Generative AI (GenAI) can make your business more responsive, more innovative, and more efficient. But how can this revolutionary technology be leveraged enterprise-wide in order to enable all employees to use it to their advantage? Bertelsmann, a global media, services, and education company, tackled this endeavor and collaborated with Deloitte to create the Bertelsmann Collaboration Platform (BCP). Thanks to Deloitte’s CAMPfire tech-sharing platform, every Bertelsmann subsidiary worldwide now has access to a software-as-a-service marketplace as well as a centralized distribution.
With the launch of ChatGPT at the end of 2022, the public was suddenly given a glimpse into the disruptive potential of generative AI. Not only does GenAI offer tremendous opportunities to enhance a wide variety of digital services, but it is also exceptionally easy to use, even without prior IT knowledge. This, in a way, “democratizes” access to AI and makes it highly attractive for companies.
Even before this Big Bang moment, Bertelsmann was already planning ahead and laying the groundwork to leverage this novel technology’s potential as quickly as possible – by creating a digital collaboration platform for tech and data experts across the entire enterprise. The platform is designed for sharing innovative solutions among Group subsidiaries via APIs and apps. This marketplace was set up in collaboration with Deloitte on the basis of its tech-sharing solution "CAMPfire" and supported by teams of experts from both companies in the areas of Business and Technology, as well as Tax, Legal and IT Security.
At Bertelsmann, numerous innovators across the globe work on new software – but separated in divisional units. Two years ago, the Group’s Tech & Data Strategists decided a software-as-a-service marketplace would enable staff to share and scale novel solutions across the enterprise and embarked on an ambitious project to build the platform with Deloitte. Thanks to Deloitte’s proprietary CAMPfire solution, each Group subsidiary now has a fully customizable user interface that they can adapt to their needs and host on various cloud services. CAMPfire offers a streamlined way to launch, share, price, and invoice digital assets, while also ensuring regulatory compliance. This intensifies the platform effect across all business units and markets, while also fostering enterprise-wide development of innovative, fully compliant software.
During the development of CAMPfire, Deloitte was quick to recognize the enormous potential of a broader AI application. This was the starting point for the system that ultimately enabled Bertelsmann to roll out GenAI across the entire Group.
Together with Deloitte, we were able to draw on extensive experience in managing the use of technology within the Group. Similar to our Bertelsmann Collaboration Platform, CAMPfire was developed with a strong focus on practical requirements, so it was a natural choice to combine CAMPfire with the BCP approach for intra-group exchange.
Rhys Nölke, Chief Data Officer, Bertelsmann
CAMPfire is Deloitte’s proprietary solution for sharing AI applications across our global deloitte.ai Marketplace. We are thrilled to now offer this innovative platform to our partners and clients.
Dr. Jan-Niklas Keltsch, Director and German Lead for deloitte.ai & CAMPfire
GenAI empowers users to develop and deliver highly effective digital services in record time –no IT expertise required. By implementing GenAI on the Bertelsmann Collaboration Platform (BCP), a framework has been created that enables the joint implementation and global scaling of the enormous possibilities of GenAI, even beyond the organizational boundaries of the individual subsidiaries. In order to maximize the benefits of GenAI as quickly as possible, the initial test run of BCP not only gives Bertelsmann employees access to a range of state-of-the-art Large Language Models (LLM), but also provides several GenAI assets developed in-house by Deloitte’s experts. The upside: Even though generative AI is easy to use without any IT expertise, challenges can arise when you move on to more complex tasks. It often takes dozens of sophisticated prompts in various combinations to achieve consistent results. However, thanks to preconfigured solutions, no such effort is required. Deloitte has already developed a wide range of GenAI applications for selected use cases that are as user-friendly as they are powerful. They rely on Large Language Models (LLMs) without the need for complex backend business logic. This is the key to achieving maximum efficiency.
One example of the GenAI applications developed on Deloitte’s own platform is “Estimate”, a tool designed to simplify project planning. Users simply enter a description of the project as free text in the Estimate user interface, for instance, a multidisciplinary IT project with a team of software development, HR, and project management staff.
The numerous prompts running in the background enable the tool to categorize, analyze and structure the project. Users then receive an estimated project timeline with a best-case/worst-case range as well as a detailed project plan with a list of necessary steps from requirement assessment and design & development to testing and deployment. The output also includes the most likely timeline, the risks that need to be considered, and the key milestones for each step.
These and other tools can now be used across the Group via the Bertelsmann Collaboration Platform (BCP). The centralized approach enables efficient assurance of compliance, data protection, and cyber security.
Empowered by the platform, innovators at Bertelsmann can launch novel applications on their own and share them with their fellow Group companies - amplifying the platform effect, expanding the digital ecosystem, and developing pioneering GenAI applications at a new level of efficiency and effectiveness.
Real connections. Real impact.
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Group-wide collaboration is what our Bertelsmann Tech & Data Alliance is all about. With today’s innovation cycles getting faster and faster, we need an enterprise-wide digital platform where we can share expertise and technology. That was the motivation behind the two-year project to build the Bertelsmann Collaboration Platform. Since then, the demand for this type of collaboration has soared thanks to megatrends such as GenAI. More than 7,500 of our colleagues worldwide are working together on theplatform today. We look forward to continuing to grow our solution-sharingcommunity further, driving collaboration and co-development, and making it easier to deliver AI tools and apps. Our philosophy: It’s better to share andreuse solutions than to reinvent the wheel over and over again.
Rhys Nölke, Chief Data Officer, Bertelsmann