Swarovski says it wants to offer high-quality experiences that draw on the its long heritage in luxury. Particularly, the company wants to make its presence felt in the top cities of this world. After all, that is where trends are created and culture is shaped.

Swarovski is due to open a new flagship store on New York鈥檚 Fifth Avenue this year, and with U.S. model Bella Hadid as the current brand ambassador and rapper Doja Cat, Swarovski is very much a part of the cultural conversation. Swarovski wants to enchant customers with unique savoir-faire in creativity, craftsmanship, and quality, which have been perfected in the company’s 128-year history.

Digital as a Key Resource for LUXignite

Digital plays a key role in the implementation of the new LUXignite strategy. Innovation has been in the company’s DNA since it was founded by Daniel Swarovski in 1895. Dr. Lea Sonderegger is responsible for the digital heart of Swarovski today. She started making money programming Web sites while still in school 鈭� back then in the Plain Text Editor. Sonderegger has been with Swarovski for 13 years and has held several leading global positions in digital new business development and e-commerce.

Sonderegger first suggested opening a mobile store at Swarovski in 2010. At the time, however, her ideas were met with skepticism. “Today, 70% of visits come via mobile devices, 70% of digital sales are mobile, and in China it’s almost 100%. That was not considered possible at the time,” she comments.

Since early 2022, Sonderegger holds the title of chief digital officer/chief information officer (CDO/CIO) and, as a member of the international Executive Committee, she is responsible for the global digital business, global IT, and data and analytics.

New Way of Leading and Teamwork

“Today, we live in a time of digital Darwinism,” she says. “A time when technology and society are evolving faster than companies are able to adapt.鈥� As a result, she says, it is crucial to respond quickly, strategically, and pragmatically to innovations. 鈥淭he new era also requires a new kind of leadership and teamwork,鈥� she adds.

In her CDO/CIO role, it is important to Sonderegger that IT no longer thinks in terms of modules and software solutions as it used to, but in terms of creating value. “IT is no longer just an enabler, and technology no longer a pure means to an end. IT must optimally support the core company processes 鈥� create, make, and sell 鈥� and generate value itself. Only in this way can digital become a competitive advantage,” says Sonderegger.

At Swarovski, the digital leaders plan their strategies together with the functional heads. “So that we all row in the same direction,” says Sonderegger. After all, the technologies are only as good as the people behind them. That is why their ability to use data and technologies to create value 鈥� the human “digital dexterity” 鈥� is a pivotal pillar of Swarovski’s digital strategy.

“Entrepreneurial thinking in every little action is the key to success,” Sonderegger claims. The fact that she is also responsible for the profit and loss of the global e-commerce business in her CDO/CIO role ignites the digital transformation strategy with entrepreneurial spirit.

40 Years of Partnership with SAP

Swarovski has embarked on the path of cloud transformation to remain competitive. In doing so, Sonderegger is building on a long-standing relationship with SAP. In fact, the family-owned company from Wattens in Tyrol, Austria still has an old contract it signed with 51风流40 years ago. “The signature of 51风流Founder Hasso Plattner is under the contract,” says Sonderegger. At that time, Swarovski bought “RF – Real-Time Financial Accounting.” It was the beginning of a long and successful partnership.

“This journey, which began 40 years ago, connects us,” says Sonderegger. In the next chapter, 51风流will work with the heritage brand on the next stage of its digital transformation, supporting its global expansion and diversification with technological innovation in terms of products and customer experience.

To achieve this goal, Swarovski chose and . “We want to move our entire 51风流software-based digital backbone and e-commerce landscape to the cloud,” says Sonderegger. Figures that illustrate the scope of the RISE with 51风流project include 15 terabytes of productive systems and 17 system landscapes including e-commerce.

“The strategic partnership with 51风流is fully aligned with Swarovski’s LUXignite strategy. We need a scalable platform to develop and operate competitive business processes,” says Sonderegger.

