Omnichannel efficiency: How Bee360 supports the Witt Group in managing its IT organization

Overview

About Witt

Tradition meets modernity: Witt Group combines catalog and online retail

In a digital world dominated by e-commerce and online shopping, the Witt Group proves that tradition and modernity can successfully coexist. The international fashion and textile specialist for the over 50 target group continues to rely on traditional catalog mail order while at the same time continuously expanding its digital sales channels. The catalogs, which are perfectly tailored to the target group, are sent to 21.2 million customers worldwide. All processes, from product selection and catalog design to printing and paper purchasing, are mapped internally.

The Group currently operates eight brands in ten countries, including the Witt brand (formerly WITT WEIDEN), which was founded in 1907, as well as 20 online stores. The brand heine has been part of the Witt Group since the end of 2019. Around 3,700 employees work for the fashion and textile retailer.

Starting Position

IT organizational management for better integration of sales channels

In order to ensure the linking of traditional and digital sales channels in the fast-moving fashion world, and to make it efficient and customer-oriented, the Witt Group was looking for a software solution for IT organization management. "In the past, the management of the IT organization was characterized by the manual collection of data from sources such as SAP-FI and self-developed Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems as well as Excel-based processes. Information was often collected on demand. This led to a lot of effort and little transparency," explains Dr. Markus Kress, Head of EAM at the Witt Group.

"Our aim was to use a suitable IT solution to quickly and easily obtain a clear view of all relevant aspects of IT and their contribution to business success. On the other hand, we wanted to improve the strategic alignment and integration of IT activities with the business objectives and create transparency regarding costs and resources."

"Our aim was to use a suitable IT solution to quickly and easily establish a clear view of all relevant aspects of IT and their contribution to business success."Dr. Markus Kress, Head of Enterprise Architecture Management, Witt Group

Evaluation

Bee360 as a partner for change

The omnichannel textile retailer became aware of Bee360 through a customer reference and the Gartner Market Guide.

The evaluation went through several important milestones that formed the basis for the decision. First, the team defined its requirements independently of specific tools and then compared the functionalities of Bee360 with competing products in the areas of IT financial management, enterprise architecture and portfolio management. Workshops and deep dives on IT financial management and a detailed analysis of the enterprise architecture and portfolios followed in order to clarify the specific requirements for the implementation.

This structured approach enabled the Witt Group to see Bee360 not just as a technology solution, but as a partner in the transformation process.

According to Dr. Kress, the holistic approach of the solution was particularly interesting: "We had started to implement an Enterprise Architecture (EA) platform in the past. However, this was never anchored in such a way that it was permanently maintained and the added value was really used. The prospect of using Bee360 as a holistic solution to enable both a leaner service catalog and transparency regarding costs and resources as well as an effective enterprise architecture and to provide the relevant stakeholders with information relevant to management was correspondingly promising".

In a total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis, Bee360 also convinced the Witt Group that it is more cost-effective in the long term than a combination of different best-of-breed solutions for the fashion retailer's various requirements.

"Bee360 offers us a holistic view of the whole with maximum transparency from different angles in one place."Dr. Markus Kress, Head of Enterprise Architecture Management, Witt Group

"We chose to implement Bee360 to effectively manage our transformation program and meet our need for cost transparency, high quality reporting and up-to-date enterprise architecture data."Dr. Markus Kress, Head of Enterprise Architecture Management, Witt Group

Solution: Bee360

Successful transformation: technology and change

The project was implemented in two phases over a period of nine months. In the first phase, the focus was on creating a functional control basis, cost transparency and enterprise architecture management as the basis for improved business & IT alignment. The objectives defined for the second phase were holistic IT management, further optimization of business & IT alignment, maintaining a lean tool landscape and effective resource and cost control.

During the implementation of Bee360, the focus was not just on mapping existing processes, but on critically re-evaluating and adapting them to standardized, industry best practices that are both future-proof and innovative.

"It was important to us not just to automate, but to really optimize our processes and align them with our increased online and omnichannel focus without neglecting our catalog business," says Dr. Markus Kress. "Bee360's experience and professional project management contributed significantly to our success. The necessary flexibility and balance was always maintained in order to meet the specific requirements of our company. The working atmosphere was not only goal-oriented and characterized by professional competence, but also extremely friendly and pleasant on an interpersonal level.

This proved to be extremely valuable, particularly in the target group-oriented training sessions and discussions, in order to actively involve IT and controlling employees in the change process and convey the added value of IT to them."

"Bee360 is making an important contribution to the Witt Group's transformation process into a modern omnichannel fashion retailer [...]"Ralf Bosch, Chief Information Officer, Witt-Gruppe

It serves as a basis for strategic decisions, the alignment of IT initiatives and the optimization of resource allocation. In addition, an initial lean service catalog was defined and the corresponding costs were allocated according to their source. "This service view was a first for us," adds Dr. Markus Kress. "That's why it was so important for us to be supported by Bee360 during this change of perspective in order to build up a corresponding mind-set among the employees."

Capacity planning is also implemented in Bee360. "Since then, we have had an overview for the first time," recalls Dr. Kress. "In the first step, we use Bee360 to plan the required services and capacities. In the next step, we plan the projects. This allows us to make well-founded statements about whether our capacities are sufficient or what measures we need to take to create additional capacities - for example, by involving external support or prioritizing certain projects".

The introduction of this capacity planning required a lot of educational work to ensure that the integration of workforce planning and agile software development was implemented smoothly and efficiently. "We also greatly benefited from Bee360's expertise in change management, which helped us effectively communicate, explain, and support these changes, fostering acceptance and collaboration among the teams." says Dr. Markus Kress.

Among other things, a "Business Capability Map" was established, which enables the company to clearly define, model and visualize business capabilities.

Getting better and better: Witt Group focuses on continuous improvement

While the transformation of IT management is a priority for the Witt Group, the omnichannel company is also striving to continuously improve its processes and services. The topic of continuous improvement is therefore also mapped in Bee360:

The platform enables a detailed analysis of data and metrics from various areas such as IT financial management, enterprise architecture and portfolio management. This enables the Witt Group to identify weaknesses and uncover potential for improvement. The platform also supports benchmarking processes in which companies can compare their performance with industry standards. This allows best practices to be identified and implemented in order to continuously increase efficiency and quality.

Eye-opening moment with honeycombs

The Witt Group experienced an eye opening moment when the interaction of the various Bee honeycombs and their content became clear from a wide variety of perspectives. Thanks to the versatility and integrated design of Bee360, the Witt Group gained a new perspective on its IT landscape and was able to better map the interrelationships within the organization. "With the introduction of Bee360, we have created a solid functional control architecture that not only addresses current challenges, but also supports continuous improvement. Bee360 thus makes an important contribution to the transformation process of the Witt Group into a modern omnichannel fashion retailer that can react flexibly to market changes while ensuring a high level of efficiency in business processing," summarizes Ralf Bosch, Chief Information Officer of the Witt Group.

Outlook

Future-oriented expansions planned

In the future, Bee360 is to be expanded for portfolio and demand management in order to effectively manage portfolios and demand for resources and capacities, minimize risks and optimize overall performance. The use of Bee360's database for project planning and reporting is also being considered.

Bee360 will also be used to effectively manage the planned changes in the application landscape away from individual solutions towards standard solutions.

In addition, the integration of a configuration management database (CMDB) is planned in order to further increase the degree of automation in the areas of service management and EA.