Good reputation, increased operating results, regular successful cooperation: there are many reasons for companies to choose one or the other consultancy. Within the framework of the Best of Consulting and Best of Consulting Mittelstand awards, WirtschaftsWoche honors Germany's best management consultants.WirtschaftsWoche asked all consultancies in Germany to have their best customer projects evaluated by a scientific advisory board and a jury. In the "Best of Consulting" competition of WirtschaftsWoche, PRODYNA was able to prevail in the category "Technology" and was awarded with the "Best of Consulting" seal. As consulting partner, PRODYNA supported tesa, the manufacturer of adhesive tapes and other adhesive materials, in the development of a cloud-based business application, thus facilitating company-wide access to information and creating new analysis options. An interview with Stefan Franke, Head of Data Lab in the Digital Development Office of tesa SE.Mr. Franke, what is your role in the Digital Development Office at tesa SE?As part of the Digitalization Initiative 2025, tesa has set itself the goal of digitizing its own processes. In the Digital Development Office, I initiate digital products, including BLOX.Tell us about the project you have been implementing with PRODYNA since 2019.With BLOX we have developed an application that is individually tailored to tesa. Based on the newly developed coherent data model, it depicts technical interrelationships and relationships. The cloud setup enables us to outsource the majority of the technical complexity into the infrastructure and to focus BLOX on the business logic. The application provides a platform for innovations in research and development, allows a 360° view of our database and forms the basis for comprehensive risk analyses.What added value could be realized for tesa as a result?In the past, it was a challenge for tesa to gain a structured overview of the technical dependencies and implications of our production steps. BLOX solves this problem and accelerates our product development. At the same time we can use the developed data model for our risk management. Especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, the application has strengthened our business continuity by enabling us to identify and avoid risks in real time through a 360° view of raw materials, supply chains, technologies and market data.How has the application helped to deal with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic?One example is the automotive suppliers and producers of chemical raw materials located in Northern Italy, which are particularly threatened by the lockdown. Our central concern is to be able to guarantee our customers the availability of our products even during the pandemic. Due to BLOX, we were able to identify risks at an early stage and define data-based measures to ensure that we can continue to supply our customers.What role did PRODYNA play as your consulting partner in the development of the application?We involved PRODYNA very early in the process in order to integrate their expertise in working with the graph database Neo4j. During the cooperation it quickly became clear that the consultants were very proactive in contributing their own ideas and suggestions. In this way, we were able to maximize the business value created together. In the meantime, a PRODYNA team implemented the entire application in the Microsoft Azure Cloud.Why Microsoft Azure as Cloud Partner?The Azure ecosystem fits perfectly with our digitalization strategy – we can operate successfully proven IT systems reliably and scalably and take new prototypes into test operation with minimal risk. In the BLOX environment, for example, we benefit from the Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), which enables us to regularly connect new user groups from all business areas to the knowledge management system with great ease. In addition, the Azure Cloud allows us to achieve a higher development speed and allows us to control costs incurred at project level.What's next in the Digital Development Office?Together with PRODYNA and Microsoft, we have created a valuable foundation for leveraging knowledge within the Group. In the future we plan to link more and more information in the knowledge graph. There is potential for expansion everywhere – from logistics to product development and sales. We will implement many more exciting projects as part of our Digitization Initiative 2025.Here you will find further information about the „Best of Consulting“ seal.