EuropeÂ’s Largest Shoe Retailer fuels international expansion with workflow and SAP integration

Europe’s Largest Shoe Retailer fuels international expansion with workflow and SAP integration

Deichmann Group, Europe’s largest shoe retailer, has expanded its use of enterprise content management (ECM) software from Open Text to create central information repositories to help speed of processes for opening new stores, integrate accounts payable functions with its SAP solutions and manage email archives for its employees and clients in 19 European countries.

Implementation of Open Text solutions began in late 2007 when project managers involved with opening new Deichmann shoe stores sought a content management solution for storing construction-related content, including correspondence, building plans and contracts in one place. Deichmann also wanted the ability to archive Lotus Notes email along with SAP integration. Additionally, the ECM solution, which was implemented through Deichmann's central IT location in Essen, Germany, had to be able to support the needs of the various country subsidiaries across Europe.

Strategic point solution

"It became immediately clear to us that we shouldn’t opt for a point content management solution, but rather look at a suite that could be implemented company-wide," said Klaus Hachenberg, SAP information systems manager at Deichmann. “The need for archiving, especially with Lotus Notes and SAP, was also critical. Out of the 13 suppliers we evaluated, Open Text was the clear choice.”

Over the past two years, Deichmann has steadily rolled out the Open Text ECM solution company-wide. Much of the expansion came organically as other departments in the company pushed for content management support. For example, accounts payable needed help with its approximately 60,000 annual invoices for non-saleable goods and services. In some cases, invoice processing could take as long as several weeks. After implementing Open Text's Accounts Payable for SAP in conjunction with the Open Text archive, SAP Business Workflows and the SAP financial module, Deichmann has cut invoice processing time in their headquarters in Germany down to two days.

More recently Deichmann has linked the Open Text ECM Suite to its SAP personnel management module to create digital personnel files for employees. The project has helped to relieve human resources (HR) employees from routine tasks like document storage and searching, while ensuring that legal requirements are met reliably and cost-effectively.

"Right from the start, our approach was to introduce a company-wide infrastructure for content management and then to expand and adapt it depending on departmental needs,” said Hachenberg. "Open Text’s ECM Suite is so comprehensive and, at the same time, so modular in design that we were able to build a company-wide ECM landscape step-by-step, one that will flexibly grow to meet our requirements."