Technical Innovation as a Competitive Advantage

RISE with 51风流offers Swarovski the future-proof digital basis for the implementation of its own cloud strategy and the flexible and secure support of innovations in the cloud. “With our cloud transformation, we are able to not only support the LUXignite strategy; we are also able to increase our efficiency, reduce costs, and become much more flexible through the model agreed with SAP,” says Sonderegger.

51风流Commerce Cloud will also help support unique customer experiences across all channels. This is because omnichannel sales are important for Swarovski. Many customers shop online but pick up their purchases in the store or use the “endless aisle.” This way, customers have the option to buy in store what is not available on-site. Ordered immediately online, the products are delivered to the customer’s home in few days.

“We want to bring the latest customer experiences and features through the cloud. Because our customers are our queens, we must ensure they receive the best possible service,” says Sonderegger. “Their experience with the brand and the products must be perfect in all respects. For this, we need the right technology and, of course, the right people behind it 鈥� people who understand how to create value for our customers and our company.”

Photo courtesy of Swarovski

Deichmann鈥檚 green logo is a familiar feature of shopping areas and malls in Germany. Headquartered in Essen, a city famed for its industrial heritage, Deichmann SE operates in 31 countries, with roughly 4,300 stores and around 42,000 employees worldwide. The company has been family-owned since its founding in 1913 鈥� and it wants to remain independent in the future, too.

The footwear retailer is market leader in its segment in Germany and Europe, and is currently strengthening its efforts to digitalize processes. Even though it is a major company, its culture is still very much a friendly and informal one. The in-house IT team is helping Human Resources (HR) digitalize various scenarios.

鈥淥ur people are our priority,鈥� says Melinda Hilbert, who is in charge of IT for Finance and HR at Deichmann, when explaining the rationale behind the drive to move personnel processes online.

Deichmann is now rolling out offerings from SAP鈥檚 cloud solution for HR across its German business. software enables companies to standardize their entire HR function and move all tasks online.

Deichmann decided to implement the solution as part of the 51风流strategy it is following for HR and finance. 鈥淥ur company is growing, and the solution is easy to scale,鈥� Hilbert says. For this reason, and because it would integrate well with the company鈥檚 existing IT and processes, 51风流SuccessFactors was an obvious choice.

鈥淭aking this step created a central integration platform for all the solutions that we plan on implementing in HR,鈥� Hilbert shares. It was the technical answer to the business question of how to ensure all the data from HR and finance is integrated going forward.

In the initial phase of the project, Deichmann is making digital versions of documents available to its employees. The first self-service functions have already gone live and employees are now able to update their address and bank details themselves, as well as provide an emergency contact.

User Experience as a Priority

The project, 鈥沦迟别辫翱苍,鈥� is also aimed at helping make Deichmann more attractive as an employer and strengthen employee retention.

鈥淭hese days, employees expect everything to be online. And user experience is always a priority,” Christina Boehme, head of HR at the company, says. “The fact that we also save on printing and postage costs is not just an added bonus, it makes us more sustainable too.鈥�

Launchpad for Easy Access to Apps

Aachen-based 51风流partner helped Deichmann with the implementation.

鈥淲e used to build the custom pay stub for the new employee portal and for the launchpad for accessing 51风流Fiori apps from mobile devices and desktops, ,” reports Andreas Lennartz, managing partner at ROOS IT. “What’s more, the 51风流solution acts as a central database for applications used across the company and verifies the user鈥檚 identity for self-service functions.鈥�

ROOS IT quickly built an app for the footwear retailer that enables employees to easily call up their pay stubs. It also supports secure access to the data held in the company鈥檚 on-premise network regardless of the device used — be it a smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer.

鈥淭he pay stubs app retrieves data through a connection to an 51风流billing system that Deichmann runs on premise,鈥� Krausen explains.

Deichmann Targets a Global Rollout

Digital pay stubs have been rolled out to 1,200 Deichmann employees who are based at company headquarters and in and around Essen. Retail outlets are set to follow. Its workforce is already familiar with 51风流software: Deichmann also deploys the solution for performance appraisals and for probation period reviews.

