A success story of five years of partnership
Today,
we celebrate a remarkable milestone – FIVE YEARS of successful collaboration between E.ON and Uffective. In October 2018, we embarked on a mission to help improve E.ON’s IT Portfolio Management.
Back then,
E.ON faced the challenge of inefficient and untransparent IT investment management due to a lack of stable processes and unsatisfactory tooling. With an annual investment portfolio exceeding €500 million, reliance on inadequate software solutions, spreadsheets, and information stored inside presentations became increasingly impractical. The newly established IT portfolio management function required robust processes and tools and that on a group-wide level. In a nutshell: E.ON sought a stable and efficient solution to optimise its global IT portfolio management.
Choosing Uffective as a Solution: A Transformation Begins
The collaboration between E.ON and Uffective also had a strong impact on the evolution of the Uffective tool and made it an evolving platform that fundamentally reshaped IT portfolio management. Uffective transitioned from being solely an IT portfolio management solution to a versatile tool integrated throughout numerous parts of the organisation.
Usability in focus: User-centric Design and Flexibility.
When E.ON and Uffective began their partnership in October 2018, their focus was on optimising E.ON’s IT portfolio management.
The initial collaboration phase concentrated on enhancing usability to deliver an optimal user experience for the E.ON users. Read on for a comprehensive look at the features and advantages of these usability improvements:
State-of-the-Art Admin Area and Tailored Control for E.ON
Uffective provided E.ON with a tailor-made solution meticulously aligned with the company’s unique needs. A standout feature was, and is, Uffective’s Admin Area, empowering E.ON-internal Uffective admins to manage the platform quickly and by themselves. This capability allows E.ON to react to user feedback and consequently change the tool, also the tiny bits and pieces, in the fastest possible way. And thereby, user feedback quickly finds its way into the tool, which generates user acceptance.
“We can easily incorporate our specific logic, which is unique to us. Every company has its own
commercial model, and this is, of course, customisation to the highest degree.”
– Tobias Hartwich, E.ON
The cutting-edge admin area played a pivotal role in streamlining tool management at E.ON while substantially enhancing usability and also stability.
This area facilitated:
- Independent customisations: Administrators could make system adjustments autonomously, accelerating the customisation process and enabling E.ON to be agile in response to evolving business needs and user feedback.
- Custom roles and permissions: E.ON had precise control over who could access sensitive data and functions, providing each employee with a tailored experience while enhancing security.
- Security reinforcement: Control over sensitive data access significantly bolstered security, particularly crucial given the large volume of sensitive IT investment data EON managed.
This level of customised control in the admin area allowed E.ON to tailor the platform precisely to its needs, ensuring seamless alignment with the company’s unique commercial model.
Speedy customisation
The introduction of user-friendly customisation was a substantial improvement, enabling E.ON to tailor workflows and user interfaces:
- Workflow customisation: Teams customised workflows to match their specific requirements, streamlining processes and boosting productivity.
- Customisable user interfaces: User-friendly interfaces were adapted to include the necessary information and functionality.
- Rapid adaptability: E.ON could promptly respond to evolving business demands, keeping the tool consistently up-to-date and adaptable
Flexible item pages
The introduction of flexible item pages was another crucial enhancement, significantly improving the user experience at E.ON:
- Tailored Data Entry Forms: Users could create customised data entry forms to meet the unique requirements of various project types.
- Efficient data entry: Streamlined data entry eliminated unnecessary fields, promoting accuracy and efficiency.
- Adaptation to changing needs: The flexibility of item pages ensured ongoing alignment with evolving requirements and sustained data capture efficiency.
Seamless Business Process Integration: From Scepticism To Acceptance
Following the successful enhancement of the IT portfolio management tool’s usability during the initial partnership phase, the focus shifted to seamless integration into E.ON’s existing enterprise processes. This step played a crucial role in transforming initial scepticism into acceptance and commitment.
Re-charges: Transparent cost allocation
Uffective facilitated transparent cost allocation by integrating a feature allowing E.ON to create detailed cost summaries and transparently charge IT services to various business units:
- User-defined cost categories: E.ON established custom cost categories for precise expense categorisation, such as breaking down IT costs by department or project type.
- Cost point assignment: Each transaction was assigned to a specific cost point, enabling granular cost tracking at the project or department level.
- Robust reporting and analysis: Uffective provided powerful reporting and analysis tools, empowering E.ON to generate detailed cost reports and optimise budget management, including tracking cost trends over time.
Efficient project structuring
Uffective enabled the efficient creation of Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) codes through:
- Predefined templates: In Uffective we developed a standardized but flexible template for the structure of a WBS code which would serve 90% of all projects while remaining flexible to adjust for the remaining 10%.
- All in one tool, all with one click: All information needed to obtain a WBS code comes from Uffective, and a code can be required with a single click.
