations they can explore to maximize the potential of their products.

“I know that if we get in a bind, we can call Contegix. Usually, when you get into a corner, if you don't have options it can be quite scary. It's always critical when you're our size to have that enterprise-level support,” said Sommer.

As Atlassian continues to roll out new technology such as Advanced Roadmaps, which Xos is just starting to tap into, the team will continue to look to Contegix for guidance on how to receive all its benefits.

“Advanced Roadmaps would help us with the strategic vision of our product development plans and milestones and what gates we have expectations from the organization to meet and go through,” said Sommer. “Our hope is to distill that corporate strategy into actionable tickets in Jira so we can get a holistic view of what our strategy is and then how we are executing on that strategy.”