The Power of Orange

The unique secret of cbs is postulated by the management: We de facto advise the world market leaders from the manufacturing industry, in the DACH region the mechanical and plant engineering, automotive, chemical, pharmaceutical, life science and medical technology. There are many examples of this in the cbs management: Phoenix Contact, Dürr, Roche, Schott, Endress und Hauser, MAN, Miele, Dormakaba, Trumpf, Viessmann, Claas, Hella, Mann and Hummel. These are long-standing SAP customers. 70 percent of the world market leaders in the DACH region are customers of cbs - if only because of the normative power of the factual, the management defines the company as a "consultant to the world market leaders".

Is that a coincidence, why is that? It is the result of a clear, sustainably pursued corporate strategy that deliberately focuses on this target group. In its cbs Vision 2025, the company formulated that it wants to evolve from being a consultant to the world market leaders themselves. "We want to become the world's leading high-performance consulting company, preferably providing comprehensive advice to innovative, high-growth and globally market-leading industrial companies on the design of their digital and global E2E business process solutions. We want to become the global market leader of global market leaders," cbs states.

Why? Not only because this market offers great business potential, but also because these companies are an excellent fit for cbs: Same philosophy, mentality, culture, attitude of ambition, will to create, innovativeness, strategy. What's more, this is where cbs consultants find the most fun and fulfillment in following their passion and doing what seems particularly important: creating enterprise-wide digital end-to-end business process solutions - "corporate business solutions" - for SAP's existing customers.

This orientation is part of the cbs founding idea and the unique company concept: "We have always wanted to be the first partner for success for medium-sized international industrial companies, which have the following typical characteristics for hidden champions: Long-term strategic focus on a defined target market. A clear compass. Absolute customer and performance orientation. High innovative strength, technical excellence, the ambition of a quality leader. A strong corporate culture that promotes and demands entrepreneurial thinking, open communication, responsibility and trust in individual creative power. These are the qualities that cbs associates with its customers."is the commitment of the cbs management.

What is specific and special about the offer - especially for this target group? What are the special suitability, the advantage, the added value for world market leaders? The world market leaders have a lot in common. Special skills are important. But for cbs customers, something else also counts that should not be underestimated: "We simply work together very well and with a high level of trust in the long term on the basis of the same values. The key words are exceptional customer orientation and partnership. We are committed to our customers, make their goals our goals and do everything we can to achieve them with them. Customers appreciate that very much. We like our customers, enjoy working with them and are committed to them, and our customers return this to us. Close personal ties, coupled with a high level of professionalism, that's where the world market leaders and the world market leaders' consultant simply fit together perfectly." The cbs management is thus committed to a holistic approach.

The analysts at Techconsult have surveyed this value in a recent study, confirming the market demand: "Digital development shows how important flexibility and individuality in IT architecture have become. This change in digital business processes has led to a significant overload of IT departments in many companies. SAP solutions are also increasingly affected by this. In response, the SAP landscape is evolving into cloud-based and adaptable services. This is intended to meet the needs of companies while supporting digitization."

cbs is a solitaire in the consulting world, plus the management of the Heidelberg-based SAP partner: "We deliver the offerings of the big players with the culture and class of a hidden champion, for a clearly defined market. Existing SAP customers typically look for a comparable portfolio of solutions, a range of programs for business transformation, and a methodically structured approach from a global system integrator - but they miss the wavelength: the basic strategic orientation, the customer and quality focus, the closeness and eye level, the basis of trust, the midmarket solution-oriented pragmatism, the passion and ambition for the cause itself, the mindset, the value foundation, and the culture of the hidden champions. Small and medium-sized consultancies, on the other hand, do not have the overall approach and eye level, the company-wide design claim and methodological expertise, the end-to-end solution competence across the board, tend to focus on individual specialist niches and do not see themselves as responsible as general contractors."

cbs is the consultant of the world market leaders and the global supplier of their SAP-
software and cloud technology-based corporate business solutions. With a unique complete offering for business transformation, cbs supports its customers holistically on their way to becoming a global digital enterprise. But how satisfied are German companies with the SAP services they use and in which areas is there an urgent need for action? The research and analyst firm Techconsult presented the results of the "Professional User Rating: SAP Services 2022" and shows how service providers and their SAP services are rated by user experts. For companies, especially in the DACH region, SAP solutions have played an important role for a very long time.

So long, in fact, that large-scale and long-established systems have formed. But since the growth of cloud technologies, service models around the solutions have also become more important than ever. This is where SAP Services come in, helping to actively support IT departments. In this context, the analyst firm Techconsult asked service experts to evaluate more than 60 providers of SAP services. Services were evaluated in a total of seven categories, ranging from consulting and two important functional areas to operations. The service providers scored mixed results, and there is an urgent need to catch up in the area of service portfolios in particular. cbs offers a holistic offering, Business Transformation as a Service. The core of the cbs solution is SAP, which is still the de facto and undisputed best solution for core business processes, supplemented by cloud software from other manufacturers, in particular Salesforce in the CX environment.

