Advisor to the world market leaders

Strategic focus on a defined target market, absolute customer and performance orientation, high innovative strength, professional excellence, ambition of a quality leader, strong corporate culture that promotes and demands entrepreneurial thinking, open communication, responsibility and trust in individual creative power are the unique selling proposition of cbs. In addition, a unique solution portfolio that comprehensively serves the challenges of customers to processes and business management, to digitalization and technologies.

cbs is shaping the future of its expanding consulting business with a clear compass. Global industrial customers need enterprise-wide business solutions that map digital value chains and hybrid system architectures across the board and create excellent, innovative business processes with the best software available on the market in each case.

Business Process Consulting

In the old millennium, when someone entered the office with the sign "microsap" through the heavy and loud iron door, the employees of the small consulting firm in Heidelberg's Rohrbach-Süd industrial area winced. After the basement in Rauenberg and a small office in Heidelberg, this was the third location of the company, which was founded in 1995. Co-founder and CEO Harald Sulovsky had advised international corporations at SAP, where there was only as much consulting as necessary - not enough for Sulovsky.

The vision for his young company quickly became reality - the basis for market-leading success: strategic business process consulting and global solutions for innovative industrial companies - the world leaders in the manufacturing sector.

Consultants need to know as much about digitization as they do about business processes - linking business and IT in a targeted manner to further develop global organizations and value chains. The company took its first steps into the world of well-known customers on recommendation: in addition to projects for Otto Bock, Nokia and Heidelberger Druckmaschinen, it also set up the globally distributed R/3 system architecture at Procter and Gamble.

At machine manufacturer Dürr, they brought SAP systems and data together for the first time in a database-level migration - a milestone for the "Enterprise Transformer" software. "We have moved borders" is how veteran Rainer Wittwen describes the laying of the foundation stone for System Landscape Transformation.

When Finnish chemical company Kemira was looking for a strategy to map global supply chains, transforming its system landscape was an innovative project with high customer satisfaction - twice as fast and half as expensive as comparative offers. "They said, for mission-critical projects in the future we will take you" recalls Wittwen. 

"cbs Corporate Business Solutions" sounds established - today, Materna, a globally active IT service provider for digitization and innovative IT, stands in the background as the owner. cbs defines its corporate strategy independently and implements it consistently over the long term. Harald Sulovsky has a free hand as CEO, the consultants have "arrived" globally: presence in Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, USA, Spain, Switzerland, Austria and Finland - plus ten locations in Germany.

Since 2018, cbs has been based at the Heidelberg headquarters. Customers include market leaders such as Schott, MAN, Salzgitter, Trumpf, B. Braun, Hella, Mann + Hummel, Claas or Roche - with projects for global restructuring, One Finance, S/4 Hana or SAP rollouts. Management team and experts who have been with the company since the early days and today as executives stand for the corporate culture of the consultancy.

The development is impressive: After years of steady double-digit sales growth, cbs also achieved growth in 2020 - against the trend and despite the pandemic - with sales of 104 million euros, up around 13 percent on 2019, with above-average profitability.

At the same time, the number of employees grew from 600 to 700 - cbs recruits for international teams in all markets. "We have exceeded our targets for 2020. The newer subsidiaries are also delivering positive earnings after a short investment phase - exceptional in the consulting market", Sulovsky emphasizes.

For sustainable success, cbs has expanded its corporate management. In addition to Harald Sulovsky, Rainer Wittwen, Holger Scheel and Stefan Risse are now also managing directors of cbs Corporate Business Solutions Unternehmensberatung.

"Consistent continuation of profitable growth and the development of new markets pose new challenges. The division of tasks with the three managing directors is important for customer proximity and business development, which we control in the management together with Markus Geib, Oliver Dorsner and Jürgen Remmert.", says the CEO.

Industry-specific

Rainer Wittwen has experience in management consulting for global change projects: "cbs is a high-performance consultant in manufacturing industries - we work closely and at eye level with successful customers globally, with a passion for enterprise-wide business processes." Holger Scheel represents the market perspective for customer-oriented solutions: "We have a lot in common with our more than 300 active customers: We meet their expectations for partnership, customer focus and quality of results. We share substantial values, culture, long-term orientation - and success."

Stefan Risse combines consulting expertise with quality leadership across software generations from R/2 to S/4: "cbs accompanies global roll-out strategies with innovative technologies for digital architectures in new quality of processes, products and solutions."

The ambitious goals are linked to high demand in the core business: -enterprise-wide business process solutions in manufacturing industries and software-driven transformation also for major global SAP customers. "Digitalization and the change of the core platform in SAP are central challenges for industrial companies - for value creation across SAP application boundaries. The company's own innovative standard software cbs ET Enterprise Transformer opens up market potentials" says Wittwen.

Holger Scheel adds: "Innovation projects in large companies have to integrate many things intelligently: digital end-to-end business processes and data, hybrid system and application landscapes, and IT platforms."The content expertise of combining industry-specific consulting with software and best practice to deliver customized solutions for individual business unit requirements in global organizations makes all the difference.

Lighthouses are proof of this expertise: In the migration completed for Viessmann in 2019, cbs converted 28 production units in 34 countries and 78 sales organizations worldwide from R/3 to S/4 Hana in record time. The smooth go-live with 30 billion data records, 6000 users and 190 company codes was the breakthrough of the "Selective" approach: focus on relevant -process innovation and selective data transformation for significantly shorter project duration.

In 2020, the consultants implemented one of the world's first transformations from ERP on-premises to the S/4 Hana private cloud for the steel company SPS Companies in the USA. Once again, "Selective" was a good start for the migration: selecting data and history, transforming the financial area, harmonizing cost and profit centers.

Business management

"cbs is ideally positioned for future market requirements with a business and technology consulting portfolio for digital transformation and enterprise-wide solutions", explains Harald Sulovsky: "Rise with SAP stands for Business Transformation as a Service - and SAP Business Process Intelligence confirms cbs' corporate concept of designing, optimizing and digitizing business processes across the company and worldwide."

For the future of the consulting firm, the "Vision 2025" provides a clear orientation: in 2025, cbs wants to achieve a quarter of a billion US dollars in sales with 1000 consultants in international markets and projects - a doubling compared to 2020, organically and with M&A activities. "We will focus even more strongly on business processes and further expand our portfolio beyond SAP solutions in order to seize digitization as an opportunity in the increasingly complex business world: That's where consultants are needed - partners with the right solutions for complex issues."

Rainer Wittwen paints the target picture: "In 2025, cbs will also be one of SAP's most important partners globally and an independent consultant for international, high-growth industrial customers - a world market leader for digital and global end-to-end business process solutions for global market leaders in manufacturing industries."