The Russian oil company faced several challenges including technological disruption across all lines of business, intensifying global competition, managing dozens of subsidiaries operating worldwide, overly complicated business processes, and a government mandate to digitalize operations. The company operates in an extremely challenging physical environment and must manage new disruptive technologies transforming all areas of the oil production process. Failure to keep up can mean unprofitability without warning. The company's top priority is the urgent adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, real-time big data analysis, predictive intelligence and resilient production systems.

The Star Entertainment Group, one of Australia’s largest casino operators, was facing challenges in differentiating its VIP customer experience and closing high-value transactions quickly. The company's existing chip buying process was taking its VIP patrons away from playing for up to 20 minutes as they waited to convert their account credits to chips at a gaming table. The process was manual and resource-intensive, requiring paperwork in triplicate and multiple approvals for security purposes. The company wanted to transform this complex manual process into a fast and convenient mobile experience for its VIPs.

Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to conserving wetlands and other natural spaces for waterfowl, wildlife, and people. To achieve its mission, DUC administers fundraising, retail, and advocacy campaigns and manages projects using software built on Adabas & Natural. However, the organization faced the challenge of moving its applications to the Web and integrating them with third-party applications. This was necessary to engage and mobilize stakeholders effectively, maximize awareness and support, and manage projects in support of its conservation mission.

Crédit Logement, a leading French financial institution, was facing challenges in meeting the needs of its customers, which include more than 200 banks with 7 million borrowers. The company's customer call center was struggling with an outdated green screen interface, which was not user-friendly and made it difficult for customer service personnel to quickly respond to customer requests. The company needed to replace the green screens with a modern Web user interface to optimize customer call center processing and improve the end-user experience.

The American Armed Forces Mutual Aid Association (AAFMAA) was facing a need for new digital services to attract a new generation of members. However, the business was anchored in legacy IT systems, and a rip-and-replace project was deemed too costly and risky. In 2005, AAFMAA needed to innovate and change because the old ways of doing business simply didn't appeal to the new digital generation. Digital business transformation was the answer, but IT could barely handle current business needs. Rip-and-replace projects often seem like the only answer. But getting rid of old systems means losing decades of investments. Worst of all, these expensive multi-million dollar projects come with no guarantee of success. As a practiced investor used to managing risk, AAFMAA didn’t like these odds.

The multinational luxury fashion company faced challenges due to rapid expansion and major acquisitions. The company was under pressure from global competition and growing costs. The company's IT leadership team wanted the Information Systems (IS) teams to have visibility into their portfolios to be able to develop project plans and future IT strategies to support the company's ambitious business transformation goals. The piecemeal process in place at that time involved manual updates to a Microsoft® Access® database, visualization in the Visio® modeling tool and PowerPoint® for presentations. Information on the portfolio was updated twice a year— not a good basis for road mapping and investment decisions that needed to be made on the turn of dime.

Trackerando, a startup specializing in GPS and IoT solutions, faced several challenges. The existing GPS tracking solutions lacked ease of use. The company also faced competition from telematics solutions. Additionally, there were increasingly strict data protection requirements to adhere to. Trackerando also aimed to add value with IoT communication apps. A specific case was when the city of Mainz was looking for a GPS tracking system provider to monitor its garbage compactors. The city needed a solution that included a waste-level gauge and alarm activation when bins are 75 percent full. The solution also needed to provide position tracking in the event of theft. The city wanted to avoid larger telematics providers as their systems were too complex and expensive for the city’s needs.

LCL, a leading French financial services and banking company, faced several challenges as banking went digital. The customers who valued reliability above all else came to expect omni-channel accessibility, better communication, and more digital services. LCL wanted to adopt an omni-channel strategy and serve its customers with digital channels available around the clock as well as branches in a seamless way. This digital transformation required a major initiative to modernize the existing IT architecture. In 2012, LCL lacked a robust and integrated system for enabling such functionality, particularly when it came to new service initiation.