- Enabling collaboration: The WBS code creation process also contains a deliberate quality check at some point performance by a dedicated team. Uffective has enabled maximum automation of this check and, when successful, quickest usage of data to finally create the code.
As a sum, obtaining a WBS code for a project now usually only takes until the next morning, and project managers can concentrate on their proper tasks.
Handling Project Governance and Data Integrity
Uffective ensured compliance with data protection policies and data integrity through:
- Custom privacy policies: E.ON integrated tailored privacy policies into the tool, ensuring all data collection and processing adhered to relevant compliance regulations.
- Comprehensive permissions management: Uffective provided robust permissions management, ensuring only authorised individuals accessed specific data, thus mitigating data breaches.
- Logging and monitoring: The tool logged all data access and changes, enabling seamless monitoring and demonstrating compliance with data protection policies.
Data Handling - Uffective data can be used efficiently
After optimising the user experience and integrating the tool seamlessly into E.ON business processes, the focus was on how Uffective data can be handled efficiently. Here, the focus was on two key elements: Uffective Connected Multicloud and Power BI Dashboards.
Uffective Connected Multicloud
One groundbreaking innovation resulting from Uffectives’s partnership with E.ON was the “Uffective Connected Mullticloud” (UCMC). The UCMC is an SQL data base in a technical E.ON environment into which source data from the Uffective data base is written on regular basis. With this, E.ON has become independent of Excel downloads and can works with Uffective data using all superior features that a relational database offers. Moreover, E.ON has connected its database to various other data sources, which has facilitated an entirely different level for reporting, analysis and completely changed the way the portfolio management functions works with data.
- Seamless integration: Uffective Connected Mullticloud enabled smooth integration of data from diverse cloud sources, irrespective of origin or platform. This streamlined data merging, creating a unified data environment.
- Automated data synchronisation: Uffective Connected Mullticloud automated data synchronisation between different cloud sources, eliminating manual efforts and ensuring higher data consistency and quality.
- Data Manipulation at new level: While with Excel downloads, data is obtained in a standardized way, Uffective Connected Multicloud enables data analysis without any restrictions. Whatever you have in Uffective is analysable, in whatever desired format.
- Scalable platform: The solution’s design allowed it to grow in tandem with E.ON#S evolving needs, accommodating additional cloud sources and data.
Impact On Three Key Areas
Purpose: More Intelligent, Data-Driven Decision Making
Uffective’s implementation ushered in significant changes. Improvements in usability, integration with existing processes, and efficient data processing immediately influenced decision-making at EON:
Tobias Hartwich, Portfolio Expert at E.ON, emphasised,
“The tool has introduced a new level of transparency in our portfolio. I remember, one of our first analyses in 2019 showed the 2018 investments according to a Run-Grow-Transform logic, and we all were so impressed to see data for the entire portfolio in a full year. And it was a lot of work to get that data.
Today, we see the whole portfolio for the next three years in much more depth, and we find it normal that we can see all of this.”
Process: Improvements in processes and data handling.
Tobias highlighted the impact of process changes, stating,
“Our project planning and control have improved significantly. We can now initiate projects more swiftly and gain a better overview of our financial situation, simplifying our work.”
Culture: A crucial impact on mindset and way of working
The partnership with Uffective transformed E.ON’s technology landscape, but it also impacted the mindset and work approaches within Portfolio Management. Enhanced usability, integration, and data processing fostered an environment promoting data-driven decisions and rewarding adaptability:
“Uffective’s flexibility and responsiveness perfectly met our needs and supported our users in their daily work. Success lies in making users feel valued, understood, and appreciated, and Uffective has empowered us to achieve just that.” – Tobias Hartwich, E.ON’s Global Portfolio Management
Conclusion: Uffective - A Continuous Journey of Improvement
In summary, Uffective has helped to fundamentally transform IT portfolio management at E.ON, enabling a continuous journey of improvement. The platform provides comprehensive, tailored solutions that facilitate data-driven decision-making, enhance data accuracy, and promote collaboration within the organization. Thanks to the great collaboration and trusted partnership, E.ON has elevated its IT portfolio management to a higher level and can now rely on a forward-looking, well-integrated solution. What sets Uffective apart from other solutions is not only its ease of integration but also the fact that the platform can evolve continuously. This allows E.ON to keep pace with changing requirements and adapt the platform to evolving business needs. Uffective offers more than just a solution; it offers a partnership for sustainable success in IT portfolio management.
As we reflect on the transformative journey we’ve undertaken together, we also look ahead to the future with excitement and commitment. Our collaboration will continue to push boundaries, introducing new innovations, and supporting E.ON’s mission to excel in IT portfolio management.
We extend our heartfelt thanks to E.ON for their trust and partnership, and we eagerly anticipate the ongoing success of our journey together.
