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Crossjoin Solutions expands Academy to accelerate technical specialization

Every organization invests in firewalls, encryption, and antivirus softwares. But what if I told you that 68% of breaches happen because of human error? (Verizon 2023 Data Breach Investigations Report).

That means your biggest vulnerability isn’t a piece of code—it’s your people.

The good news? By shifting from a rules-based security model to a human-centric culture, you can turn your team into your strongest line of defense.

Building a “Human Firewall” That Works

1. Security Starts at the Top

If leadership doesn’t take cybersecurity seriously, no one else will. Security isn’t just an IT problem—it’s a business priority. Executives and managers must:
Lead by example (e.g., using MFA, reporting phishing attempts)
Talk about security in everyday business conversations
Make cybersecurity a regular boardroom topic, not just an IT discussion
Allocate visible budget for security initiatives to demonstrate commitment

2. Make Training Engaging (Not a Check-the-Box Exercise)

Supplement traditional compliance training with engaging approaches. Consider these practices:

Use real-life phishing simulations
Incorporate gamified security challenges
Provide microlearning modules—short, interactive lessons that fit into busy schedules
Create peer learning opportunities where team members share security stories and lessons learned
Keep compliance videos and training—they are perfect for new entries and refreshing knowledge

When training feels relevant and engaging, employees actually retain the information and apply it.

At Crossjoin Solutions, we have a standing tradition of knowledge sharing. We don’t just talk about security culture—we live it. 

Our weekly Security Special Interest Group brings experts together to discuss emerging threats and solutions. We foster knowledge sharing through dedicated ‘Brownbag’ sessions and boost engagement with quick quizzes that reinforce key concepts during Awareness sessions.

Through our Academy platform, we’ve been rolling out bite-sized microlearning modules covering cybersecurity alongside other crucial topics such as anti-bribery compliance. We’ve also established a secure reporting channel where employees can confidentially report Code of Conduct violations or security concerns without fear of repercussion.

Beyond traditional methods, we experiment with creative approaches like our popular ‘Cybersecurity Month’ video series and strategically placed interactive posters that turn passive wall decorations into engaging learning tools. By placing security materials in unexpected locations and adding gamification elements, we ensure security stays top of mind throughout the workday.

3. Make Secure Behavior the Easy Choice

People take shortcuts when security is inconvenient. After all, they are human. If you want employees to follow best practices, remove friction:
Provide a password manager so they don’t have to remember complex passwords
Implement MFA policies that balance security with workflow—frequent enough to be effective but timed to minimize disruption
Deploy just-in-time phishing protection that intervenes at the moment of click—providing real-time warnings when users are about to interact with suspicious links
Implement single sign-on (SSO) solutions to reduce password fatigue while maintaining security

4. Encourage Reporting, Not Fear

If clicking a bad link means getting in trouble, employees will hide their mistakes—and that’s a bigger risk than the attack itself. Instead:
Foster a no-blame culture where employees feel safe reporting security incidents
Create fast, simple reporting processes (e.g., one-click phishing reporting)
Reinforce that early detection is critical—even if a mistake was made
Send personalized thank-you messages to employees who report security concerns—acknowledge their specific contribution to protecting the entire organization

5. Measure & Improve Continuously

What gets measured gets managed. Track:
Security training engagement rates
Phishing resilience metrics: track simulation response rates (clicks vs. reports), identify repeat vulnerability patterns, and measure unreported encounters to target training effectively
Incident reporting trends
Time-to-remediation for security issues raised by employees

Use these insights to refine your approach. Cyber threats evolve—your security culture should too.

Final Thought: People Are the Best Defense

Security isn’t just an IT responsibility—it’s everyone’s job.

With the right culture, your people can be your strongest line of defense against cyber threats.

What’s one thing your organization is doing to build a human-centric cybersecurity culture?