The insurance market is highly dynamic and shaped by intense competition, so insurance companies must be able to adapt processes quickly to changing conditions. As such, ongoing business process optimization is an important factor for strengthening a company’s market position. CosmosDirekt, Germany’s leading online insurance company, has shown consistent growth in this market environment. In order to support its ongoing dynamic development, the company’s long-term goals include optimizing process efficiency and improving customer satisfaction. Faced with stiff competition, it was strategically important for CosmosDirekt to further improve customer satisfaction and process efficiency to expand the company’s leading market position.

Aras Kargo, a courier and cargo company, was facing challenges due to its rapid expansion. The company was experiencing a surge in demand from online shoppers and vendors, which its operations were not equipped to handle at such a high scale. The company had up to 1,000 hardcoded integrations for its existing 200 business partners, which needed to be streamlined. Additionally, the company needed a robust application and data integration tool to manage its business processes. The company was also looking to expand its international network of over 200 partners and needed a solution that could scale with its business.

Longyan Tobacco Industry Co., Ltd. (Longyan) was under pressure to drive continuous process optimization and needed innovative manufacturing processes. The company urgently required mapping of end-to-end business processes and more visibility through process analysis. However, they had insufficient tools to design, simulate and test new processes. The company’s goal was to save resources, optimize more, eliminate unnecessary workflows and drive innovation wherever possible. This represented a massive undertaking for a company that had never gone in the direction of full interoperability. A business process management initiative on this company-wide scale was going to need the right solution capable of optimizing Longyan’s entire manufacturing value chain.

The utility company was facing a dire situation in its IT department. Years of cobbling together one-off solutions using a variety of applications had resulted in a tangled web of connections that was crippling new projects. System stability was decaying due to the patch-work architecture, and ballooning costs for licensing and support left the IT budget cupboards bare. The company’s CIO recognized that a high-performance Enterprise Architecture (EA) practice was the pragmatic fix it needed. EA would transform the existing IT into a technology-leveraging dynamo powering the company’s business transformation.

Fibabanka, a private bank in Turkey, was facing several challenges. The bank had ambitious growth targets and was dealing with disruption within the banking industry. Regulatory pressure was also increasing, with the Banking Regulation and Supervision Authority pushing banks to create process flowcharts. Fibabanka was using Microsoft Visio, which was not fit for purpose as it didn't link processes, create a process library, or attach duration information or definitions. The bank needed to apply its digital ambitions to its internal landscape to meet these challenges.

The retail pharmacy company, a global enterprise with nearly half a million employees and operations in numerous countries, was facing challenges due to heightened competition from digital disrupters like Amazon, increasing healthcare costs and changing regulations, growing customer choices and expectations, and a boom in IoT healthcare devices. One of the biggest changes in the company’s history was the recent merger of two major companies that created it. This massive undertaking brought together two iconic brands with complementary footprints, but very different IT architectures. The newly formed company was dealing with a very complex environment—and many different technologies across the enterprise. It needed a solution to standardize global operations—a “cook once, serve many” solution.

The luxury fashion company was facing several challenges. The growing customer demand for an omni-channel purchasing experience was not being met by the company's legacy IT systems. These outdated systems were unable to support the company's corporate goals and were leading to operational inefficiencies and high costs. The company also needed to unify its global inventory management solutions. Furthermore, the company was growing through acquisitions, which necessitated a system integration solution. The lack of a standardized application-to-application integration practice was causing transaction duplications, complicated processes for new partner onboarding, and costly, custom, point-to-point solutions. Different application release and governance cycles, and regular synchronization issues between the three ERP and warehouse systems, meant management was laborious and costly. It also made accurately assessing stock levels or cash flow impossible.

The bank, one of the largest in the U.S. and the world, is facing new market dynamics born of the digital age. Digitally savvy customers today expect more, like omni-channel banking, and they have more choices in banks like FinTechs. This is forcing traditional banks to rethink how they compete and operate. The bank is also facing regulatory challenges. As regulatory requirements expand, the bank needs insights into operations. Regulations like Dodd-Frank demand it. Without full visibility into its 4,000+ applications, the bank was in the gunsights of such penalties.

