Alchemy Systems Shifts from Asana to Wrike to Deliver Marketing Projects Faster
Alchemy Systems is a global leader in making food production and processing safer, smarter, and more productive. Over 2 million front line workers across 20,000 locations utilize Alchemy’s customizable training, coaching, and communications programs to improve operations.
Clients include Nestle, ConAgra, Keurig Green Mountain, White Castle, and Kellogg’s.
Their story
The marketing team did not have the project visibility and tracking they needed to ensure on-time delivery of projects.
Dante Dominick, Marketing Director at Alchemy Systems, initiated a pilot to shift from Asana and email because he did not have the detailed tracking needed to prevent work from falling through the cracks. "Without a good system that everyone believed in and everyone was using, there was a tendency to just spout out random emails, or have a conversation... then walk away," says Dominick. "People were always apprehensive, thinking, 'What did I forget?'"
Wrike was evaluated against Asana, JIRA, and Liquid Planner. Dominick chose Wrike because of its ease of use, shared dashboards, detailed task management tools, straight-forward Gantt chart management, and tailored reporting.
Their victory
Now that each team member has a clear, prioritized Dashboard of tasks, it's easy for team members to move down their list and execute work quickly.
Wrike was embraced by the marketing team and was recently utilized to manage their annual client conference in September 2016, with over 300 attendees from 100 companies. The detailed project plan included over 400 tasks.
Now that the team has more transparency and visibility of tasks, they are able to clearly see time-sensitive issues and red flags, allowing them to react more quickly than before. "People have less of a stress mode and a clearer view of their big picture workload, their top priorities, and what their day looks like," says Dominick. "With Wrike, there's comfort in knowing my top priorities. If I'm not told anything differently, I can just go in order of what is assigned to me based on the date."
Dominick and his team shifted away from email and other systems, and now require all requests to be entered into Wrike, using it as their main system of record. "Now, we have the same mantra that a sales team would have: 'If it's not in Wrike, it doesn't exist,'" says Dominick. "Without a doubt, everyone is more on the same page, and less apprehensive."
Dominick's team has also utilized Wrike's unique level of 24/7 live support. He says: "The couple of times that I've needed customer service, I put in an emergency ticket. They were extremely fast and very helpful."
"I as a manager can get a look at my whole team health, or I can drill down to just one individual. It's a lot easier and simpler to get things done at a macro and micro level."
Their superpowers
Accessible dashboards
While using Asana, Dominick's team lost visibility of tasks once they were assigned to a manager to review. Dominick solved this problem with Wrike's side-by-side dashboard widgets. Dominick also set up a management dashboard for executives, with the ability to drill down per employee. "It's a really easy way to see what I'm actively working on, but not lose sight of things that are in review by a manager," says Dominick. "I as a manager can get a look at my whole team health, or I can drill down to just one individual," says Dominick. "It's a lot easier and simpler to get things done at a macro and micro level."
Enhanced timeline view
Dominick wanted to be able to manage dependencies on a granular level as Asana didn't include a Gantt chart view in the main product. In Wrike, Dominick's entire team could collaborate on the shared Gantt chart/timeline. "We liked the usability and ease of this," says Dominick. "We don't have a dedicated project coordinator; we all kind of do it ourselves. I use Gantt charts, and I like that capability, and being able to create those dependencies."
Customized workflows
Custom workflows allow users to customize the statuses of their ongoing tasks. This provides everyone with instant updates on the progress of a task. Dominick used Wrike's customized workflows, allowing him to tailor the stages of work for each team. "The ease of setting up workflows is awesome. This is not in my wheelhouse and I did it in minutes," says Dominick. "It has a nice, elegant look — which is good in comparison to JIRA, which had a lot of utility but was a little wonky in use."
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