The cbs guiding principle: "What is the most relevant and best end-to-end solution architecture for our customers to digitize their business processes? We too follow the trends and changes in the market and always have the ambition to be the best, the leader in quality and innovation in the software solutions we advise. The world is hybrid, and this not only applies to technical operating models and the entry of the cloud into a company's software architecture, but also, and above all, at the solution level, to the integration of cross-application business processes into an optimal digital end-to-end business process, with the most compelling software tools available to our industrial customers."

The cbs goal can therefore be defined as follows: Not only to design solutions, but to implement them globally! "We want to create solutions. We want to deliver not just the approach and the concept, but also the result, and create the best-fit, innovative overall solution to help customers holistically shape their business processes across the company and around the world with the help of business applications. Business Transformation as a Service, in the holistic spirit of SAP's "Rise with SAP" customer initiative. At its core, this includes business process and application consulting, architecture, integration and technology consulting, data transformation and data management, implementation and sustainable solution management (BSM) with continuous improvement."

Most of the IT managers surveyed by Techconsult rated the increase in benefits created by the purchased service as Good in all categories. On the one hand, employees working in the complex SAP environment are relieved by SAP partners, and on the other, services are optimized through additional enhancements and the expertise of SAP partners. Two important points in view of the shortage of qualified employees and know-how. Through the use of SAP services, every second company reports supported decision-making and increased productivity. This means that the service benefits created are rated as good to very good in every second company. These criteria are extremely important for achieving a high level of satisfaction among existing SAP customers. Providers in the application management service (ERP) category perform particularly well here.

There, 68 percent of service recipients rated the service as Good to Very Good. It shows the competencies as well as the establishment of and adherence to SAP's proven ERP systems in the German market. However, the Techconsult results also reveal areas for improvement. For example, the average satisfaction with the scope and range of SAP services is 35 percent. Here, the assessment of the customizability of SAP services still ensures an overall rating of Satisfactory. The SAP standard continues to dominate. Partners are trying to remedy the situation with industry-specific services. However, service recipients and existing SAP customers do not have a clear overview of the SAP universe. Service providers need to quantify the benefits of their services more strongly and clearly highlight specific use cases to companies. TCO analyses and the demonstration of concrete feasibility analyses are a must. This is where the providers of SAP consulting services are particularly in demand. Only one in two of the IT managers sees the providers in this service category as being well positioned in terms of their strategic consulting expertise.

The S/4 switchover is currently certainly a concern of existing SAP customers that also dominates the general discussion. The digital core is the focus of many customers' considerations and tenders. At the same time, it is important not to view S/4 in isolation, as cbs knows: "We also think little of an unreflective, purely technical S/4 migration with minimal ambition. Even such a changeover is usually too expensive, and many customers find it difficult to plausibly justify it to the management board and themselves in business terms. Only as a building block of a comprehensive digitization roadmap, evaluating all relevant alternatives, can this make sense." You want to achieve a digitization edge. Time is the critical factor. It takes a long time to actually make the digital core available globally. That is an anachronism that hurts. Especially since there are modern reference methods that address this problem and are specifically made for digital transformation in the SAP environment.

The goal: combining comprehensive ambition with fast value creation. The value proposition is speed. It enables the customer to make the leap into the "Intelligent Enterprise". This makes it possible to achieve a veritable digitalization edge. The IT and SAP managers surveyed by Techconsult are satisfied overall with the SAP services they have purchased. The recommendation rate for SAP partners at the service level is 65 percent on average and 58 percent at the provider level. In the future, SAP and the partner network will continue to upgrade. S/4 in particular, which follows as the successor to the tried-and-tested SAP ERP systems, is seen as a trailblazer into the digital future. SAP has also quickly found its way into the cloud and will enable scalability and flexibility in implementation in the future. This is carried forward throughout the partner network by the "Rise with SAP" concept.

How services and satisfaction in companies will develop in the future is presented annually in the "Professional User Rating SAP Services" project conducted by Techconsult. At cbs, a customized "Rise with SAP" is created for global market leaders, in line with their typical mentality and culture, as a holistic Business Transformation as a Service, with a view to practicability and rapid value creation, in other words "Fast Value": "We consult with the claim to design and deliver an innovative digital total solution for our customers. We think into the future and far beyond S/4 as an application and the S/4 migration. We see ourselves as a success partner for successful digital business transformation as a whole. It's also about more than S/4. Our customers are looking for the path and the target picture for the end-to-end business process platform of the future, the blueprint for the global, digital, intelligent enterprise and the best implementable roadmap into the innovative Corporate Business Solution 2030. That's not easy, but it's the salt in the soup and our specific competence and passion."

This requires foresight and a good dose of pragmatism, a sense of what is feasible that has been strengthened by experience. What is needed is at least a medium-term perspective. The link to strategic corporate goals and key challenges is important. In summary, the cbs management states: "The world market leaders are all driven by the increase in global management competence, the standardization and streamlining of structures and processes. With our integrated solution offering ONE Finance, for example, we are creating the basis for this at very many customers, in the course of the changeover to S/4, still in ECC, or after the initial S/4 implementation. Customers are investing in their digitization agenda, want to use digital technology innovations for their processes and new business models. To do this, the entire target architecture must come into view. It's about designing the enterprise-wide process landscape and a sustainable business solution for the next five to ten years."