The company, a global leader in medical technology, services, and solutions, was facing several challenges. They were in the process of transforming into an outcome-based healthcare solutions provider and needed to quickly integrate acquisitions to maximize operating efficiencies. The company was also looking to change how the world delivers patient care. The company's systems were previously locked down by point-to-point integrations, which was not flexible and technology-dependent. The company needed a more flexible, technology-agnostic solution for lower-cost internal and partner integrations that could be quickly configured, turned on, and changed.

ALTE OLDENBURGER Krankenversicherung AG, a leading health insurance provider in Germany, was facing the challenge of modernizing their legacy claim processing system. The existing system was over 20 years old and was not able to keep up with the changing business requirements. The traditional process required customers to save their medical bills and mail them all in at the end of the year, leading to a 'claims tsunami'. The company wanted to enable a new service where customers could use their smartphones to snap and send pictures of their medical bills for processing the moment they received them. This would not only provide convenience to the customers but also distribute the work throughout the year.

The company, a global leader in imaging technology solutions and managed print services, was facing increased competition and service level agreement (SLA) compliance issues. There was a push for IoT-enablement and new device location tracking requirements. The company was also dealing with inefficient field maintenance and rising costs, and lacked real-time visibility into partner supply chains. In the case of on-site printer fleet repair and maintenance, the old way simply couldn’t cut it. Reactive failure reporting, multiple technician visits and manual parts ordering dragged down profits and aggravated customers. With tens of thousands of printers moved per week, and third-party supply chains to contend with, manual repair and maintenance led to SLA violations, billing headaches and logistical nightmares.

Primur Systems and Resources, an IT solutions and services provider based in New South Wales, Australia, identified a gap in its competitors’ Internet of Things (IoT) offerings. The company's customers were seeking automation, condition monitoring, and predictive maintenance solutions. To stay up-to-date with the latest technology and provide end-to-end IoT solutions, Primur needed a robust and versatile IoT platform. The company's clients, which span various sectors including manufacturing, distribution, health, finance, and insurance, required customized, end-to-end solutions to their IoT issues. These ranged from monitoring the transportation of goods and performing diagnostics of truck engines, to ensuring livestock is eating properly.

The Israeli Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Social Services was struggling with a slow, manual process for handling tens of thousands of requests for assistance each year. The process involved paper forms being passed between municipalities and the Ministry, often requiring multiple signatures and taking up to six months to process. Some cases were even lost in the shuffle. The Ministry was using a 20+ year-old, legacy green-screen mainframe technology that could not be opened up to the municipalities using the internet.

BSA Group, a leading provider of asset management solutions in Australia, faced several challenges in their quest to optimize building management. They needed to connect disparate systems and sensors in buildings to collect and analyze new information and find efficiencies. They also needed to consolidate this information into a single view for customers and provide integration and connectivity between disparate and proprietary building systems and vendors. The goal was to reduce energy and maintenance costs for customers while addressing new revenue opportunities in the market.

Malaysia’s leading electricity utility is facing rising operating costs and the future risk of market deregulation. The utility generates, transmits and distributes electricity to 9.2 million residential, industrial and commercial customers. However, the rising cost of coal, which accounts for 55% of its power, is eating up the budget. Coupled with unrelenting growth in demand, driving internal cost efficiencies are now critical to business. Furthermore, the utility needs to accelerate service improvements as it faces a second, potentially greater threat: Market deregulation. The utility turned these challenges into an opportunity to flip the switch on for digital business transformation. But where to start? Like many companies, the utility’s view into its IT environment was via nothing more than a few Excel spreadsheets.

