Process-oriented reorganisation of product development

The development of new solutions for SAP ERP and S/4HANA and their continuous further development are one of Mercoline's core areas. The requirements for the complex but easy-to-use products are defined by several stakeholders such as customers, sales, portfolio management, SAP consulting and, of course, product development. A clearly defined interaction of all stakeholders ensures a reliable product development process. For this reason, the continuous improvement of processes and their mapping in a powerful system is an important prerequisite for the development of products.

The advantages are obvious: with effective processes, clearly defined roles and responsibilities, there is less friction in the organisation of Mercoline's core business. This makes it much easier to work as a distributed team from anywhere. All team members are integrated into the regular processes and clear communication structures. Problems in the development projects are thus detected earlier.

When reorganising the processes surrounding the development of the products, it was particularly important to Mercoline to simplify the onboarding of new team members. This makes it much easier for new employees to know who has to do what and how. Through extensive process documentation in English, Mercoline was also able to make the project groups much more international - an important prerequisite for distributed work from several locations in the period after the lockdowns.

Regular training of all team members is also particularly important. This creates permanent clarity in the process structures and responsibilities. This increases the adherence to deadlines and the quality of the projects. The team is less stressed as a result and the team spirit is sustained.

Process optimisation and process reliability are subject to continuous further development, as development processes must also withstand regular audits. This creates trust internally and externally with customers, e.g. in the automotive industry or in the pharmaceutical sector. Mercoline can be proud of this.

The decisive goal always remains in focus: the continuous improvement of the quality of the products. In this way, clear development processes lead to more satisfied customers and higher sales.

The main tasks of our product development are managed in a team and consist of the creation of technical rough and fine concepts, the estimation of effort, the subsequent technical rough and fine conception, the implementation documentation, the code review, acceptance tests, quality assurance as well as version completion and rollout of the products.

What are our success factors?

• Permanently existing project groups with specialisation in individual software products
• Teamwork as a normal state of affairs, so that there are no steps that can be managed alone
• Clearly defined processes that are managed and documented with software support (in BCS) by means of templates.
• Regular reviews to follow up on improvement suggestions and transfer them to the continuous improvement process
• An atmosphere that facilitates improvement processes from within, i.e. by the team and for the team, while actively incorporating feedback from our customers
• High level of support from Mercoline management
• Ultimately: all-round willingness to continuously improve processes

Since the reorganisation of the processes in product development, Mercoline is much better prepared for all further developments and much more effective in the further development of its solutions. Together we are looking forward to new challenges with our customers and partners and in a growing team!