Nieuws
SWAN ETABLISHES NEW DEPARTMENT »PRODUCTS & INNOVATION«
16.04.2024
PROJECT HOUSE FOR SAP LOGISTICS BUILDS INNOVATIVE PRODUCT FOCUS WITH DEDICATED DEPARTMENT
SWAN GmbH announces the establishment of its new department »Products & Innovation.« With the newly established team, the SAP logistics expert strengthens its product portfolio in the long term and proactively and flexibly addresses the dynamic and steadily growing needs of the global market. The new innovation center identifies trends and consolidates the expertise of all SWAN departments into products, solutions, and standardized solutions within the company with a clear focus on customer benefits.
SWAN’s new »Products & Innovation« department is a direct response to dynamic market and customer needs. Here, SWAN combines its expertise in product management and development and proactively shapes its product strategy. The employees have created organizational structures that enable agile and fast decision-making. Furthermore, they ensure transparent communication internally and externally. All employees of the SAP logistics project house continue to have the opportunity to contribute their ideas through a dedicated tool and shape SWAN through their approaches. All questions, wishes, and suggestions regarding products and innovations now flow centrally through the »Products & Innovation« department, always in close strategic exchange with the management.
TEAM SELF-MANAGEMENT FOR MORE INNOVATION
With »Products & Innovation,« SWAN is once again establishing a self-managed team. This keeps decision-making paths short to implement innovations quickly. Three highly qualified SAP experts will now be responsible for developing new and innovative products. Within the team, roles have emerged for team members according to their personalities and expertise. Kai Starke, Deputy Manager and Director of SAP Realization at SWAN, serves as the central steering body in the management. »Establishing a department for products and innovation is an important step in further professionalizing our product strategy to develop competitive, innovative, automated, and user-centered solutions for SAP logistics,« says Starke.
As Innovation Manager, Felix Volkmann will now take on the role of internal and external communication to identify solutions at the pulse of the market. Calvin Stauber, coming from SWAN’s UI5 development, will be responsible as Senior Technology Manager for the technical feasibility of the products. Product Manager Verena Mayer develops and oversees the process flows within the team and with other departments.
PROJECT EXPERIENCE FOR INNOVATIVE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
»We have decided to treat our products within the company as projects for our customers,« adds Calvin Stauber. »This means that we draw on the existing expertise of our development teams and coordinate the respective resource and capacity planning with our realization teams. Depending on the requirements, the team is reassembled, ensuring that the right people are always working on a product.«
Regular coordination with the individual development teams at SWAN, project updates, and all requirements and solution approaches are brought together in the Products & Innovation team. »We delve deep into customer processes. The close collaboration with our realization and service teams enables us to understand their challenges and develop solutions that are commercially most viable, efficient, and sustainable in the long term,« says Verena Mayer. This allows SWAN to ensure that solutions are not only based on today’s requirements but are also future-proof and can endure in the market in the long run.
Felix Volkmann emphasizes, »Innovation and customer proximity are the cornerstones of our work at SWAN. We want to build bridges between technology and real business requirements to deliver solutions with real added value for our customers.« The knowledge gained from continuous training is shared by the growing department through knowledge transfer to all SWAN employees: through ongoing project team exchanges or in the form of training sessions via the SWAN Academy.
INITIAL SUCCESSES AND FUTURE PROJECTS
Initial advanced software solutions have already led to optimized business processes on the customer side. This initial success confirms SWAN in its strategic move. »The initial projects have provided the team with valuable feedback that also influences the direction of future initiatives for other customers,« says Kai Starke. Special focus is placed on commercial feasibility as well as user-friendliness and integration into existing environments. Additionally, the team is further developing the 3D Logistics Cockpit for SAP warehouse visualization to integrate it with other products.
Future projects of the department aim to further test the boundaries of what is possible with SAP and technology software. The strong collaboration with internationally established technology experts within the SSI Schäfer Group, such as DS AUTOMOTION, as well as with external partners like AutoStore and others, helps the team, alongside trade show visits, market research, and trend analysis, to continue identifying innovations and recognizing new markets.