Bassier, Bergmann & Kindler (BB&K) is one of Germany’s largest digital media agencies and works with many major brands across much of Europe. Distributed clients means decentralized teams, so BB&K relies on technology for communication, collaboration, and knowledge management to achieve success of over 500 projects each year.
Until recently, BB&K used a home-grown solution to keep teams on the same page and projects delivered on time, but growth introduced complexity, and it was recently evident that a more powerful solution was needed.
BB&K teamed up with SOLVIN, a Microsoft partner certified with the PPM competency, to deploy Project Online in conjunction with SharePoint Online. The solution was up and running quickly, and saved BB&K the costs traditionally associated with deploying new server solutions.
Project Online works with Visio 2013 to implement business process model workflows without writing any code or getting bogged down with technical difficulties. Peter Müller, Senior Project Manager at BB&K, is enthusiastic about these capabilities: "By using these workflow tools, we finally had control over the entire project life cycle from design to management, without the need to invest in a specialized workflow product."
The increasingly global nature of BB&K’s work makes close coordination between geographically dispersed teams a necessity. Teams can use Lync and SharePoint integration to quickly brainstorm and finalize bids, as well as coordinate everyday work to make sure projects come in on time. Team members can access their tasks and share statuses from virtually anywhere and on almost any device with Project Online. Since it’s a cloud solution, BB&K doesn’t have to address the challenges and costs traditionally associated with providing global access to server infrastructure.
By fine-tuning internal processes and boosting collaboration, BB&K sees savings and stays competitive. "We estimate that we’ll be able to decrease project management time by at least 10 percent by using Project Online,” says Dr. Anders Lehr, Senior Project Manager at BB&K. “This will help us create more competitive bids and win more business."
BB&K benefits from better process control, real-time collaboration, and improved knowledge management which results in increased customer satisfaction, according to Dr. Lehr. "On all counts, we give Project Online a triple-A-plus."
Read the BB&K case study for a complete view of the company, the solution, and the benefits BB&K has realized with Project Online.
--Mark Sargeant, Product Marketing Manager, Microsoft Project