Optimizing IT Costs: CAPEX & OPEX

IT costs are generally categorized into two main areas:

• CAPEX (Capital Expenditure), which represents investments in changing or transforming the business.
• OPEX (Operational Expenditure), which represents the costs of maintaining and running the business.
  Crossjoin provides tailored services to address both areas. However, we often see significant benefits when tackling costs by acting in the opposite area.

For example, consider a solution in production that is not meeting its KPIs. Clients often prefer to completely redo the solution, leading to substantial investment in a new development project. When Crossjoin is involved, we focus on preventing these unnecessary costs by fixing what appears impossible to resolve. This approach reduces CAPEX costs by optimizing existing solutions instead of recreating them from scratch.

In the CAPEX area, over the past three years, we have supported clients in transformation projects by focusing on three key dimensions:

• People
• Processes
• Technology

As we can talk client business language, as well with the cross-technology know-how from multiple technologies and well-known products, we leverage decisions to a well-sized IT in these 3 vectors.

To prevent future OPEX costs during these transformation initiatives, it’s essential to ensure that these three dimensions are well-aligned and properly scaled. With extensive experience in development, tuning, infrastructure, and client business operations, Crossjoin supports decision-making throughout transformation projects, ensuring IT investments are optimized and well-dimensioned.

Moving to the OPEX area, Crossjoin is often challenged to help clients reduce costs related to their existing infrastructure. This work typically involves 3 dimensions:

• Reducing Costs with Legacy Systems
  For example, optimizing MIPs in mainframe systems.
• Optimizing On-Premises Infrastructure
  Through tuning and optimization services, we help clients decommission assets, reduce resource usage, and redesign IT infrastructure to achieve “more with less.”
  
• Application flows or migrations to the cloud and SaaS products.
  Here, Crossjoin plays a crucial role in IT control by:
  • Ensuring cloud migration costs are well-managed and under control:
  • Providing proactive initiatives to reduce infrastructure costs;
  • Guaranteeing that SaaS products are customized and configured according to best practices.

By acting across these areas, Crossjoin effectively reduces both OPEX and CAPEX costs, leveraging our cost management framework to deliver tangible results for our clients.

Why Crossjoin Solutions

Depending on the level of maturity, but assuming a low level of maturity, for an infrastructure cost reduction initiative, you need someone who understands the bill and translates the cost to the infrastructure asset, then you need to calculate its contribution to the total, which requires financial proficiency in the client’s environment and its IT. In addition, you need to be able to technically analyze the asset to identify the reason for this cost. As there are several assets in various technologies, several teams are needed to carry out the analysis and identify reduction initiatives. They need to be planned, monitored and confirmed.
So instead of having many teams involved, making the process slow and the initiatives being implemented at a slow pace, Crossjoin does this end-to-end with very few dependencies, we can close the loop from the financial part, to the calculation, detailed analysis regardless of the technology and then change what needs to be changed to achieve the identified cost

Case Study Example

1. Infrastructure Cost Reduction – Tier 1 Telco

Challenge: With a €2.7 million increase in cloud IT infrastructure costs, the client sought to reduce expenses without impacting system availability or performance.

Solution: Crossjoin led initiatives to decommission redundant applications, optimize server storage, and manage server resources more effectively.

Outcome: Achieved €2.17 million in savings, reducing cloud infrastructure costs by over 31%. The client continues to benefit from ongoing cost management support to maintain and enhance savings over time.

Know more about this case study

Balancing Cost and Performance in IT: Strategies for Efficient, Scalable, and Reliable Operations

Executive Summary

As organizations increasingly rely on technology to drive business outcomes, balancing IT system costs with performance has become crucial. This white paper delves into the strategic approaches companies can adopt to optimize IT spending while achieving high-performance systems. Drawing on Crossjoin’s extensive experience with Tier 1 telecom and financial services clients – but applicable to any industry that has complex IT – we present frameworks, methodologies, and real-world case studies that illustrate how organizations can strike this balance effectively. Through structured IT control, observability, and a robust Performance Management Framework (PMF), companies can ensure operational efficiency, reliability, and alignment with business objectives, all while managing or lowering costs in both cloud and on-premises environments.

