Experience Digital Transformation: Human-driven Journey
MediaMarktSaturn’s Approach to Digital Transformation
Digital transformation goes beyond implementing new technologies, it's about creating a mindset that embraces change, fosters innovation, and puts people at the heart of everything. We empower our employees to innovate and learn. We run activities, initiatives and programs that connect technology and people to ensure we deliver the best experience for employees and customers. That’s how we drive meaningful change that improves our operations and services.
Two events that reflect the company’s commitment to human-driven digital transformation, our internal innovative strength and our way of working together are the Innovation Days of MediaMarktSaturn Technology and the Finance GenAI Hackathon. These events were designed to harness the creativity and expertise of our employees, encouraging them to generate and prototype innovative ideas.
The Finance GenAI Ideathon & Hackathon
During the two-days event in mid-July, the participants brought the headquarter in Ingolstadt to life with their ideas, creativity and fun. Across both days, Accesa employees actively participated in the event, contributing their ideas, expertise, and valuable insights to support the participants. In the Ideathon, five teams competed to create and present outstanding ideas with high potentials to improve our business. The Hackathon took place one week after the Ideathon, where the teams of the three winning ideas worked in cross-functional teams to develop minimum viable products in one day.
And the winner is: “Let’s Buy AI” Team. The team developed a custom, personalized dashboard with a GenAI chat interface to conveniently receive information about all accessible contract data from the indirect procurement area. They were even able to save results and provide visualization. The winning team was able to present a finished live solution at the end of the day. The next steps will include what-if analysis of such contract data. The goal is to make life easier for more than 150 employees.
What is the initial target group for the “Let’s Buy AI” tool?
In the first phase, the focus will be on MediaMarktSaturn Technology employees, such as delivery leads and new team members in product teams, but also colleagues from controlling and managing directors.
What exactly can you ask the tool? Some concrete examples:
What contracts do we have, please summarize the key dates.
What is the contract structure in my area and when do contracts end? How do they impact the current fiscal year (saving time and providing clear data)?
Contract analysis - please summarize the key points of a particular contract document for me.
What does it mean for the next fiscal year if each contract becomes 5% more expensive when it is renewed?
But the Finance Hackathon didn't end there. All ideas were added to the digital hub backlog, where ideas are parked and may be addressed again at a later date. Teams eager to continue developing their concepts will be supported by the Transformation and Digital Hub (TDH) team.
Tech Innovation Days 2024: spotlight on creativity and innovation
Under the motto "create the change you want", the Tech Innovation Days 2024 once again demonstrated that MediaMarktSaturn is a hotspot for creative minds and innovative ideas - and above all: that it doesn't just stop at ideas, but that these can be developed into functioning prototypes in the shortest possible time. Five teams presented their prototypes to the jury on the big stage during the Tech Summit, our internal event with several hundred attendees, and were awarded on the same day.
Congratulations to the winners!
1st place: HyperPersonalization
The prototype provides a working solution to make the online shopping experience even more personalized and to focus on that content in the right place on our website.
2nd place: myMediaMarkt Adventure World
This solution focuses on the gamification approach and is designed to encourage customers to unlock prizes through a variety of games and become more engaged with the brand.
3rd place: Sustainable Shopping
Sustainability is an integral part of our business and this prototype integrates it even more visibly and interactively into the online store, for example by visually displaying how much CO2 can be saved by making a more sustainable purchase or through a more sustainable delivery.
The five teams worked together across the company to bring their ideas to life in several phases. In the first phase, participants submitted innovation ideas and presented them to the judges. The ideas had to pay special attention to key areas such as personalization, resilience, omnichannel experiences, artificial intelligence, sustainability, gamification and accessibility to ensure that the technological solutions were not only advanced, but also delivered real value to our customers and our business.
From the 19 ideas presented, five teams were selected for the second phase to realize their visions in newly created design sprints. Working in a hybrid mode and with the support of business and technology experts, they developed their projects into working prototypes. To do this, the idea generators enlisted the support of other colleagues from across the company to bring together a wide range of perspectives and skills. At the Tech Summit, the five teams presented their results and wowed attendees with the potential of the solutions they had developed in such a short time.
So what's next? The plan is not to stop at ideas and prototypes, as the Tech Summit made it clear that the solutions presented have great potential. All five ideas from the Innovation Days will be matched with appropriate sponsors from the technology and business communities who will help the teams move the idea forward.
