"How can a global non-profit organisation with 12 million donors in seven countries use digital transformation and AI to streamline its complex processes and provide a second chance at life faster?

DKMS is an international non-profit organization dedicated to providing blood cancer patients worldwide with a second chance at life. With over 12 million registered donors across seven countries and more than 115,000 stem cell donations facilitated, the organization faced a critical challenge: their internal processes had grown increasingly complex over the years, creating bottlenecks that delayed life-saving treatments.

In order to understand such a complex, highly specialised organisation, we delved deep into it.

We conducted onboarding sessions, interviews and on-site shadowing with employees from all departments. We identified bottlenecks and potential improvements in departmental workflows. We analysed the existing tool ecosystem used by staff. We gained an understanding of medical regulations and compliance requirements. We developed a comprehensive picture of end-to-end processes.

We differentiated and mapped processes across DKMS's international presence in Germany, USA, Poland, UK, Chile, India, and South Africa, understanding how different national entities and regulations influenced operations.

After aggregating our findings into clear process flows, we validated our theoretical understanding with practical reality. We accompanied employees at different DKMS locations during their daily work, ensuring our insights reflected actual working conditions rather than idealized processes.

This project laid the foundation for DKMS's digital transformation journey. The innovation roadmap we created is now guiding the organization's strategic initiatives, with several packages already in implementation. By optimizing end-to-end processes and leveraging digital tools, DKMS is now better equipped to fulfill its mission: giving more blood cancer patients worldwide a second chance at life, faster than ever before.