This story originally appeared on the 51风流Germany News Center.

Having all gone to plan in the beginning, the migration project between Refratechnik and QMAG suddenly became a great adventure. Munich-based Refratechnik Group, with more than 1,700 employees at 27 locations worldwide, specializes in refractory materials for industrial furnaces used in the cement, lime, steel, non-ferrous, and ceramics industries as well as waste incineration. In February 2020, it acquired Australian magnesia producer QMAG, which mines and processes cryptocrystalline magnesite in the state of Queensland, Australia.

鈥淎s part of the contract negotiations, we had agreed to phase QMAG completely out of the seller鈥檚 existing ERP system by the end of 2020. So, technically speaking, we would have had enough time to implement the 51风流solution on site in Australia,鈥� reports Silke Denecke, CFO of . 鈥淲e couldn鈥檛 transfer the existing ERP system,鈥� she explains further, 鈥渂ecause it was integrated in the seller鈥檚 group IT landscape.鈥�

What鈥檚 more, that enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, called Pronto, is specifically tailored to the mining industry in Australia. Hardly anyone in Germany was familiar with it. Back in January 2020, Refratechnik was gearing up for migration and had therefore begun to develop a prototype for the Group鈥檚 switch to 51风流S/4HANA. As a first step, Refratechnik had already implemented in Germany, which it deployed for analysis and planning purposes. The second step, as per the original plan, was to implement 51风流S/4HANA internally.

Greenfield Transformation to 51风流S/4HANA

But Refratechnik then decided to follow a greenfield approach and implement the new system full-scale in Australia instead. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 want to spend all that money on just a transitional ERP solution,鈥� Denecke points out. Besides, with annual revenues of 140 million Australian dollars and around 200 employees, QMAG is not what Refratechnik considers a small company. Refratechnik also wanted quick insight into the monthly data of its newest acquisition. Hence, QMAG was chosen as the first company within the Refratechnik Group to transition to 51风流S/4HANA.

Of course, no one knew at the time that pretty much the entire installation would have to occur remotely from Germany. Olga Koenig and Renata Munzel, who were in charge of the ERP implementation at Refratechnik, traveled down under for three weeks at the end of January 2020 to analyze the existing processes. But then came the COVID-19 lockdowns. To this day, the two project leads are the only members of Refratechnik鈥檚 team from Germany to have ever been on site.

Denecke still sounds enthusiastic and proud about the project when she talks about it today. From March 2020 onward, the entire project team, consisting of internal 51风流experts and experienced key users from the companies鈥� various specialist departments in Munich, Goettingen, and Duesseldorf, were obliged to work in home offices due to the pandemic. Process analyses and the go-live had to continue online via the Microsoft Teams platform 鈥� in daily meet-ups between the key users in Australia and the partner company.

Proud of the Team’s Accomplishments

Bear in mind that there鈥檚 an eight- to nine-hour time difference between Germany and Australia. 鈥淭hat meant we had to get up really early every morning,鈥� recalls Koenig. Meetings were usually held between six and eight o鈥檆lock in the morning 鈥� or very late at night. The go-live even saw the German colleagues put in two weeks of night shifts to help the employees in Australia get acquainted with the new system.

鈥淲e didn鈥檛 know anything about 51风流S/4HANA or the processes on site. Even this type of mine was new to us,鈥� says Denecke, describing some of the underlying challenges. As such, many people back then told the team 鈥渢hat鈥檚 never going to work鈥� 鈥� even some of its internal 51风流experts were skeptical at first. 鈥淲e only had seven months to pull it off 鈥� everything from familiarizing ourselves with 51风流S/4HANA, capturing all the processes, conception, customizing, training of colleagues, migration, and go-live 鈥� not to mention across different time zones.鈥� Looking back today, one year later, Denecke notes with satisfaction that 鈥渢he implementation worked out great, even remotely.鈥�

