Optimised customer service with Projektron BCS
Success story from Das Büro am Draht Software-Entwicklung GmbH
Since 2016, Projektron BCS has enabled us to map all project variants in our individual customer business in such a way that we can always keep an eye on our figures despite a wide variety of constellations. The software accompanies every project from acquisition to invoicing and forms the basis of an important part of our daily work.
Software development in Berlin-Kreuzberg
Büro am Draht is a Berlin-based digital service provider. With experts in consulting and realisation, we work with our clients in every phase of the digital transformation process - from strategy to the design and development of solutions, right through to operational implementation.
By taking a consistently agile approach to developing adaptable and scalable solutions, our clients are able to deliver personalised customer experiences at all times.
Since 1996, we have been working for medium-sized companies as well as global corporations, flexibly adapting our processes to the requirements of each project.
Our teams rely on a balanced mix of experienced developers and architects as well as young talent, always with an eye on current and future relevant technologies.
Optimisation of customer service: Decision for Projektron BCS
Following an in-depth market analysis, we decided in favour of Projektron BCS as our project management tool back in 2016, having previously used a time recording system based on MS Excel.
At that time, against the background of the growing number of customers and, above all, projects, the focus was on greater standardisation in planning, project support and processing in the project cycle, as well as simplifying handling for all colleagues in scaling business transactions.
Our project business is highly dependent on finding customised solutions with our customers. Rigid specifications, also in terms of project management, are a hindrance here.
The decisive factor in our decision in favour of BCS was therefore not only the excellent technical and personal support from the outset and the proximity between Projektron and our location in Kreuzberg, but also other important content-related criteria such as the connection options to central customer systems or the flexible configuration of the system through to individual customisation down to a high level of detail.
Functional iterative software implementation
We decided in favour of a functionally iterative software introduction. At the start, time recording was introduced in Projektron BCS on the basis of differentiated tasks. The changeover from the previously used system took place without any problems and very quickly thanks to workshops held in advance and previous training courses.
With the existing bookings, monitoring was basically only one step away, which was then also taken at the same time, sensibly together with the planning of new projects in BCS. For this purpose, there were separate project manager training courses and a test area in which the system and its possibilities could be tried out.
Development into an internally centralised tool
Gradually, a differentiated controlling and reporting system was developed, including the mapping of invoicing in the system.
On the way to becoming a central internal tool, the software has been repeatedly adapted to our needs and optimised for our project management purposes, always with a view to recording and mapping time and monetary flows together and in a conditional manner.
The current focus is on improving capacity mapping, differentiated cost analysis through more consistent use of task options and optimisation of roles, rights and licence coordination in order to adapt costs to changing circumstances.
Conclusion: daily tools and success factor
Projektron BCS has not only accompanied all of our company's developments in recent years, but has also been an important starting point and database for retrospective analyses in many places. Forecasts and evaluations of offers are also regularly incorporated into the development forecasts.
At the same time, the system is of course a daily tool for every colleague and the importance of timely and complete time bookings for project success and invoicing is clear.
Of course, there are always points of friction at this point, because the level of detail in which the work can be mapped depends on the need to provide evidence to our customers, but also on the structure of the respective project management and does not always coincide with the ideas of the development teams, even when working on a ticket basis.
These challenges apply to every time recording system and are a recurring topic of discussion. To simplify matters, the company has even developed a so-called "booking adapter" and a "booking checker" to further reduce potential usage thresholds.
In addition to providing a basis for analyses of the company's development and time recording for all employees, BCS offers our project managers in particular all the options for structuring the project process. They work closely with Controlling, especially in order to improve or develop new standards.
On the other hand, the freedom and wide range of options also harbours the risk of overstretching the complexity or shaping the individuality of project handling in such a way that a company-wide, uniform overall view can sometimes be impaired. As is so often the case, it is important to maintain a balance.
Our goal for the future is to continue to use BCS to put our company in an increasingly better position to optimise our projects and keep the workload for our bookers as low as possible.