About Crossjoin Solutions

Founded with a commitment to helping businesses achieve seamless IT control, Crossjoin Solutions has over 15 years of experience as a trusted strategic IT partner. We serve more than 30 international clients, 68% of whom are Tier 1 telecom and financial services companies. Our expertise lies in comprehensive IT Control, where we guarantee efficient, secure, and resilient operations across IT infrastructures. Crossjoin’s approach ensures that IT systems not only perform reliably but do so with predictable costs, helping clients achieve scalable growth while reducing/maintaining CAPEX and OPEX costs.

What is IT Control?

IT Control is an end-to-end strategy for managing and optimizing IT systems. It integrates observability, DevSecOps, infrastructure management, architecture design, and operations optimization to align IT performance with business objectives. Crossjoin’s IT Control strategy emphasizes efficiency and predictability, reducing risks and costs while supporting growth and scalability. This approach covers both cloud, multi-cloud, on-premises and hybrid environments, addressing each stage from architecture to KPIs and continuous optimization. IT Control serves as the foundation of Crossjoin’s Performance Management Framework (PMF), a structured methodology designed to address the complex demands of modern IT ecosystems.

The Cost-Performance Equation

There is a generalized perception that the challenge lies in balancing IT systems performance vis-a-vis the growing costs of infrastructure and operations. This perception is that higher systems performance – faster applications, better response times, and scalability – require substantial investment in hardware, cloud resources, and added operational expense. 

– 87% of Performance issues are not caused by lack of infrastructure: Crossjoin’s analysis of past projects reveals that most software performance problems are not due to inadequate infrastructure. Most performance issues arise from suboptimal practices rather than infrastructure shortages.

Most likely Root Causes for Performance Issues

Crossjoin has identified several recurring causes of performance issues across projects, emphasizing that infrastructure is only part of the equation. The primary culprits include:

•  Lack of Load Testing (41%): Many issues arise from insufficient scenario tuning and load testing, leading to unexpected performance bottlenecks.
•  Bad Coding and Engineering Practices (28%): Inefficient code and engineering practices often lead to slow, resource-intensive applications.
•  Inefficient Software Architecture (18%): Poor architectural design can lead to cascading performance problems, requiring costly and time-consuming fixes down the line.
•  Infrastructure Sizing (13%): Although infrastructure is frequently considered the main cause of performance issues, inadequate sizing accounts for a smaller portion of problem

Most of the time, optimizing software architecture, coding practices, together with load testing can often address performance needs more effectively than increasing infrastructure spend.
These findings reinforce the need for a proactive approach to performance management that addresses root causes rather than defaulting to hardware or cloud upgrades as a primary solution.

The Cost of Neglecting Performance in Program Management

In the fast-paced world of IT performance must be a priority from the very beginning of any program. Failure to address performance at the outset can lead to significant delays, cost overruns, and potential reputational damage. Crossjoin’s experience across numerous projects shows that treating performance as an afterthought often results in severe and avoidable consequences.

Consequences of Neglecting Performance

• Program Delays Due to Poor Coding and Testing: Without robust coding standards and load testing, projects can face delays averaging 3 months. This setback is often compounded by the need for last-minute corrections, further delaying deployment.
• Architectural Design Issues: A flawed software architecture can cause program delays of up to 6 months. Proper architecture design, aligned with performance requirements, ensures that programs are scalable and efficient from the start.
• Increased Risk of Program Cancellation: When performance problems accumulate, the risk of project cancellation rises by 30%, as stakeholders lose confidence in the program’s viability.
• Cost Escalations: Performance issues can drive program costs up by an estimated 35%. This includes costs associated with additional testing, redesign, infrastructure, and staffing to address performance induced delays that could have been prevented.
• Reputational Impact: Both vendors and operators suffer reputational harm when projects underperform or fail to meet performance expectations. Maintaining a reputation for reliability is crucial.

