Dussmann Group digitizes manual HR processes for 19,000 employees

Delivered in months, the one-stop, self-service employee portal built on Neptune DXP meets the individualized needs of different employees and pays for itself in 36 months in saved postage costs alone. Where once only 15% of employees located in Germany had digital capabilities, today the company has achieved over 60% adoption within participating entities.

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Human Capital Management Customer Success Story with Neptune DXP

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Challenges

-Manual, paper-based HR processes for more than 19,000 employees in Germany

-Employees have to access numerous apps using different logins

-Employee communications for frontline workers are paper-based and don’t scale well

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Solutions

-Implement myDussmann, an employee portal and web app powered by Neptune DXP to drive efficiency and orientation to manage a complex set of HR processes and highly sensitive information

-Solution works by providing employees a single place to go for all information, processes, and self-service apps

-Connecting central databases and business applications to provide the ability to tailor information and processes to individual users

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Results

-Delivering a modern employee experience helps attract and retain talent in a tight job market

-Automating the payroll process alone delivered costs savings that justified the project expense

-Neptune DXP solution was one-third the cost of a previously planned platform

Challenge: Bringing 19,000 employees – and HR – into the digital age

The service industry has a widely used adage: our employees ARE our business. It’s no surprise, then, that given the labor-intensive nature of providing personalized customer service, high workforce budget costs and razor-thin profit margins are typical.

As a service-oriented powerhouse with more than 19,000 employees across Germany, Dussmann Group had frontline workers spanning various age groups and technology abilities. Throughout the service industry, the creative use of IT is seen as an important way to help manage this complexity.

Yet, in the spring of 2020, less than 15% of Dussmann Group employees in Germany had digital capabilities. Very few of them could be reached online via email, social intranet or elsewhere. And since many of its workers lacked technology savvy abilities, communication was all accomplished via paper.

In some cases, employees had to use as many as 40 different user IDs for systems throughout the day. The organization needed to digitize and personalize the employee experience, spanning their first to their last days within the organization. The goal: provide a single solution for employees across HR administration, business workflows, and employee communications.

Dussmann Group’s cross-functional team included IT, HR and the corporate communications department. The team focused on delivering a simple and intuitive solution that gave employees of all technical abilities access to content and tools tailored to their individual needs.

With a go-live date of fall 2020, Dussmann Group needed a platform that would empower them to build many applications quickly. Additionally, data protection and information security were critically important in any new solution being offered. Enter Neptune Software and its low-code/no-code app development platform.

Continue reading below…

Solution: Rapid deployment of single-sign on, one-stop shop across 23 apps

The team was familiar with Neptune Software’s low-code, SAP-centric platform, which had been used to deploy material management apps in one of its divisions prior. The choice was simple once they realized that Neptune DXP had the ability to create stand-alone applications, independent of an SAP back-end.

As anticipated, the project moved forward rapidly. Working alongside experts from Neptune Software, the team was able to quickly launch their pilot. Taking three months of planning and three months of development, myDussmann, the employee portal, and single-sign-on (SSO) capabilities launched on time with 23 applications and multiple languages.

Included among these apps are employee self-service (ESS) and manager self-services apps, as well as employee communication apps for Dussmann Service Germany, its facilities management – and largest – division; Dussmann Stiftung, the organizational framework of Dussmann Group, and Dussmann Technical Solutions (DTS), its division for building systems and plant engineering.

Within the one-stop portal, fourteen of the apps were created from scratch and nine were migrated from an existing implementation of Neptune DXP. To meet the high-security requirements, the Dussmann Group team conducted intensive penetration tests across the system stack. In close collaboration with the works council, the team coordinated across a range of security needs, carefully managing access authorizations and sensitive personnel data.

Dussmann Group continues to deliver on its vision of a single employee portal, including SSO for all needs and 34 applications. Dussmann Group’s Executive Board Spokesman Wolf-Dieter Adlhoch referred to the implementation as a “long-lasting journey” that is critical going forward.

The team has since expanded its HR capabilities to include a time-and-attendance app that interfaces with payroll. The T&A app had also been in pilot since May 1, 2021, and went live in February 2022.

The team also expanded deployment to include 12 languages, provide native mobile apps, and deliver a progressive web application.

Automated permission management to help manage the full employee lifecycle more efficiently is also being implemented.

To continue to grow the one-stop-shop capabilities, a cross-discipline team collaborates to add new functions that enhance the employee experience. Over time, the system has been rolled out more widely, and today eight entities of Dussmann Group are using the app.

Results: A modern, digital solution that works for all employees and attracts new ones

With voluntary participation, Dussmann Group rapidly has achieved 60% user adoption. That’s a remarkable achievement given the company’s highly diverse user base.

With Neptune Software, the company has replaced its paper-based and direct mail communications. Employees appreciate the new digital platform, with its single point of entry and self-service capabilities, along with digital workflows and online communications.

“Neptune Software has enabled us to become digital, enabled our employees, and elevated employee communication while providing us with the needed cost certainty in operating the solution,” says Christin Purmann, Head of SCC Employee Portals, at Dussmann Group.

Automating the payroll process alone delivered cost savings that justified the project expense.

Plus, connecting central databases and business applications has delivered the ability to tailor information and processes to individual users. Today, employees can access the HR tools and information they need, all in one convenient location.

Perhaps most importantly, reducing the number of user experiences and passwords helps employees spend less time using applications and more time focusing on creating value for their customers.

Dussmann Group is confident that it has delivered a modern and technology-friendly experience for employees and new hires alike. That’s especially important in today’s competitive market, where being seen as a modern employer helps attract job applicants.

Also, having all employees aligned on the latest company news, policies, and procedures creates substantial social and organizational capital for Dussmann Group.

A cost/benefit analysis for the project showed that the system became affordable through the help of the Neptune DXP, and was driven by Neptune Software’s single all-in-one cost per employee. This gave Dussmann Group management the cost certainty to operate the solution regardless of project scope.

Company Snapshot

Dussmann Group is a service provider headquartered in Berlin,
Germany. Founded in 1963, the group employs more than
65,000 employees worldwide, with sales of more than €2.31 billion in 2021, and prides itself on being one of the largest private services companies worldwide. For more information, see dussmanngroup.com

Industry Focus: Professional Services
Number of Users: 12,500 users
System Version: Neptune DXP
Timeline: Three months of planning, three months of development to launch 23 apps in multiple languages

“Neptune Software has enabled us to become digital, enabled our employees, and elevated employee communication while providing us with the needed cost certainty in operating the solution.”

-Christin Purmann, Head of SCC Employee Portals, at Dussmann Group

About Neptune Software

Neptune Software is a rapid application development platform vendor with more than 660 enterprise customers and over 3.5 million licensed end users globally that empowers IT departments to deliver tangible business outcomes. Neptune Software offers with its Neptune DXP, a leading low-code, SAP-centric, enterprise app development platform to digitize and optimize business processes and user interfaces – at scale and with ease. Neptune DXP provides a fast and cost-effective way to industrialize the development of custom applications – saving companies time and money on development, integration, and operations

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Download the full 17-page analyst written copy by Constellation Research here

This success story has been developed based on the 17-page source document: “One for All: Dussmann Employee Experience Goes Digital with Neptune Software: How Low-Code/No-Code Specialist Neptune Software Helped a Service Industry Giant Digitize Its Employee Journey, Processes, and Communications,” by Holger Mueller, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research. Download your free version by filling out the form below.

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