Quickly valued and integrated into structures
Success Story SoftconCIS
The use of the Projektron BCS software has developed into a self-runner for which support has only very rarely had to be called upon since its introduction in 2014 – that speaks for itself.
We, SoftconCIS, have been a provider of intelligent information systems for purchasing since 1997 with the cloud-based best-of-breed solution, WebCIS 4.0. SoftconCIS is the only market player to combine intelligent and sophisticated software with more than 400 key figures and dashboards, ready-made interfaces, expertise/consulting and hosting in our own certified German data centre with further training.
Our team of 40 employees at two locations serves more than 400 customers of different sizes and industries as well as more than 10,000 users worldwide, who value us as a leading provider of information systems for purchasing controlling and efficiency-optimised strategic purchasing.
We see ourselves as a partner to our customers and support the introduction and use of our software solution through our own project management department.
Need for project management software
As the company grew, so did the need for project management software that structures processes uniformly, defines responsibilities and visualises the course of the project.
According to the different requirements of our customers, the available resources on both sides and the complexity of the software connection, the project durations fluctuate between three and twelve months. This applies to both the implementation of our software solution for new customers and the extensive support of our existing customers, as this does not flatten out due to the constant further development of our software and newly defined customer requirements, and project management has thus grown to become an important link to the customer.
It was therefore all the more important for us to introduce a reliable project management software that provides us with optimal support across departments in both the operational and strategic business areas and can be adapted to our requirements through additional modules.
Change of perspective from software provider to software search
So we changed sides in this context, from software provider to software seeker – a completely new perspective. We defined our requirements based on a business process analysis:
Over the last few years, the company has grown considerably in terms of the number of employees, locations and customers served, as well as in the range of services offered. However, the internal process organisation has not been able to keep up with the rapid growth of the company, which has been reflected mainly in a loss of process efficiency and ineffective communication channels. Day-to-day business was often quite unstructured. E-mails dealt with so many different topics that it was difficult to assign correspondence, results and responsibilities to explicit projects.
Substituting for colleagues during absences was almost impossible without lengthy training. The departments in the company followed their own process and organisational structures, which made cross-team cooperation much more difficult. An important point, the communication and documentation of the project's progress, took place through different channels and was by no means completely traceable.
A solution therefore had to be found for reliable project management as well as the control and tracking of tasks and responsibilities. In order not to jeopardise our own core business, we decided against in-house programming and started the search for a provider in the field of project management.
Requirements for Projektron BCS
We were looking for a solution that adapts to our requirements and, above all, gives us a lot of freedom in designing our workflows so that we can still support our processes pragmatically in the future.
Particularly relevant was the requirement to be in direct contact with customers via the software and to be able to actively integrate them into the processes of the project process. In this way, an optimisation of productivity and efficiency could be achieved. Now we no longer have to resort to the old communication channels of e-mail and telephone without documentation.
So it is obvious that Projektron BCS, with its comprehensive module-based range of services, was shortlisted and, after a convincing test phase and professional consultations, became our partner in project management in 2014.
Projektron BCS was quickly appreciated and integrated into structures
This project management software gives us the possibility to facilitate many processes, even far away from the actual project management as we practise it. But let's consider this part first.
After an extensive familiarisation phase and the targeted training of the core users, the software was quickly appreciated and continuously integrated into the existing structures in project management and, by means of the extensive range of functions, new ways were found to work more efficiently and save time. The storage of project plans, the management of tickets, the creation of tasks and the booking of expenses to compare target and actual project times are only a small selection of the advantages that became apparent after only a short time of using Projektron BCS.
As a result, the software was quickly used across departments and all employees were given access that could be individually adapted to the job and the associated tasks through different user roles and rights. Within a few months, Projektron BCS became a daily companion in all departments and a central structural element in the company.
The management of the new and existing customer base was integrated into the software, the preparation of quotations and the receipt of orders are handled and documented via the software and the software also proved to be a useful tool as a controlling instrument.
Likewise, the software facilitates the process of applying for leave and offers expense management. This is just a handful of the extensive range of services that we value in Projektron BCS and would no longer want to do without.
Projektron BCS is a valuable support
The use of the project management software makes a significant contribution to the optimisation of our processes, provides the desired communication option with the customer, records processes in a comprehensible way and thus offers an optimal basis for documenting the course of the project.
Using the setting options of the "Personal Overview" view, the daily tasks, deadlines, tickets, etc. can be clearly displayed in order to work more efficiently and to assign urgencies to the responsible person in a short way. In this way, the speed can be increased, especially in the area of ticket processing, and the transparency in the workflow can be increased.
The use of Projektron BCS has proven to be a valuable support across departments. Due to the intuitive usability, new employees can work independently with the tool after a short training phase. In addition, the experience of colleagues and their tips are helpful. In this way, the use of the software has become a matter of course, for which we have only very rarely needed support in the eight years of our cooperation with Projektron BCS - that speaks for itself.