Performance is a fundamental requirement, not an afterthought.

Crossjoin advocates for incorporating performance standards into every stage of program development, from design and coding to testing and deployment. By treating performance as a core requirement, organizations can avoid costly delays, reduce risk, and ensure project success.

Performance-Aware Program Management

Crossjoin’s approach to performance management involves developing a performance-focused roadmap that encompasses requirements, KPIs, architecture, and observability. The steps in this methodology include:

Before the program starts
1. Defining Requirements: Establishing clear performance, scalability, security, and reliability requirements to ensure alignment with business goals.

During program setup
2. Performance Baseline and Observability: Setting a performance baseline, implementing observability tools, and designing load tests to assess and maintain system health.

During the development phase
3. Automated Testing and Continuous Improvement: Utilizing CI/CD pipelines with load and performance testing to address issues early and streamline development.

After go-live
4. Continuous Root Cause Analysis (RCA): Performing ongoing RCA to identify and resolve performance issues, ensuring continuous improvement across hybrid environments, following the pattern below:

This structured approach helps organizations proactively manage performance while keeping costs in check, enabling them to scale operations without compromising on efficiency.

Case Studies

1. Infrastructure Cost Reduction – Tier 1 Telco

Challenge: With a €2.7 million increase in cloud IT infrastructure costs, the client sought to reduce expenses without impacting system availability or performance.

Solution: Crossjoin led initiatives to decommission redundant applications, optimize server storage, and manage server resources more effectively.

Outcome: Achieved €2.17 million in savings, reducing cloud infrastructure costs by over 31%. The client continues to benefit from ongoing cost management support to maintain and enhance savings over time.

2. Credit Notes Process Optimization – Tier 1 Telco

Challenge: The client’s complex credit notes processing, involving seven interconnected systems, suffered from severe performance bottlenecks, leading to delays.

Solution: Crossjoin deployed a SPA (Solution Performance Architect) to monitor and optimize the process, reducing throughput time significantly.

Outcome: Processing time was cut from 8 hours to less than 1 hour, increasing throughput by 1500% while saving $300K in software and hardware upgrades. This improvement reduced operational costs, eliminated delays, and met critical performance targets.

3. System Scalability – Tier 1 Telco

Challenge: Support for the client’s company in solving critical issues in three key areas: Oracle RODOD and Digital Channels.

Solution:  Crossjoin carried out work that included firefighting, process optimization, operational resilience and performance tuning and certification, ensuring smooth monthly launches and successful projects

Outcomes:

Improvements in the Oracle RODOD stack:

• 85% reduction in month-end billing processes.
• 99% improvement in notifications sending.
• 200% faster invoice generation.
• >50% decrease in response time for critical Siebel journeys.
• 70% reduction in mediation CDR processing time.

  Improvements in Digital Channels:

• 3x more requests with the same infrastructure.
• 85% performance increase.
• 60% reduction in mobile app load time.
• 80% decrease in the number of P1 tickets.

Conclusion

Balancing cost with IT performance is essential for organizations that rely on technology to drive business outcomes. Crossjoin’s Performance Management Framework and IT Control methodologies offer a structured, proactive approach to achieving this balance. By focusing on optimization, end-to-end observability, and continuous performance monitoring and optimization, Crossjoin helps organizations maintain high-performance IT environments while controlling costs. Companies that adopt these principles are well-equipped to scale efficiently and sustain long-term growth.

Crossjoin is an excellent place to work as it has a culture focused on people, their well-being, growth and development.

At Crossjoin, concern for the employee, their well-being and their development potential starts from the moment they are onboarded. In an interview with Human Resources Portugal, Susana Pires, Senior Consultant in Recruitment, Fidelization and Recognition, explains the main features of the company’s people management, employee feedback and future goals.