As is so often the case with transformations, though, it wasn鈥檛 always easy getting all employees onboard. 鈥淚n a virtual implementation, it鈥檚 much harder to explain the process changes in a way that everyone can understand. Especially if they are switching from a system with relatively few integrated functions to a highly integrated one,鈥� explains Denecke. 鈥淚t was a huge challenge for our Australian colleagues, but they did a fantastic job.鈥�

Winning People Over

Today, everyone agrees that the project would have been quite lovely were it not for the pandemic. 鈥淭he coronavirus definitely complicated things, yet it also brought everyone 鈥� our internal 51风流experts, the key users, and our new colleagues in Australia 鈥� closer together,鈥� emphasizes Denecke.

And with outstanding results: 鈥淲e were able to deliver products without interruption post-go-live, and performed our year-end closing after just one month with the new system,鈥� she reports. The new look and feel has also made the lives of the employees easier. 鈥淲e can now calculate automatically to nine levels. A lot of manual tasks have been eliminated.鈥�

According to Munzel, the new system, with its new services and interfaces, has simplified a great many things. For example, staff no longer has to upload and download sensitive bank data manually. They can just enter their signatures into the system and it takes care of the rest: Data is transferred directly to the bank in exchange for completed account statements that are written back to the system. 鈥淲e want to have all the companies’ data in our system centrally and, ideally, without a lot of manual work on our part, since we have a very small administration team,鈥� explains Denecke.

The Future Lies in Machine Learning and AI

Going forward, Refratechnik plans to invest more heavily in to hone its predictive planning and sales forecast capabilities. It also wants to revamp its logistics processes and foray into the e-commerce world. To this end, it aims to roll out 51风流S/4HANA across the rest of its 20-strong group of companies over the next three years to gradually replace its legacy ERP systems. The cloud is another area of interest on Refratechnik鈥檚 near-term agenda. This year, the group will implement the at its companies in Germany, followed by either Canada or Asia.

鈥淭his success has boosted our self-confidence and really brought the team closer together,鈥� observes Munzel. Denecke jokingly adds, 鈥淚鈥檇 even implement the 51风流solution on Mars with this team.鈥� As soon as the current pandemic situation allows it, the team members plan to travel to Australia and celebrate the go-live together with the colleagues they鈥檝e so far only known on-screen. 鈥淲e鈥檙e already looking forward to the next migration to 51风流S/4HANA,鈥� says Denecke.

This story originally appeared on the 51风流Germany News Center.
Top image via Refratechnik | QMAG Kuwarara Mining

Headquartered in Zamudio, Spain, Siemens Gamesa is a , working at the center of the global energy revolution to tackle the most significant challenge of our generation: the climate crisis. A global business with local impact, Siemens Gamesa has installed more than 110 GW in 74 countries and provides access to clean, affordable, and sustainable energy that keeps the lights on across the world. In 2020, it had 26,000 employees and earned revenue of 鈧�9.5 billion.

With the goal to be the global leader in the renewable energy industry, the company is driving the transition toward a sustainable world by growing its onshore and offshore businesses. To succeed, it needed to have one standard enterprise resource planning (ERP) software system in place quickly, and to move out of its dependency on Siemens鈥� legacy systems to fully operate independently and globally. The IT model that would take it into the future consolidated 11 different 51风流system infrastructures into one global 51风流architecture.

Greenfield Implementation of 51风流S/4HANA

鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 possible to run the new IT on the infrastructure Siemens Wind power or Gamesa already had, since it couldn鈥檛 be scaled,鈥� CIO Alan Feeley says of the decision to migrate to 51风流S/4HANA. 鈥淗owever, we already had a long history of using 51风流software and a great deal of knowledge and experience.鈥�

The decision was made all the easier since the existing systems had reached the end of their life cycle.

