The first day of this year’s “Data Week” in mid-November (see BENET report) also marked the launch of the Group-wide Bertelsmann Collaboration Platform. The new platform is designed to facilitate networking among IT colleagues, provide greater transparency in Tech & Data projects, and offer faster interaction opportunities for the cross-divisional development of applications – and in the medium term also serve as a personalized business and learning platform. In a BENET interview, experts from the Tech & Data team, Arvato Systems, and Corporate IT explain the platform’s potential. They include Rhys Nölke, Senior Vice President Tech & Data at Bertelsmann, who presented the Bertelsmann Collaboration Platform during the virtual meeting of around 500 participants from all divisions. “Cooperation and collaboration are becoming increasingly important at Bertelsmann,” says Nölke. “With the launch of the new platform, we are creating a new way to share technologies and knowledge in the form of an expert community. Over the next few months, we will expand the current beta version into a central platform that will serve as a ‘one-stop shop’ for all Tech & Data colleagues working at Bertelsmann worldwide.”
Trailer Bertelsmann Collaboration Platform
First successful examples
“Creating a platform on which colleagues from all Bertelsmann companies can easily, intuitively, and securely exchange information is a huge challenge that really motivated us,” says Gregor Schumacher, Head of Innovation Incubation at Arvato Systems. “With the Bertelsmann Collaboration Platform, we have managed to lower the operational and technical hurdles to collaboration. Colleagues can use the platform to easily share documents or knowledge, work together on coding, and reuse IT services from all divisions. The Bertelsmann Collaboration Platform already offers a wide range of content and opportunities for collaboration. According to the participating teams, more than 500 experts have already been given beta access, and a good 370 are already actively using this access and exchanging information on various topics in 17 connected communities. In addition, 55 innovative use cases are available on the platform for inspiration, and 27 APIs for specific application.
“An API-based ecosystem within Bertelsmann forms the basis for scalable, vertically integrated value chains,” explains Sebastian Strugholtz, Senior Program Manager Cloud Innovation & Incubation at Arvato Systems. “Its great potential lies in the easy reusability of digital components that all interested colleagues can view and use on the Bertelsmann Collaboration Platform. This leads to the faster market maturity of new, innovative digital offerings.” Strugholtz says the first successful examples are the joint projects of Paigo and Deutsche Post Address as well as Bertelsmann Accounting Services and Arvato Systems, which clearly demonstrate the potential. The APIs should also be seen as the key to simplified collaboration with external partners. “In this new form of cooperation via the Bertelsmann Collaboration Platform one thing is very noticeable: the respective division plays less and less of a role– the focus is on pragmatic exchange between experts,” emphasizes Corinna Ebert, Manager Roadmap Coordination & Transformation at Bertelsmann Corporate IT. “The platform is the vehicle we use to interlink knowledge, technologies, and experts across divisional boundaries and with many value-adds for the entire Group. For more information about the Bertelsmann Collaboration Platform, including registration options, please visit https://collaboration.bertelsmann.de . For questions and feedback, please contact the support team at techdata@bertelsmann.de. (benet)