What are the main factors that distinguish Crossjoin as a “great place to work”?
Crossjoin stands out from the outset, starting with a distinctive Welcome on Board process, which aims to welcome and orient the new employee. We give them a tour of the centers, introduce them to their new colleagues and give them a welcome kit. We want you to feel at home, involved and interested, so in the course of a conversation, we tell you our story about our culture, conduct, policies, our DNA and present our digital booklet, a brochure that focuses on unraveling the complexities of the company’s mentality, seeking to understand the underlying principles, values and beliefs that guide its actions.

Our Technology Center was created to provide the best experience with excellent working conditions and good equipment, a clean space, built with sustainable materials, which reflects Crossjoin’s identity and values. We’re betting on this location (Almada), with good access and away from the hustle and bustle of traffic.

We also have various benefits, such as a training plan, a health insurance plan that extends to the family, a monthly gym membership offer, a partnership with Mercer as a tax benefit system, annual profit sharing for all employees, bonuses for objectives at Architect level, a network of partners with online pharmacies, opticians, Meo, dentists and restaurants.

We also offer Crossers and their families six consultations a year in five different specialties. On birthdays we send an email to congratulate the colleague and offer a gift certificate. We organize various events so that we can get to know each other better in a more informal setting, such as a Christmas event for Crossers and their families, a summer event with at least two days of socializing, monthly happy hours where we focus on socializing, quarterly Kick-offs with communication from our CEO and heads of the Corporate areas to employees and various solidarity actions every year. We have implemented ISO9001 and ISO27001, promoting the quality and security of information and skills among our employees.

How would you describe the People Management strategy that brought you to this result?
When we talk about people management at Crossjoin, we’re talking about attracting talent, keeping and continually recognizing our people, and investing in their growth and development. It’s essential to surround ourselves with people with the same cultural fit. In addition, training at our CrossMind Academy is essential, as it is during this period that employees get to know our culture, practices and methodologies. Crossjoin’s CEO makes a point of being at the Academy every Friday in order to listen to each new employee and share his or her experience, valuing the practicality of the values, principles, tools and methodologies that make up the teachings of the Academy program.

The alignment of our people is essential for their retention and productivity. At Crossjoin, everyone believes in the purpose of improving people’s lives through technology. They know how to do it, guided by our values and principles. In addition to alignment, Crossers need to feel motivated and challenged. The nature of our business helps here. We are an international company focused on the performance of information systems and we operate in various sectors of activity.

Our Crossers feel constantly challenged to come into contact with multiple technologies, and there is a world of opportunity for them to develop their skills. We don’t follow a hierarchical pyramid model of organization. We are a self-managed company and this makes everyone feel more committed and we are more agile in managing change. We have an informal, collaborative and attractive environment.

What good practices were introduced or strengthened in 2023?
In 2023 we completed the creation of a booklet that delves into the intricate layers of the organization’s mindset. It aims to provide a comprehensive description that will help stakeholders gain a clearer understanding of how the company thinks and operates, ultimately leading to informed decision-making and better alignment within the organization. We talk about our culture, our principles and values, how we regularly challenge the impossible thanks to our methodologies and our team, and how we create time through perfect performance. You’ll also find all the information you need to know to be autonomous at Crossjoin. With sustainability in mind, sustainable water bottles were offered to replace paper cups in the water machines.

On the other hand, what were your biggest challenges last year in terms of people management?
The biggest challenge in people management today is to find effective ways to keep employees in the company, in other words, to retain them. We invest in valuing our professionals: we review the growth strategy every year, defining objectives that will guarantee the career progression of each employee. Involvement in the company’s culture and growth is fundamental for them to feel part of something, and for this we have our quarterly kickoffs which have been improving with a focus on sharing the information needed by everyone.

