Digitize expansion

However, increasing internationalization and more and more branches naturally also mean a multitude of new challenges. It is not unusual for processes to have to be rethought and made more efficient. While globalization offers many companies opportunities in new markets, competition in the market has also increased.

The new developments present challenges that are often underestimated by many companies. Michael Seebacher, Managing Director at CNT Germany, knows about the difficulties faced by SMEs: "The market is getting bigger and bigger, there are hardly any companies left that are not international."

If you suddenly have to manage several branches across Europe or even worldwide, even the joint handling of smaller projects can become a challenge. Basically, the tasks that companies from the SME sector are confronted with can hardly be generalized: "Some of our customers want to keep their material master centralized, but keep data maintenance as simple as possible. Others want to know how to define their organizational structure so that it remains flexible as the company grows."says Seebacher. 

However, as different as the challenges are in the various industries, some commonalities can be identified. For example, a common problem faced by companies is data maintenance in the system. "Often, the same data is used by several subsidiaries or departments within the organization," explains Seebacher.

In some cases, a lack of transparency in master data maintenance leads to data being created and used more than once or incorrectly in the system. Efficiency also plays a major role here. One of the goals of process optimization is to reduce the workload of employees. "When processes run automatically or semi-automatically and cross-departmental transparency is created, employees have the opportunity to concentrate on other things," explains the managing director. In addition, the optimization of different logistics processes is also frequently the content of an inquiry to the consulting firm. 

Due to the multi-layered challenges of globalization and its consequences for their own organization as well as the market-specific requirements, many medium-sized companies are turning to digital assistance in the form of software solutions.

Demand was also high in the days of Corona: "Although some companies had to stop IT projects in the short term, others explicitly invested their freed-up resources in the implementation of digital projects.", clarifies managing director Michael Seebacher.