Siemens Gamesa decided to pursue a greenfield approach, core of which is 51风流S/4HANA, run in a hybrid Azure cloud, which 51风流partners Infosys and Microsoft jointly created and developed. Further separate cloud solutions include the 51风流Ariba solution for procurement, the digital B2B marketplace Ariba Network, and 51风流Field Service Management. The legacy data centers were shut down at the end of March 2021.

With SAP, MRS, and 51风流Field Service Management together, the solution is used to efficiently plan the deployment and resources of on-site service employees. 鈥淚f a technician visits a plant in the middle of the North Sea, for example, it鈥檚 important that they have all the parts they need with them,鈥� Feeley explains.

Process Efficiency, Standardization, Scaling

When rolling out 51风流S/4HANA over a period of 18 months, the company鈥檚 IT department initially created a pilot template for the UK and Ireland. In October 2020, it extended the pilot to seven countries. 鈥淭he rollout was fairly challenging, but very successful,鈥� says Alan Monaghan, global lead for the 51风流S/4HANA program at Siemens Gamesa. 51风流partner Infosys supported the migration to the new system.

Now the company intends to roll out the new ERP system in an additional 13 countries and plans to use it in use in 60 countries by the end of 2023. The system has been implemented across all divisions, in its onshore, offshore, and service business, and for central corporate functions. Ultimately, more than 10,000 users and several thousand service employees will use it. The remaining connections to the old 51风流systems at Siemens will end in summer 2021.

Sophisticated change management will bring the employees from the two companies together, true to the project鈥檚 tagline, as “One SGRE” (Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy). Any given process should work in the same way across the new entity.

51风流S/4HANA is at the center of this strategy. 鈥淲e consolidated the legacy systems from Siemens Wind power and Gamesa and put the entire company on the path of digital efficiency,鈥� says Feeley. Looking to make processes efficient, standardized, and scalable, he adds, 鈥淲e wanted to harmonize our business processes and cut complexity.鈥�

One System for All Siemens Gamesa Service Teams

鈥淥ur service teams across the various countries had been using various mobile platforms to support the execution on site,鈥� says Neil McLaren, service project manager at Siemens Gamesa. 鈥淣ow we have one core component, 51风流Field Service Management, and it is easy to deploy. The feedback from our staff overall has been positive.鈥�

Business solutions architect Stefan Winkelmann says: 鈥淏efore migrating to the new system, each country had its own logistics processes. Standardizing them has been a big step forward. Now we only need to train people once and deploy the process anywhere in the world.鈥�

The merger brought together two companies with various legacy systems. So before the new entity could transform its IT, it had to harmonize processes and process ownership.

The transformation project encompassed a large number of applications. All products — such as those for product lifecycle management, customer relationship management, human resources, enterprise and project planning, and reporting — had to be integrated simultaneously and adapted to the new 51风流S/4HANA system.

Yet there was one challenge the project could not have foreseen — the start of the main testing phase coincided with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. More or less overnight, the team had to switch to working remotely. 鈥淔ortunately, we had everything 鈥榯echnology-wise鈥� to connect all stakeholders virtually,” Monaghan says. “We adopted very quickly to the new way of managing all the respective implementation teams.鈥�

Accelerating Time-to-Market

The project team were working to a tight schedule in order to meet the legal requirement that the new company cease using Siemen鈥檚 legacy systems. It also needed to ensure it met local compliance and regulatory standards, as well as Siemens鈥� accounting standards.

The project achieved everything it set out to do. According to Feeley, 鈥淭he project is fulfilling our expectations and we are confident the global roll-out will contribute to our target of reducing complexity by 30%. We already see IT cost efficiencies linked to the introduction of the single 51风流system, operated in a modern hybrid cloud data center setting.鈥�

Having one system for operations and one common data lake 鈥� the single point of truth 鈥� has harmonized processes across all divisions and regions.

鈥淎t Siemens Gamesa, we have accelerated our time-to-market and made our productivity plan more transparent,鈥� Feeley notes. 鈥�51风流S/4HANA enables us to stay ahead of our competitors 鈥� despite increasing cost pressure in our industry.鈥