How have changes in the world of work influenced Crossjoin’s people management practices?
With regard to people management practices, we have been ensuring that employees are prepared to work with new technologies, as well as automating processes so that the company gets the most out of these innovations.

The market is increasingly adopting the remote working policy, so Crossjoin re-evaluates its working policies according to each project and adopts measures to ensure that remote employees are involved, productive and feel connected to the company culture.

With all the changes and demands of the market, it is essential that employees are constantly developing their skills. To this end, we invest in training programs that are defined annually to ensure that everyone is up to date and prepared to face the challenges of the ever-changing world of work.

From the feedback you get from employees, what do they consider essential in a “great place to work”?
There is no doubt that the investment in the training plan established for everyone is recognized as an instrument for career growth, as are the moments of evaluation that provide a better understanding and direction for each person’s career progression.

They also value internal training given by colleagues so that they can learn more about a particular technology developed by their colleague. Another principle we have is “Crosser”, which means that we give colleagues the opportunity to develop different projects and get to know different technologies, so that we can easily adapt to different contexts and learning and evolution are constant.

How is Crossjoin working to maintain or increase this level of employee satisfaction in 2024?
For 2024 we will continue to promote skills development through the training plan and brownbags, allowing employees to develop their careers and feel valued by the company.

Maintaining transparent and open communication with employees is key to increasing job satisfaction. Crossjoin ensures that everyone is well informed about company goals, organizational changes and growth opportunities through our quarterly kickoffs.

We continue to focus on improving benefits and incentives for all Crossers, thus demonstrating Crossjoin’s commitment to looking after everyone’s well-being and success. We also plan to improve our regular feedback programs, continuing to listen to everyone’s needs and concerns, helping and guiding them along the path to good performance. We will continue to recognize and value the performance of all those who meet expectations.

João Modesto
CEO

Crossjoin Solutions, a technology consultancy founded in 2009 in Portugal with 100% national capital, is an international benchmark in the optimization of information systems. We have a strong consolidated presence in the UK, EU, USA and LATAM, and we operate in practically all sectors: telecommunications, finance, insurance, public administration, health, retail, among others. We currently work with more than 30 clients, many of whom we are proud to have worked with for several years.
We strive to be our clients’ favorite IT partner, allowing them to focus on the essentials of running their business. Crossjoin focuses on the optimization and resilience of IT systems, as well as their environment, processes and teams.

Competitive advantage
Our Competence Center is equipped with a team of excellence, with transversal skills that allow us to provide our clients, from any industry sector, with a unique and differentiating service in the certification of IT solutions, in-house or delivered by third parties, ensuring the most competitive operational resilience in any technological stack.

We created the CrossMind Academy, a training center where we focus on training, certifying and retraining our talents, whether they are newcomers or interns.
Pioneers in the information systems optimization approach, we guarantee reduced response times, availability and reliability, for a better end-user experience and, consequently, reduced business costs.

Over the years we have leveraged other areas: Infrastructure (database administration, cloud and applications) and Development (architecture, advice, DevOps and specialized development). In each of these areas, we ensure the respective IT solutions (“Performance in mind, end to end”), which is undoubtedly a competitive advantage, as we deliver results beyond expectations.

What awaits us in 2024
We want to continue to grow globally in new continents and further diversify our presence in new industry sectors, as our offer is transversal. In February we will be attending the Mobile World Congress, recognized as the largest mobile event in the world, which will take place in Barcelona, in order to present success stories and demonstrate the potential advantage of collaboration. We are the only Portuguese company confirmed for the event, and the potential to generate new business converges directly into hiring opportunities and drives additional economic growth for the country.

In 2024 we will reinforce internal investments in innovation with a focus on cybersecurity, observability and exploring the applicability of AI/ML technologies.

We will continue to strengthen the partnerships established with universities, continually aligning ourselves with technology market trends. Internally, we will capitalize on investments in innovation, with the aim of exploring emerging technologies capable of boosting the company’s productivity and significantly improving our services.