Future Intelligence Ltd., a telecom engineering SME based in Greece, was facing challenges with spiraling street lighting costs and the need to improve public safety and protect the environment. The company saw an opportunity to improve municipal operations via the Internet of Things (IoT). Street lighting is an essential community service, but it can consume up to 40 percent of a municipality’s budget. Moreover, in many cases, lighting is not energy efficient, adding to greenhouse gas concerns and pollution. These challenges led municipalities to transform into smart cities, and they found an ideal way to make that change: Future Intelligence built on Software AG’s Cumulocity IoT.

CSBP, an Australian fertiliser and chemical company, was facing challenges in managing inventories and supplies of fertiliser during the peak season. As the main supplier of the preferred liquid fertiliser used in farming grains in Western Australia, urea ammonium nitrate (UAN), it needed to be able to meet the needs of the farmers speedily. The farms are spread over tens of millions of hectares in Western Australia, presenting a logistical problem for fertiliser suppliers. The farmers tend to stock up on fertiliser in April/May and when the rains fall they rapidly deplete their tanks. Some larger farms have several tanks to manage. Traditionally, they had to monitor the floating gauges in each tank, waiting until they were empty to re-order, because the fertiliser can only be trucked in whole tanker loads. Third party trucking companies are scheduled by CSBP to collect the fertiliser from the Kwinana, WA, depot. Sometimes these trucks have to deliver to farms that are hundreds of kilometers away from the Kwinana depot. This all adds to the supply chain complexity, especially as so many farmers run out of fertiliser at the same time.

James Cook University (JCU) in Australia wanted to start an Engineering IoT degree program to educate students thoroughly so that they could get jobs in the IoT industry. They needed to partner with a technology provider that could not only provide the IoT platform, but also work with the university on IoT-related projects, as well as help to educate the students. The university also had to educate students and parents about the IoT and its potential for post-graduation employment. The hands-on part of the course is run by Prithvi Moses, Solution Architect at Software AG. He runs Cumulocity IoT workshops three times during the final year IoT capstone project.

Prinzhorn Group, a European market leader in the packaging, paper and recycling industry, faced several challenges as it pursued its Grow2030 vision to double in size. The rapid growth strategy brought together many different systems that needed to be integrated, posing a major challenge for the company’s IT. The company needed a suitable and flexible IT platform to integrate new facilities and systems quickly. To boost the transforming company’s operational performance, all the apps, devices and systems needed to be linked to create a common data pool for the entire group—a central point of dataflow. Furthermore, this data pool had to allow fast adaptation at any time because new systems were being added regularly, up to ten a year.

Clal Insurance, a leading insurance and long-term savings group, faced a series of challenges that threatened its growth and success. These included growing SLA compliance risks, an aggressive regulatory environment, rising costs, disruption from InsurTech companies, and an overload of internal-external file integration. The company also struggled with a lagging time to market. These challenges were exacerbated by a global financial crisis, aggressive changes to the regulatory landscape, and the challenge of low-to-zero interest rates. The company needed to meet strict SLA compliance or risk major fines, achieve agility in line with the best in InsurTech, and drastically reduce time to market.

The Mississippi Department of Human Services faced the challenge of modernizing their systems to optimize services. They needed to invest smartly in IT to save funds for social programs, build on the stability of proven core systems, be equipped to leverage new innovations, and adapt to changing federal regulations. The systems that were in place were built with Adabas & Natural over 25 years ago. While these systems were reliable in processing data for welfare, economic assistance, payments tracking, and other social programs, they were mainframe-based, which meant that case workers couldn’t easily access the latest data or build new innovations.

TDC Group, the leading telecommunications company in Denmark, was facing a significant challenge with the enforcement of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). A specific pain point for TDC was Article 30 of the GDPR, relating to the maintenance of processing activity records. This article lays out the obligations to store records by process controllers and representatives, documents erasure time limits and outlines transfers of data to third parties. It represents a serious compliance headache. TDC had a mountain ahead of it to climb. One of GDPR’s central requirements is for companies to generate ROPA reports detailing data collection, related processes, and uses in a way that makes data protection accountable. Easy to do with the right tools—and documentation—in place. Impossible otherwise.