CASE STUDY
Bisnode’s lean service journey with Gluu
For 70 employees of Bisnode in Aarhus and Copenhagen, Gluu makes it easier to share work with one another. Read the lean service specialists’ views on how the Gluu platform creates value at Bisnode.
Marianne Mølgaard works with process optimisation and lean service in the data and analytics company Bisnode’s Danish subsidiary. After only two hours of initial introduction to the Gluu platform, she has since trained the company’s department heads in creating processes and work instructions as part of their lean service journey.
Today 140 business processes are brought to life in Gluu, and Marianne Mølgaard says that it has helped to create a common language, for how to work in Bisnode’s Danish offices.
“The common format makes it easier to take over for each other, and easier to get an overview of the processes that cut across departments.”
The new, and far more participatory, approach to working with processes in Bisnode, has also received attention from colleagues abroad, where Bisnode has offices in 17 European countries. There is a great understanding that the processes must involve the employees before they can create value.
The first step in the lean journey
The starting point for Bisnode Denmark’s lean service journey, started two years ago, in connection with the merger of departments, and an urgent need to create an overview of several hundred different work processes. As in many other companies, the challenge was that some processes were visible, others were hidden and all were in different formats and stored in different locations.
Therefore, Bisnode began the search for a tool that could help with the organisation and simplify the descriptions. The goal? A common and updated best-practice in each business area of the company. Overall, there was a need for a common overview, in one common format. The overview should provide a basis for finding synergies and optimise the business via process improvement tools, such as 5S and A3.
It was important to choose a process tool, true to the Lean philosophy, by enabling the daily involvement of all employees and without making the processes static.
Gluu was chosen for the job, and after a morning of study, Marianne and four other power users were ready to embark on the Gluu platform.
The next step was to create an overview of all the critical flows of the company and assign responsibilities. This list helped prioritise which processes Bisnode started with. From here, Marianne and her colleagues started to map processes, along with department heads. After the first process in every department was mapped, the department heads proceeded on their own.
Tangible results during Summer holidays
During the summer holidays in 2015, Bisnode began to see results of the work in Gluu. All of a sudden it was easier for employees to take over each other’s tasks when holidays required absence.
“There could have been two employees, who created the new customers within a business area. But if one was sick, and the other on summer vacation, there was perhaps no one who could create the customers, and that is not ok. Now we can go into Gluu and figure it out. We have used it a lot – especially during the summer holidays”
Marianne Mølgaard continues:
“Now there are no excuses, for not being able to take on other tasks. It is always documented in Gluu.”
140 processes now visible in Gluu
Until now Bisnode has focused on Customer Care processes. All customer touch points have been in focus.
The platform is most commonly used if you have to create a task, but you do not know how. The team has also used Gluu for process design. The advantage is that everyone is partners in one process. They are adjusted continuously and the team link to other tools. Eg. the use of a price calculator is documented in this way.
The next stop on the lean service journey
Gluu is not fully utilised yet, Marianne Mølgaard emphasises. The next step is to address IT operations processes and make them come to life on the platform. And Bisnode just acquired NN Market Data in Aarhus, so there are lots of processes to be combined and find the best practice for. This will be done through cooperation in Gluu.
At the same time, Marianne and her process facilitators continue to work to make Bisnode’s processes even more vibrant and integrated into the daily lives of all 70 employees in Denmark. Among other things, with the aid of Gluus new checklist feature, in which it is possible to make data runs daily, weekly and monthly. For this, Marianne thinks that Gluu is ideal for ensuring that data runs are done correctly, every time.
In the longer term, Bisnode ambitions include an ISO certification. And with the extensive mapping and documentation of critical processes, Marianne and her colleagues have already taken a big step.
The rumour that process work can be simple spreads across the border
Bisnode Denmark has recently presented their work, and the benefits of Gluu, to other countries in the Bisnode group. Marianne Mølgaard says that the other offices are extremely interested in the process workflows in Denmark. Especially the fact that it is so easy to work and collaborate on processes across the Gluu platform.
“It is important that not only a specialist can work with it, but that anyone can. I just take me 15 minutes to introduce a colleague to Gluu – it’s absolutely fantastic. I’m only there when they create their first process.”
Headquartered in Stockholm Bisnode provides business Information via local subsidiaries in 17 European countries. 2,500 employees are in the group.