Coop Danmark A/S is Denmark's leading consumer goods retailer.
Coop Danmark and its subsidiaries have an annual turnover of approximately DKK 42 billion, and in total 40,000 employees.
Coop has no stockholders, instead, they are owned by their 2 mio. members. Members can participate in decision-making, both at the level of the local retail store and nationally in electing the board of directors at the 'Landsråd' (national council).
Coop was previously run on Microsoft Project Online, but they started looking for a new solution.
Project Online had been cumbersome to use, with a complex project structure that demanded high skill from its users. It was difficult to ensure user adoption, and the performance wasn’t always smooth. So, a new solution had to solve this: it should be useable with a high-performance level.
Furthermore, Coop wanted a solution that could scale with the organization, starting out with the essentials and then developing according to new requirements or user demands.
Projectum delivered
- A PPM solution that is tailored to Coop’s processes
- An intuitive user experience
- A sophisticated time registration system that simplifies time registration and reporting
- A flexible data platform
- New development and features, updated quarterly as part of the solution
”Because Power PPM is a well-maintained solution, it means less support which makes Power PPM a cheaper solution for us.”
Søren Nilausen, Head of PMO, Coop Technology
But what really swayed the opinion was a Projectum Hackathon where the organization spent a day challenging Projectum. This proved that it was possible to configure the solution quite easily; anything the project managers could think of the solution could do.
”At the end of the day, it was actually the project managers that pointed to Power PPM. They could see the value of using it – and it was a lot easier than Project Online.”
Søren Nilausen, Head of PMO, Coop Technology
In the end, Coop invested in Time for Teams, Power PPM along with the Power Hub.
Given the complex nature of Coop’s products and processes, it was vital to find a systemthat could handle these complexities and make it as simple as possible by presenting the right information to the right people at the right time.
So, during the implementation, the constant question was: what’s the minimal viable solution?
For Coop, it was internal finance that was the number one critical factor. Being able to register hours and stay on top of accounting was the basis for all other operations.
With that in place, the Gantt chart was essential for timelines, along with a need to administrate resources.
This simple setup was all that was included in the initial implementation. All subsequent features were user-driven. With the system being used, it was possible to identify where in the process a tool could support the necessary activities and provide insights.
For Coop, the great thing about Power PPM is that it’s built on the Microsoft platform. This means that users can work where they want, and Power PPM, along with the Power Hub, keeps track of data.
For the people that work in Power PPM, they find that the user interface is more intuitive, delivering the right insights with a stable performance.
“Power PPM is a lot more intuitive, which makes it easier to introduce to the users – who then know how to use it! It a lot simpler – and a way better performance [than Microsoft Project Online]”
Any development to the features and capabilities of Power PPM is user-driven, based on the actual needs of the organization. This means that employees feel like they have an influence on the system, making them more likely to engage.
Roadmaps are the way to go
Roadmaps are one of the key features for Coop. It almost replaces some of the more complex reports. Roadmaps give a full overview of projects and statuses – updated live.
It used to be that Coop would spend maybe a week gathering all the relevant data and information, cleaning it up, and visualizing it.
Now they just use roadmaps in Power PPM, right in the meeting to fuel their discussions and decisions. All the information is there, updated, and in the right format.
Along with Power PPM, Coop also acquired the Power Hub to keep track of data.
Coop wanted to reduce the amount of resource data that was updated manually as it carried a risk of human error.
With the Power Hub, all core data and changes are updated across all resources. Not only does it reduce error, but it also saves days of work.
With the Power Hub, Coop also has full ownership of their data. Especially the finance department takes advantage of being able to pull the relevant data through direct SQL queries.
The most common use is via Power BI, but data in Power Hub is accessible and built for scalability, with historic data and trendlines available for analytics.
Coop also appreciates the inbuilt security in Power Hub, where you can only gain access through an active AD account, making it easier to control access.
“With Power Hub, we have full control of our data, and we can get the data we need in the format we want.”
Coop and Projectum have a strong working relationship for almost 20 years, inspiring and pushing each other to develop better solutions for strategic portfolio management in organizations.
“Power PPM is fully scalable, so in the future, we’d like to adopt it for internal projects as well. It makes sense because the functionalities work on multiple levels and can be integrated to give us more information.”
Coop is also on a journey to mature their data strategy and get more insight from historical data with Power Hub and AI.
“We really like working with Projectum. There’s a good dialogue, and they give valuable insight as we work to strike the optimal balance between governance and a user-friendly experience. It’s about figuring out what’s right for us and the people in the organization, and Projectum really gets that.”
