The said transport company addresses customers directly with large-scale marketing campaigns. Until now, however, the organization has been complex, as it was carried out in a fragmented application environment. Employees had to carry out individual tasks in various applications and establish specific work routines. This led to a high level of communication costs and error-prone follow-up processes. In addition, controlling and reporting were unnecessarily complex from a commercial point of view and both the planning and approval processes of the group's previous and sub-year campaigns were organization-intensive. The transport specialists wanted a modern, IT-resilient workplace. The aim was to simplify essential intra-group processes and significantly optimize the level of cooperation and respective organization.
Finding a possible solution seemed easy at first, but proved to be rather difficult to implement due to the necessary coordination of significantly different business processes of the transport company: ultimately, it involves a comprehensive management tool that enables individual project planning and marketing budgeting and at the same time is able to sustainably represent the company's corporate structures.
Another central component of the solution is well-thought-out role and identity management for all internal and external employees of the group. This goes hand in hand with a differentiated authorization system. Together with the customer, they worked on a solution that is largely based on Microsoft Dynamics and Microsoft SharePoint: the so-called “Marketing Cockpit.”
The software environment used so far has been completely replaced by the “Marketing Cockpit” (MaCo). The new application environment makes it possible to centralize tasks and intra-group approval and budgeting processes in a uniform manner.
In the long-standing project, Assecor was responsible both for the prototype of the first marketing budgeting tool and for the partial implementation of the overall project. During the development and implementation phase, Assecor also took over the supporting expectation and requirements management in consulting.
“Thank you for your support, I always enjoyed the constructive collaboration. That is not always the case, but MaCo has set new standards here (at least for me) and shows once again that it is always the people who make a successful project. ”
To improve the economic sustainability of the solution, a dynamic training concept was developed for the transportation company in addition to consulting and implementation. The various training courses were specially prepared for the individual needs of users. With that in mind, Assecor designed and carried out training clusters for various applications, including a coherent retraining, throughout Germany. The said clusters correspond to the different learning profiles of the groups of participants and can at the same time easily meet the logistical costs of the company.
In cooperation with the customer and other companies, a solution was developed which combines essential tasks of the “Marketing Cockpit”, such as marketing planning, budget management, data evaluations and action management. The user interface (the dashboard) is easy to customize. It is also possible to have projects mapped in the form of a structure tree. In this way, the “Marketing Cockpit” can be adapted to the needs and requirements, both for individual users and for the team as a whole.
Automated background processes simplify project phases and thus ensure lower latency and associated expenses. In addition, processing times and error rates are reduced because approval processes can be presented clearly and comprehensibly for each individual project. Should clarification or action be required during a project step, the system autonomously provides users with reminder notifications as required.
Since it's not just about approval processes, budget allocations are also an important aspect of the Group's marketing tool. The “marketing cockpit” enables a high level of transparency regarding the joint financing of campaigns. The financing of campaigns by several parties and their budget commitments can be followed smoothly and comprehensively.
All in all, this means that expenses are reduced, processes are accelerated and quality is significantly improved. In addition to optimized internal cooperation, external partners and service providers can also access the system with their own profile. On the one hand, this shortens response and processing times, and on the other hand, budgeting and approval processes are massively simplified. With a sophisticated training concept and first-level support, Assecor ensures the sustainability and longevity of the offered solution.
