Transforming the relationship between IT and businesses and focusing on value with AirSaaS- Comexposium

The context: key figures, company etc.

French leader in events, operator of major professional fairs such as the Foire de Paris, the exhibition for agriculture, students, cars, but also for the food industry, fashion... and even specialized business meetings such as the Assises de la Cybersecurity. The French group event specialist is growing strongly, with more than 150 events professionals and general public and 69 brands in 22 countries.

Before/After AirSaaS

The Challenge: involving professionals in projects

Arriving in a context of strong technical and managerial debt, with large data projects, Stephan sought to avoid the traditional pitfalls of the relationship between IT and business in “Prévert inventory” mode.

In this context of digital acceleration, the key challenge was to act and collaborate quickly. This required placing the IT department and businesses in a continuous movement of adaptation to the environment. For Stéphan, this method of organization is difficult, if not impossible, to do with Word Excel and PowerPoint!

The solution: digitize the old Excel project portfolio with AirSaaS by involving the business lines and the executive

Revitalize the project portfolio

During the COVID crisis, the core of Comexposium's activity was stopped. The event expert took the opportunity to reorganize both the businesses and the IT department.

In the reorganization of the IT department's activity and jobs involved during the Covid crisis, one of the areas of work focused on IS/Digital topics and in particular The project sheet.

The answer given was better structure scoping and monitoring sheets. 

Stéphan first introduced a portfolio in Excel, with a project sheet containing the weather forecast, costing, expected gains, etc.

These sheets in Excel format, and reporting in PowerPoint format could not answer the question: but what is the situation? What are our priorities? And finally, they were unable to involve both the trades and the executive.

That's when Comexposium looked on the market for a digitized equivalent to the project sheet. He was not looking for a complex all-in-one tool, with a too large scope such as budget, project, planning, application mapping,... not an IT department ERP! Just, a digital portfolio with project sheets. And features of automated project reporting.

Integration of AirSaaS took place in two main phases : one premiere involving CIO+jobs which lasted barely two months. And today a second step involving the general management.

For Stephan”The key is to provide relevant information and to have the means to make it live on as time goes by, because you don't have to wait for a CODIR or a Project Committee to meet to report on what's going on. ”

Rely on AirSaaS to bring to life the key rituals of the CIO/Business/Management relationship

Our CIO reminds us, The challenge of involving professions in projects is not solved only by a tool, however useful it may be.

Nevertheless, Comexposium was able to take advantage of the implementation of the tool to Define key roles and prerogatives to each stakeholder projects.

Alongside the tool, four steering bodies and associated rituals are animated:

CIO committee, business committee, management committees and “Quarterly Business Reviews” (QBRs).

1. DSI committees (production and project)

In this instance, Comexposium has created two types of meetings, an operational committee where they only work on issues of production, incidents, operations, support, we are there on the operations of each project only.

The second committee is organized every other week. There, the teams are on AirSaaS with a more “DSI” orientation. Note that among the best practices Stephan asks the teams to update the tool the day before this committee.

“In our CIO committee, we review the points of vigilance, success and decisions to be taken on projects directly in AirSaaS.”

2. Business committees

These bodies are verticalized by major business line: sales, marketing, finance, etc.

All the references in each business are involved in the use of AirSaaS and the qualification of projects. Among other things, they have the following prerogatives: use the tool to update key data shortly before the committees. The objective is to have a CIO/profession/sponsor team on all projects.

3. Management committees 

In this instance, it's a different usage, we're On demand, thanks to tracking from AirSaaS I can provide a Up to date vision in real time.

4. The Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs).

In this instance, two aspects are primarily targeted: The evolution of budget And prioritizations with the president depending on the business case.

The quarter business review (QBR) ritual is now managed with the support of the platform. Anything that is not up to date in AirSaaS cannot be upgraded to QBR.

Bonus section/questions:

What sets AirSaaS apart from the other tools considered?

Sa ease of use ! With AirSaas we Avoid the ERP side of the IT department, simplicity is the strong point.

Today, the tool allows Comexposium to do project and program governance and soon transversal governance. Interfaced with Teams for Com. and with a project planning management tool such as Wrike, Jira or Asana, with this HUB, they have a global vision from strategy to execution, this tool has become a “must have” for CIO/sponsor/CEO teams.

What's your favorite feature?

Depending on the day, I like two functions. The first is The full portfolio view. What I like when I get to it is to have all my project sheets in one view kanban. Having all the projects with the various business committees on hand is super pleasant! There is really an organized and direct visualization side that helps to find your way around.

The other feature I am thinking of is the alert flow at the top right of AirSaaS, on the small bell 🔔. I can find the feedback of all the alerts, it's really my favorite function. Seeing the little green dots answers the question What happened today?

How do you calculate the ROI of Airsaas?

It was fairly easy to assess. We looked at the time spent by the external PMO who was taking us 2 to 3 days per month to consolidate the Excel portfolio file and report on the status of project execution in a PowerPoint, at the risk of forgetting the important decisions to be made.

Compared to the price of AirSaaS licenses, we have a clear return on investment.

Especially since now the PMO's mission time is used to animate the work process of the committees and to stimulate a dynamic around the solution!

A new AirSaaS feature that you would like in the future?

Yes, I think that for now there is a small stone missing. It is the ability to provide cross-disciplinary reports on several projects. Either at the level of a program or at the transversal business level. Indeed, when we produce our decision and action information report (RIDA) at the end of a business committee versus a project, that's what I'm missing today. That being the case, we have the possibility of bypassing this point by creating a transversal project. I noted that this Feature was planned in the roadmap communicated by the publisher on its online user club.

Bio Express Box - Stéphan Boisson

A graduate of the ISIMA engineering school, Stephan began his career within the Loxam group, where he evolved by taking over the management of the IT department, thus contributing to the acceleration of the performance of the information system. After three years in the IT department at Mazars, he joined SCC France where he coordinated the transformation of information systems. In 2019, Stephan Boisson joined the Comexposium group as Group CIO. From then on, it participates in its growth and internationalization strategy and in the implementation of tools that allow the hybridization of work.

‍