Understanding process-oriented reorganization as an opportunity

As a provider of self-developed extension solutions for S/4HANA and SAP ERP, Mercoline has relied on a powerful and agile product development team for many years. The increasing complexity in the IT environment and the requirements of its SAP customers require the constant improvement and reorganization of processes as well as their mapping in a central project management software. We would like to find out why this is not only a challenge, but also a very exciting task in an interview with Robert Ziegler, Head of Solution Development, and Ella Funke, Student of computer science

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Hello Ella, hello Robert, congratulations once again on winning the 2022 Process Solution Award from the Society for Organization, or GfO for short. What did Mercoline receive this award for?

Ella Funke: We, Mercoline, won this award in cooperation with the company Projektron. Projektron is the manufacturer of the project management software BCS, which Mercoline has been actively using for many years and has integrated into a wide range of company processes. We received the award from GfO for our submitted contribution in the category "Process-oriented reorganization, process optimization, process mining, process control". A big thank you for the very good cooperation goes from our side to Projektron and to the GfO for the wonderful award ceremony!

Congratulations on the award. Can you briefly explain what it was all about?

Ella Funke: The focus of the entry was on the relaunch of Mercoline's development process. The goal was to establish a process-oriented solution at Mercoline that supports the continuous improvement of the development process. The BCS software, in which all processes and planning steps will be mapped in the future, is also helping us here. This also made it much easier to exploit organizational potential as well as quality and team-related improvement potential.

Ella, you are currently still a student of computer science, but you have already been very active in the reorganization of processes at Mercoline: What did you particularly like about this task?

Ella Funke: That's actually hard to say, because there were many interesting aspects. Since I am very interested in quality assurance by nature, this aspect was of course the most interesting for me. I also really enjoyed the in-depth and extensive familiarization with the development process, as it allowed me to learn a lot of new things. However, I think the best thing about the task was the positive reaction of the team at the end. It was very well received, both by my existing colleagues and by the new employees.

What has improved most for employees in their day-to-day work as a result of the reorganization?

Ella Funke: Today, working in distributed teams from anywhere is much easier. This is due in particular to the integration of all team members into the regular processes and clear communication structures. It also means that problems in development projects can be identified and resolved earlier. This makes the work a lot more pleasant.

Robert Ziegler: Corona naturally presented us with special challenges. We had to switch to mobile working very quickly. We immediately took this as an opportunity to make our development team a virtual team. This also meant that we could be much more open in our search for talent outside of Berlin. Here we were very successful. At the same time, there was a need to integrate our distributed colleagues into the processes. We achieved this by clarifying our processes, roles and responsibilities, and not least by mapping them in our BCS project management system.

How have the teams at Mercoline reacted to the restructuring and the associated process changes?

Ella Funke: Very positively. The transparency of the processes was particularly praised. In addition, the changes have led to better focus and more teamwork. The only negative comment was that the process has changed a lot and therefore had to be acclimated first. In addition, the documentation effort has increased. However, since this has had many positive effects, such as improving onboarding, the feedback can still be rated as very positive.

Robert Ziegler: We get very positive feedback from our colleagues. New colleagues in particular praise the clear processes, also in comparison to other companies. They know exactly what their tasks are and where they can contribute. This has had a very positive effect on teamwork and commitment to each other. The degree of self-organization has also increased significantly.

The development team at Mercoline has grown in recent years, especially internationally. How do these processes help you?

Robert Ziegler: Today, we have international team members who speak English exclusively. English documentation and the improved onboarding process make it much easier for us to integrate our colleagues into our projects. We are also very proud of this. There is one more aspect I would like to point out. We are very happy to be part of DATAGROUP with over 3000 colleagues. The joint work on projects, also internationally, with at the same time low travel activities has only become possible through today's virtual teams.

Reorganization is always an ongoing process. Where do things go from here at Mercoline?

Robert Ziegler: So far, we have concentrated very much on the development team. We want to roll that out to other areas. For example, there are similar issues in product management that we want to clarify. The cross-team processes in particular are also to be improved in the future in order to avoid process breaks.

What are the lessons learned for the future?

Robert Ziegler: It is very important that we see ourselves as a process-oriented company. This also means that we implement the processes relentlessly and regularly check them for potential improvements. When rolling out to other teams, it is important to involve all colleagues and to take any reservations or fears seriously. If we succeed in this, I believe we will be in a very good position.

Thank you very much for the very interesting interview, and I wish you continued success.