Resources under control thanks to BCS
Success story from Stämpfli AG
Thanks to Projektron BCS, we have control over our resources and the work at hand. We are very satisfied with the performance of BCS and see it as an indispensable tool for the execution of our projects.
Tradition and modernity – Stämpfli Kommunikation
As a long-standing family business, Stämpfli combines communication, tradition and modernity. Six generations have already successfully managed the company and developed it further in the interests of its employees and shareholders. Stämpfli Kommunikation, with over 300 specialists from all areas of communication, stands for excellent advice in brand design, communication and process design: for holistic, focused and implementation-strong action, for leading solutions in networked communication, for the production and communication of printed and interactive media - and for the highest quality of service.
Stämpfli Kommunikation provides the following services in different service areas:
Communications agency: Consulting, design and realisation of communication projects, including marketing communication, communication design, integrated communication, brand management and design, media planning and marketing as well as planning and implementation of communication campaigns.
Digital media: conception and implementation of digital communication as well as preparation and creation of media content. This includes language services (proofreading, editing and translations), image editing, layout creation, web design, web magazines, data management and photography.
Print media: Handling of the entire printing process (digital and offset printing) including consulting, data processing, pre-press, print production, bookbinding (cutting, folding, stitching, gluing and binding), foiling and packaging as well as dispatch preparation.
Trade media: Services for media marketing and for association communication, including event management, media planning and marketing (including ad sales for trade journals).
Improve your own work processes through software
We, the company Stämpfli AG in Bern, decided in 2016 to use a project management software to improve our workflows in project handling and make them more efficient. As a full-service agency in the field of communication, we manage a large number of client projects that are highly complex and require close coordination between different departments.
Project management software should allow us to plan, coordinate and monitor the different phases of a project. Tasks should be able to be delegated and prioritised to ensure that everyone involved in the project is on the same page and working on time. Resource planning should also be supported by the software by recording working hours and controlling efforts.
In addition, the project management software should offer a central database in which all relevant information about a project - from the quotation to the invoice - can be stored. This facilitates communication and cooperation between the different departments and ensures that important information is always available. The software should help us to identify and solve bottlenecks and problems at an early stage.
In summary, the need for effective and efficient planning and control of projects as well as improved cooperation between the departments involved should be covered. This should achieve the goal of completing projects faster and more cost-effectively.
BCS convinces with broad functionality
Our first contact with Projektron GmbH came about in the course of a comprehensive search for a suitable tool to improve our workflows. We dealt intensively with various providers and their offers and, after extensive workshops and product demos, ultimately identified Projektron BCS as the best solution for our needs.
What ultimately convinced us was, above all, the broad functionality and flexibility of BCS as well as the possibility to customise the software to our individual requirements. This was particularly important for us because we cover a wide range of very different services in our company and have correspondingly diverse processes and organisations that we need to map in terms of system technology. Another important point was the connectivity to our other business applications, including our CRM (MS Dynamics) and our ERP system. These systems could be connected through customised interfaces.
Phased introduction of BCS
The introduction of BCS started in 2017 and was positive overall. For certain service areas of Stämpfli AG it was a new introduction, for others it was the replacement of another, existing project management solution.
The introduction took place over a period of about one year. The software was introduced in stages in the individual service areas. We were intensively supported by Projektron during the implementation and received ongoing support to make the most of the software's potential. In doing so, we concentrated on the core functions that seemed most important to us, such as project planning, control and monitoring as well as the creation of invoices.
Plan, control and handle projects with BCS
We currently use Projektron BCS to plan, control and handle our projects in the service area. The software is used by all service areas that provide services in the market.
One of the most important functions we currently use is project planning and execution. With BCS, we can manage projects from start to finish, delegate tasks and schedule people and teams. This helps us to ensure that we always have enough staff available for our projects. We can also control the workload of our employees and avoid bottlenecks and overloads. Our employees record their efforts on the corresponding projects/tasks. This effort recording enables us to invoice our services in Projektron. The invoices are created directly in Projektron BCS and transferred via interface to our ERP system and our financial accounting software.
Another important function is working time and absence management. With Projektron BCS, we can record and manage the working hours and absences (holidays and illnesses, etc.) of our employees. This data also flows into our ERP system and is used there by our payroll accounting and human resources.
An essential feature of BCS for us is reporting. The software allows us to create and analyse various reports to monitor and evaluate the performance of our projects. For example, we can track the progress of projects, monitor resource consumption and check the status of individual tasks. The data from BCS allows us to forecast workload, which enables us to see the planned utilisation of resources based on the projects' effort plans.
In general, using Projektron BCS enables us to plan and manage our projects effectively and efficiently. The software simplifies cooperation between the different service areas and provides the project manager with a full overview of the costs and expenses incurred as well as the income already generated.
Conclusion and outlook
We are still satisfied with Projektron BCS more than five years after its introduction. The software has enabled us to plan and execute our projects across divisions, to identify and solve bottlenecks and problems, and to ensure cooperation between the service areas involved.
Thanks to BCS, we have control over our resources and the work at hand. We also have control over our resources and can measure the productivity of our staff by being able to record and evaluate their working hours and performance reports.
In the future, we plan to continue to explore and implement new functions and features of the software, as we have done continuously in the past. Projektron provides us with the best support in each case, such as with the challenging introduction of the Swiss QR Invoice 2022.
