Watches of Switzerland gains more time back to drive business change by automating processes
Overview
Valuable time given back to time valuables company
Watches of Switzerland lost precious time fixing errors and engaging in lengthy manual tasks which distracted from strategic business goals. WoS chose an SAP change transformation to automate key processes drastically sped up core requirements and enabling WoS to enjoy faster time to value.
ActiveControl has been critical in making sure teammates get to the projects that deliver the greatest value, while protecting critical business systems from costly human error.
Dave Webb
SAP Development Lead
Challenge
Time for a change
When Dave Webb joined Watches of Switzerland, he wasn’t expecting manual ways of working and complex approval chains. Teams spent all their time following convoluted compliance and governance processes, which caused communication and workflow breakdowns. The company’s consecutive approach to development meant errors were caught only after work was completed, meaning more time away from value-add activities to fix breaks.
Stepping up as a change management hero, Dave owned his company’s SAP transformation and enlisted Basis Technologies and its integrated Jira/ActiveControl solution to reduce manual burdens across the organization.
Solution
From red tickets to green ticks
With Jira, Dave helped centralize business requests to de-silo information and create a transparent, single source of truth. ActiveControl recorded the movements and approvals for every SAP change and provided 70+ automated analyzers to help developers speed up their workload.
Besides connecting tickets to outcomes to create an end-to-end delivery pipeline, Dave introduced a “shift left” methodology to implement testing earlier into development, redirecting development towards a parallel approach to enable continuous improvements rather than making changes after execution.
“Building the business case was the easy part”, Dave told us. The hard part? Holding the wheel so teams could learn to let go of legacy systems and embrace the benefits of change management.
Outcome
From six weeks to five minutes
But embrace change they did. Audits and compliance processes dropped from six weeks to five minutes with virtually 100% reliable reports. Dave notes: “The team’s skills have been redirected toward projects with greater business benefits, and costs are no longer tied directly to audits and compliance.”
Automated software testing catches errors earlier, reducing rework by 90%. Post-production errors can be fixed with ActiveControl’s “BackOut” – an emergency undo button for SAP changes.
ActiveControl and Jira integration streamlined change solutions across the business, giving Watches of Switzerland better control and visibility to drive business transformation.
ActiveControl
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ActiveControl from Basis Technologies automates end-to-end SAP change and release processes to reduce manual effort and minimize downtime.
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