BCS as the answer for a constantly growing company
Success story from x-tention Informationstechnologie GmbH
As a successful IT company, x-tention has been developing continuously since its foundation in 2001. Our most important planning and time recording tool is Projektron BCS. The software shines in projects and large-scale projects and supports our internal company processes.
x-tention - Digitalisation expert in the healthcare & social services sector
As a successful IT company, x-tention has been developing continuously since it was founded in 2001. At the beginning, the team headed by Managing Director Herbert Stöger comprised seven employees. Specialised services and constantly growing expertise in the health and social care sector have enabled x-tention to establish itself as one of the market leaders for medical data exchange.
The x-tention group of companies offers its own complete IT solutions for digital data exchange. Our services include a wide range of consulting services, system integration, software development and implementation as well as the operation of data centres and applications.
The x-tention group of companies includes x-tention Informationstechnologie GmbH, FAKTOR D consulting GmbH and it for industries GmbH. At locations in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the UK and the USA, over 700 qualified employees support more than 1,000 satisfied customers worldwide.
More and more employees - more and more projects
As a group of companies and as a company, we at x-tention have an internal project standard that we want to adhere to.
Before Projektron BCS, we used Microsoft Office tools to implement all types of project plans. Project time recording was carried out using a separate tool.
In recent years, we have grown considerably as x-tention with currently 14 locations in five countries. This not only presented us with the challenge of the size and complexity of the projects, but also the need to create a standardised way of working across countries and locations.
Not only did we need a different tool for project planning, coordination and management, but we also needed a tool for project time recording as the basis for invoicing.
In order for the new tool to be used efficiently, it had to have interfaces for various other x-tention tools or be easily expandable and customisable to ensure the necessary communication in all areas.
And suddenly it was there
We had our first contact with Projektron BCS in the course of a large project. The project team consisted of around 60 people, two internal x-tention business units and two partner organisations. In the course of this project, Projektron BCS was initially procured for a limited period of time. This allowed us to test many functions for compatibility with our internal processes and the added value of a centralised platform became apparent.
We started with typical project management functions such as the effort plan (resource management), schedule, structure plan, interface to JIRA (Projektron BCS, own interface), project time recording for all employees involved, regardless of their parent organisation, and progress reports.
Many workflows and processes could be organised very efficiently, especially in connection with different areas and companies - particularly in virtual project teams with a high degree of geographical distribution.
Based on this experience, it was decided to use Projektron BCS for the entire x-tention. The introduction took place as a separate project and was carried out simultaneously in the different locations.
The project was introduced in two phases: Phase 1 Roll-out of Projektron BCS itself and establishment as the leading central tool in project management (replacement of MS Office tools for PM as well as replacement of the previous project time recording system) and establishment of the most important interfaces to other x-tention tools.
Between the phases, we took a one-year break to train the employees in Projektron BCS and to incorporate enhancements and customisations.
In phase 2, BCS was customised, the functions expanded and adapted to x-tention workflows and processes. The introduction of the new functions was accompanied by internal training and increased the integration of BCS with regard to analyses of KPIs for our ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certifications.
Our favourites
x-tention specialises in IT services for the health and social services sector.
Due to the different requirements of our customers and the different products in use, no two projects are the same. However, in order to effectively support existing customers, we have created a process for project-like tasks that require little Projektron BCS functionality but are an essential part of our work.
Projektron BCS shines in projects and large-scale projects. BCS is our main tool when it comes to project time recording, which serves as the basis for invoicing. Subsequently, the BCS functions responsible for analysing KPIS (inTime, inBudget, inScope) are also used. These KPIs are used for certifications, for example.
In addition, we generally use those BCS functions that are required for the creation of IPMA-compliant project manuals. These include, for example, project management tools such as file storage, the structure plan, resource planning, project status, risks and opportunities and target definition.
As a secondary function, we often use the role management of employees and partners as well as the resource utilisation of our employees.
Conclusion
The scope that we have been using so far already supports our company guidelines and processes quite well, but BCS has an incredibly wide range of functions and in future we want to select this range of functions in such a way that the company guidelines and processes are supported even better.
We want to link BCS even more with other x-tention internal tools via additional interfaces.
Portfolio management evaluation, evaluating the introduction of information management at management level and mapping the skills of employees.
