Driving development through process improvement

“bbv is the ideal partner for designing and implementing company-wide changes: analytical, inclusive, holistic, efficient and effective”

Dr Dominik Franke, Chief Information Technology Officer (CITO), Member of the Executive Board of APG|SGA AG

bbv developed a pragmatic and streamlined governance solution for process management for the outdoor advertising specialist APG|SGA AG – aimed at improving and automating processes. The streamlining of processes across all departments allowed the company to increase efficiency and improve productivity.

Approach and assessment of current situation

In an initiative prior to implementation, bbv experts came together with the AGP|SGA team to jointly investigate the need for new process management governance. This also focused on analysing existing roles and collaboration models. A comprehensive analysis of the existing process model was carried out in the first phase, with the second phase then involving the bbv experts developing three solution variants as a decision-making basis for management, before finally presenting possible new process governance versions in the third phase.

Following the top level decision to reshape process management, bbv set out in the fourth phase to develop a new structure of governance for managing processes. This included process methodology with modelling conventions according to the BPMN 2.0 standard, the introduction of ARIS Advanced as a company-wide process tooling solution as well as a simplified role and collaboration model between the specialist departments and the IT department.  During process modelling, the customer was therefore able at an early stage, for example, to identify opportunities for improvement in the “Campaign planning and concept development” process and implement these directly in the existing processes.

Implementation

At the beginning of the implementation project, bbv presented the department heads with a newly developed process map, which was clearly structured into management, core and support processes. “The focus was clearly on value-adding processes – something that was very well received by employees”, says Patrick Bellini, Project Manager at bbv. The clear and practical presentation shows the direct added value as well as specific optimisation potential. This motivated the specialist departments to actively scrutinise and model their existing processes and implement improvements immediately.

The solution

APG|SGA introduced the company-wide ARIS Advanced process platform under the direction of bbv – including some 80 newly defined value-adding business, work and corporate processes. Just three months after the project was launched, the team had already provided training for employees in the new processes and implemented the first concrete improvements.

To ensure ongoing improvement within the company in the long term, the bbv experts developed a process development matrix based on the CMMI model. The current and target status as regards maturity, automation potential and cost-effectiveness was analysed for all value-adding processes. A corresponding matrix forms the foundation for targeted further development through process consolidation, automation and the introduction of self-service solutions – and thus creates a clearly structured framework for sustained efficiency gains.

Added value for APG|SGA AG

• Identification of all value-adding processes: Establishment of the process map among all APG|SGA employees, while identifying all value-adding and revenue-generating processes.
• Visibility for realising economies of scale: The establishment of a company-wide process architecture with uniform modelling conventions along with the use of standardised process modelling according to BPMN 2.0 allows economies of scale to be identified in similar standard processes.
• Online availability of all processes: The new ARIS Advanced process tooling solution provides all APG|SGA employees with anytime access to the latest processes in their required business context. This eliminates the need for additional process documentation.
• Harmonisation in the change management process: The use of uniform roles and committees standardises the development and prioritisation of business and IT changes on an interdisciplinary basis and enables effective and efficient implementation in IT.
• Promotion of corporate development: The use of uniform metrics makes it possible for APG|SGA to identify and control cross-department optimisation potential in order to consolidate and automate its processes and implement self-service cases.

Our services in the project