Software deployment on a grand scale
Case study by apsolut
The apsolut Group focuses on optimizing business processes for strategic and operational purchasing and is a long-standing partner of SAP SE for SAP SRM. apsolut also implements new implementation & transformation projects in the area of SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management. Its customers are medium-sized and large companies. From process mining and design to the implementation of software solutions that optimize existing business processes, our customers get everything from a single source - just like we do at Projektron.
Since its founding in 2005, apsolut has worked with more than 250 multinational corporations and medium-sized companies. apsolut stands for high-end expertise in the areas of SAP SRM, SAP Ariba & SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management and, as an SAP Silver Partner and "Global Strategic Service Partner" of Ariba, is one of the leading consulting companies in this field.
Our customers include well-known names such as Continental or s.Oliver in the same way as medium-sized and regional companies.
The projects range from the development of a digitization strategy to the implementation of strategic control and management of supplier relationships to the adaptation of existing processes through standardized apsolut solution add-ons & individual software developments. In the process, our locations in China, the UK, Spain, India, Austria, and Germany, with a total of over 300 employees, cooperate closely with each other. We offer everything from workshops with just a few days' effort to system integrations and global rollouts with several months' preparation time.
Decision making Project management tool
This size requires, among other things, standardized processes next to individual solutions, knowledge transfer next to project evaluation and mature planning next to spontaneous flexibility. Therefore we were looking for a software that not only responds flexibly and spontaneously to the surprises of everyday work but can also stand as a fundamental basis for our business.
In 2008 we switched from MS Excel and MS Project to a new business coordination software to guarantee consistent quality with an increasing number of projects. Our goal was to be able to implement time recording as well as project planning and finally invoicing with only one tool. The transfer of files and the tedious sending of lists and tables by mail should be replaced by a web-based and central software, which not only offers more comfort and is more sustainable for the evaluations and planning, but also saves important time. For these reasons, we decided on Projektron BCS.
15 years of apsolut with Projektron
Over the last 15 years, apsolut has continued to grow and, with the steadily increasing number of branches in Germany and abroad, larger projects and more complex system landscapes on the customer side, the number of employees has also increased. This has resulted in new challenges for the software used, and new areas have emerged that are playing an increasingly important role.
Not only the time recording of employee hours but also the evaluation of times according to cost centers and cost units as a basis for portfolio management moved into our focus. Expense recording had to be internationalized from a pure Eurozone solution and should reflect the travels of all colleagues from each currency zone. Internal departments were to switch from disorganized email correspondence to ticket systems in order to prioritize tasks more precisely and document the know-how gained. For planning and evaluation of resource utilization, it should also be possible to map the following factors: flexibly shifting annual vacation dates of the Spanish and Indian branches, offered projects with probability and project categories.
Flexible software that can be used in any environment, if necessary, and that offers every employee a first reliable point of contact for their daily work was required.
Projektron BCS offered elementary advantages right from the start in order to follow this path together: With a mobile view on the end devices of the users and the low client-side requirement of a common browser, as well as the possibility to use a mobile app for time recording, an important advantage for the acceptance of our employees is given. We were already using the expense tracking in the same system and were able to internationalize it with the help of the multi-currency capability module to map travel to and from branches and customers in every corner of the world.
Projektron's configuration options made it possible to quickly adapt the invoice number ranges to the prevailing differentiated financial years of the subsidiaries. On the one hand, this offers the possibility to share such functionalities and to extend standardized processes globally. On the other hand, the configuration options also make it possible to implement necessary delimitations of viewing rights. Every department, every project and every employee should be able to be handled by a software solution from a single source.
High adaptability for global rollout
The extensive use of one and the same software in the entire company led to some customer-specific adaptations which could be carried out partly by the support and partly by ourselves.
Employees developed wishes and ideas for optimizing their regular tasks through lively feedback, and so over time we implemented, among other things, training catalogs including planning options, integrated an inventory of hardware resources, adapted the invoice reports and performance records for the different locations, expanded resource utilization to include project categories and clear value summaries, expanded portfolio management to include group-specific billing options, and added a reference marketing extension. Projektron accompanied us on this journey through a high degree of adaptability and the possibility of expansion.
The discussed purchase of further software to map individual requirements was often replaced by the evaluation and introduction of a module already integrated in Projektron. Most recently, this happened in mid-2017 when we expanded our BCS license volume to include licenses for contract management and have since been able to gain an overview of the historically grown contract documents through targeted contract management.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we can look back on a long shared history with Projektron in which we have always been offered a satisfactory solution from a single source, despite, or perhaps because of, the frequently mutating requirements and constantly growing volume, while at the same time allowing us the freedom to contribute to changes ourselves. For us, this has meant for some time that we always first evaluate the feasibility of implementation in Projektron. Accordingly, we will introduce further modules in the future, such as quotation creation, workflows with BPMN or the maintenance and evaluation of material costs with Projektron.
