At Meister, we’re proud to help businesses around the world, in all types of industries, work productively and get more done together. While our customers use MeisterTask to achieve many different goals — working smoothly with remote teams, implementing agile processes and much more — each benefits from a sleek, beautifully-designed tool that enables powerful task and project management with minimum fuss. In this post, we look at how the legendary German confectioner Ritter Sport has used MeisterTask as part of their digital transformation process.
Ritter Sport is an institution. This iconic confectionery, with its classic square packaging, has been a regular treat for sweet-toothed Germans for over a century and has spread to over 150 countries worldwide in that time as well.
The company, which generates over 500 million Euros (596 million USD) in annual turnover, has stuck with its traditions, still operating primarily from its traditional home in Waldenbuch, Germany. However, modern business practices are key to keeping Ritter Sport on the shelves of shops around the globe, which is why the successful implementation of MeisterTask has been such an important step.
Since switching to the tool at the beginning of 2020, Ritter Sport has experienced a huge boost in productivity, aided by a sleek, simple tool that its employees love to use. We spoke to Torsten Schlegel, Process Coordinator at Ritter Sport with over 30 years’ experience at the company, about how the decision to switch to MeisterTask was made and how the tool has been vital to the digital transformation of the company.
Same Taste, Changing Business
The marriage between tradition and innovation can often be a trying one. Companies like Ritter Sport can feel like they’re walking a tightrope between staying true to their roots as a family-run business and being left behind digitally. According to Schlegel, whose role at Ritter Sport focuses on implementing lean management principles, this does not have to be the case:
Software we implement should move us forward digitally, which is why a great deal of importance is placed on tool selection. It’s also not necessarily about what the software can do, but more about how we use it. Employee acceptance and usage is key, which means we cannot implement tools that are too complicated or which require extensive training.
Choosing MeisterTask
Having observed an often-chaotic system of sticky notes, pencils and whiteboards, Schlegel decided to make digital task management for Ritter Sport’s 200 office-based staff — including admin, sales and support teams — a top priority.
Keen to ensure that the right tool was chosen, he contacted MeisterTask to obtain test licenses and set to work testing the software among his small team of five. Confident of MeisterTask’s capability, the team surveyed other employees to see who would like to try the tool, and quickly decided it should be used permanently.
Our IT team was surprised at how many employees used the tool and how quickly they got to grips with it. Initially, we only envisaged the software as a self-organization aid, but we quickly realized that it could be so much more beneficial.
Streamlining and Optimizing
Following the success of MeisterTask at Ritter Sport as a personal task management tool, teams at the company set to work integrating MeisterTask into other processes. Projects at Ritter Sport are now managed using MeisterTask as well: managers have a better overview, work packages are assigned to the relevant employees, and detailed information about what needs to be done is included in the task itself.
We use MeisterTask for departmental projects, as a basis for our Monday meetings, for shop floor management meetings and much more. In these meetings, everyone reports current to-dos and progress. The documentation aspect is very important for us. When we put information in tasks, nothing gets forgotten or lost.
With much of the workforce now in home office due to Covid-19, MeisterTask has become even more valuable to team members. Schleger notes that the team now has better access to content, as MeisterTask projects can be shared with everyone. Better yet, resources and information are always up-to-date, as tasks are maintained continuously.
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Why MeisterTask?
Of course, MeisterTask doesn’t operate alone on the market: companies interested in digital task and project management solutions have no end of choice when it comes to tool selection. With so many options available, the question is simple: why MeisterTask? Schlegel explains:
MeisterTask is perfect for our needs. The features are sophisticated and powerful, but the interface is very intuitive so the tool doesn’t feel overloaded. Usage of MeisterTask among our employees exploded in the first year after implementing it, because the tool is just so easy to use. There are countless benefits for our employees and it’s been key in our digital transformation process as a whole.
Interested in adopting MeisterTask in your organization?
MeisterTask Enterprise offers a task management solution individually tailored to your company’s needs. In addition to MeisterTask Business, it includes:
- A dedicated account manager
- Personalized onboarding assistance
- A custom security review
- SAML Single Sign-On for your employees
- Contact us today for a tailored pricing offer.