For several years, Nobel Biocare’s IT department has been using Antura Projects, primarily as a time and resource management tool. However, considering the size and diversity of Nobel Biocare, its usage of Antura Projects has been limited – both in terms of functionality and organization.
Major changes at Nobel Biocare in 2011 opened the door for completely new opportunities. The newly appointed executive management could see it clearly: The future success of Nobel Biocare’s operations had to be based on a foundation endorsed by the entire company. This foundation was then defined as five strategic targets, or “Must-Wins,” as Nobel Biocare calls them.
Antura Projects provides excellent support for operations and project management at the strategic level, so Nobel Biocare and Antura realized this was the perfect opportunity to launch Antura Projects globally. An important step at this time was that Nobel Biocare signed a group-wide contract with Antura, granting Nobel Biocare unlimited use of Antura Projects throughout the organization.
Since early 2012, Antura has been working intensively to launch, train and support the operations at the global level. At the same time, Nobel Biocare held leadership-training sessions and made considerable investments in project management as a profession. For instance, key resources will undergo a project management certification process. A great deal of work has been carried out in order to raise standards across the board.
Six months later, Anders Haglund, Account Manager at Antura, met up with Joachim Sällsten and Peter Bodlund at Nobel Biocare’s beautiful new office in central Gothenburg. Joachim’s title is Global IT - Program, Portfolio & PMO, and Peter is Program Office Manager. Because Antura and Nobel Biocare’s offices are just 100 yards apart, the two companies actually hold administrative meetings each month to discuss a range of issues and opportunities in a relaxed setting.
“I’ve been extremely impressed by what we’ve achieved in such a short time together with Nobel Biocare”, says Anders Haglund. “Your projects have gone so well. Can you identify any success factors?”
”Nobel Biocare chose to give the project tool a key role in our updated global process for portfolio and project methodology because it’s been a factor in the success of our company and our customers”, says Joachim Sällsten.
“And have you received any feedback from your users in Switzerland, the United States or other parts of the world?”
“Absolutely. Antura Projects is now in full production throughout our global arena and our users are telling us that the system works brilliantly, wherever you are in the organization. It’s all about how you launch the system. As you have certainly noticed, we’ve really focused all our efforts on it”, says Joachim.
“Still, what really made this possible is that our projects are so business-critical that our executive management demands full transparency of projects, portfolios and program campaigns. Our projects are complex, time-critical and cross-functional. They affect a wide range of professions throughout all our global sites. In addition, the projects are highly interdependent”, Peter Bodlund adds.