Sparkasse Mainfranken: Sales Controlling with MindMeister and MeisterTask (Success Story)

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Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, Meister has helped customers around the world transition smoothly into efficient remote workflows and effective daily processes. Particularly in the banking industry, our clients have been impressed with the capabilities of both MindMeister and MeisterTask in these unusual times. In this post, we speak to Marijana Schaffer, Project Leader for Sales Controlling at the German bank Sparkasse Mainfranken, about how the Meister Suite has become an indispensable requirement for team productivity.

Sparkasse Mainfranken: Sales Controlling with MindMeister and MeisterTask (Success Story)

Employees of financial institutions rely heavily on collaboration, which is why choosing the right tools is crucial to success. This has become extremely relevant during the coronavirus-enforced trend towards remote work, but even before 2020, web-based productivity tools were increasingly commonplace in banks around the world. With speed key to successful implementation and simplicity vital to a smooth rollout, both MindMeister and MeisterTask are perfectly-suited to socially-distanced work in the financial sector because they are web-based, intuitive and secure. 

The Sparkasse Mainfranken, one of Germany’s largest regional banks with more than 1000+ employees, agrees, having implemented both MeisterTask and MindMeister during the early days of the crisis. Since then, the bank has continued to enjoy the advantages of the Meister Suite, in areas such as personal task management, meeting organization and more. Read on to find out how they did it and how your organization could enjoy the same benefits.

Work Productively Remotely

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Crisis = Opportunity

The timing could hardly have been worse for Marijana Schaffer. Having spent considerable time planning a workshop on agile project management, the big date of March 23, 2020 coincided exactly with the rollout of coronavirus restrictions in Germany. With the possibility of holding the workshop at her bank’s offices out of the question, it seemed that cancellation would be the only option. However, Schaffer held one key advantage she, with the help of her colleague: Cornelius Rihm, had already thought about the types of digital tools that would be required in order to run a successful remote workshop. The show could go on.

Agile or Waterfall project management? Read our comparison of project management styles on our blog.

For Rihm, who works in the Process Organization department, agile working methods were nothing new, having worked extensively with mobile task management solutions in his private life. Despite this, the question of whether an agile tool could be used for digital task management in the security-sensitive banking sector (especially in sales management) remained open. This was until Rihm found MeisterTask: the ideal GDPR-compliant test candidate for Schaffer’s project. Rihm explains:

MeisterTask has an intuitive user interface, facilitates mobile access via smartphone or tablet, and is a security-conscious choice due to its server location in Germany. MeisterTask makes agile work not only possible, but simple too. It allows employees to organize their activities via visual Kanban boards that also support Scrum workflows.

Cornelius Rihm

Following a thorough security check, the path was clear to test the tool for the workshop and in the Sales department.

Road-Testing MeisterTask

Even remotely, the event was a hit. “Thanks to MeisterTask, the workshop on agile project management was a huge success,” concludes Schaffer. In fact, results were so positive that the experience convinced the department to roll out the tool to the rest of the team. Once a decision had been made, the ease of onboarding with MeisterTask meant that the team quickly accepted the tool and integrated it into their processes. In terms of features, Schaffer is fond of using tags to categorize her tasks in MeisterTask, as well as exploring the various automation options that enable efficient work.

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Contact Sales

However, the use of MeisterTask in the Sparkasse Mainfranken is not limited to the Sales Controlling department: enthusiastic employees quickly spread word of the solution to other areas of the bank. For Cornelius Rihm, the key selling point is its flexibility, which adapts to the differing needs of departments and users across the organization.

MeisterTask has an intuitive user interface, facilitates mobile access via smartphone or tablet, and is a security-conscious choice due to its server location in Germany. MeisterTask makes agile work not only possible, but simple too. It allows employees to organize their activities via visual Kanban boards that also support Scrum workflows.

Cornelius Rihm

The value of easy access to projects and status updates hasn’t gone unnoticed by the bank’s senior management. The MeisterTask apps for smartphone and tablet, enable powerful task and project management features on the go.

Not using our app? Download MeisterTask on mobile today. It’s free!

Shorter Meetings with MindMeister

Bite-sized meetings save us time by bringing focus to our communication.

Marijana Schaffer

Although Schaffer was initially interested in MeisterTask to improve project work with her team, she soon realized the value of the whole Meister Suite. Aided by MindMeister, Meister’s collaborative mind mapping tool, the bank now uses online mind mapping for meeting preparation and management. 

MindMeister allows team members to collect and evaluate ideas — before, during and after meetings — while the mind map format also helps the team, according to Schaffer, “gain an overview of subject areas and improve comprehension in advance”. These initial brainstorming sessions can be used to form a wireframe for meetings, ensuring topics are kept to and no time is wasted.

Thanks to MindMeister, meetings in the Sales Controlling department have become significantly shorter. She often shares a mind map of the topic in advance, a tactic that allows employees to add ideas on their own instead of large meetings. “I call them bite-sized meetings,” she says.

Find out more about how MindMeister can help manage meetings in your organization

Interested in MeisterTask or MindMeister for Your Organization?

MeisterTask and MindMeister integrate together perfectly to help you generate ideas and turn them into actions. Better still, you can make substantial savings by implementing both products for your team as part of the Meister Business Bundle.

If you still need more, 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.

Work Better Together

with MindMeister and MeisterTask.

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