Case Study | Zumtobel Group

Success Factors in a Migration Project: Adopting the SEEBURGER Cloud to Support a New Corporate Strategy

An innovation leader, the Zumtobel Group offers a comprehensive product range of high-quality LED lights and lighting management systems for lighting professional settings. These include offices, places of education, retail premises, hotels, spas, healthcare buildings, art and culture institutions and places of industry.

Founded in Austria, the Zumtobel Group is committed to international customer relations for sustainable growth. It follows a FOCUSED strategy, where the letters “E” for “Environment and Engaged Employees” and “D” for “Digitalization” are at the heart of their customer processes, from receiving orders to after-sales.

 

Restructuring sales, logistics and financial accounting

To support its corporate digital strategy, a committee of experts from the IT and Sales departments chose SEEBURGER to be its digitalization partner.

As a result, an internal B2B/EDI system migrated to the SEEBURGER Cloud. Since working together, SEEBURGER and Zumtobel have been able to:

  • Expand digitalized sales activities by using standardized connectors to onboard global customers, such as authorities and distributors
  • Work with suppliers and logistics providers to streamline and automate ordering and logistics processes
  • Digitalize invoicing by using the B2B-E-Invoicing for Austria and B2G- E-Invoicing for Nordics through Peppol

The migration project involved consolidating numerous partner connections and introducing new data formats.

SEEBURGER Cloud used to digitally network the Zumtobel Group with customers, suppliers and logistics providers

SEEBURGER Cloud’s wide range of functions enables comprehensive digitalization

The SEEBURGER Cloud was introduced in a six-month initial project. This involved mingrating a number of logistics service providers, suppliers and key customers were migrated from an existing EDI system. We also introduced and integrated SAP S/4HANA and international e-invoicing solutions.

What does the SEEBURGER Cloud do for Zumtobel:

  • Connects SAP R/3 and in the future SAP S/4HANA, as a consolidated ERP platform for all areas of the Zumtobel Group
  • B2B e-invoicing for Austria and B2G e-invoicing for the Nordic region via Peppol
  • Standardized B2B integration of customers, suppliers and logistics providers, into all relevant digitalized business processes

Thanks to the methodical approach taken in this project, Zumtobel was able to succesfully migrate with a small, efficient project team, at low risk and within a tight timeframe. This has let them already start implementing further connections, just as systematic implementation of fully digitalised end-to-end processes should go.

Benefits for the Zumtobel Group

  • Confidence in migration process as this followed a tried-and-tasted framework
  • Standardized and harmonized processes
  • Efficient, paperless digitalized business processes
  • Offloading operative tasks to a full service cloud solution lets employees focus on core business
  • Helps the company achieve its goals of customer orientation, simplifying, and reducing costs
  • A future-proof cloud solution ready for any future digitalization initiatives, including real time

Using SEEBURGER Cloud ties in seamlessly with our corporate strategy and core values in a number of ways. Thanks to the partnership with SEEBURGER, we are best placed to achieve a valuable performance increase in a highly dynamic competitive environment – with a focus on digitalization, cloud and sustainability.

Thomas Steinmayer, Vice President Global Sales – Trade & E-Commerce, Zumtobel Lighting

Efficient Migration to the SEEBURGER Cloud

To ensure a smooth transition to the cloud, EDI communication was moved to SEEBURGER Managed Services in partner-based work packages. A team of technical managers, line-of-business experts and SEEBURGER consultants then worked together to set up and carefully test the partner connections before they went live.

Professional project management supports transition to the cloud

Everyone involved used the SEEBURGER project management system, which was accessible from all locations. This allowed team members from different international locations to stay up-to-date with the project’s progress, to coordinate tasks and to keep an eye on deadlines and costs.

A particular advantage was the way the project was documented on the system, making communication from meetings and between individual project participants transparent to all. At the end of the project, it didn’t take much effort to export the documentation and attachments for archiving.

All in all, we were able to accelerate numerous workflows, save time and money, while delivering a high-quality system on time.

A recipe for success at Zumtobel Group

  • Goal-oriented cooperation across departments
  • Clear priorities and division of responsibilities, with correspondingly fast decision-making
  • Continuous communication and collaboration through weekly meetings, with specialists present as required
  • Ad-hoc meetings for quick feedback
  • Named deputies
  • Regular meetings for follow-on projects
  • A shared project management programme as a single source of truth
  • Tracking processes at partner level using SEEBURGER Message Tracking

Collaborating with the SEEBURGER Consulting team went brilliantly, and both sides using the project management system made our daily work much easier. However, even the best program cannot replace the ad-hoc communication needed for the overarching coordination of a global digitalization, B2B e-commerce project and this was crucial to its success.

Katharina Fesl, Senior Expert eCommerce, Global Sales, Zumtobel Lighting

The migration project at Zumtobel Group was a success, as shown by three core parameters

Full transparency, thanks to the SEEBURGER project management system

Each phase of the migration project went through the SEEBURGER project management system:

  • Planning a standardized approach
  • Migrating and implementing existing partner connections
  • Onboarding new partners

All communication, set up, testing and go live were documented on the project management system.

SEEBURGER project management tool as common working basis

There were individual work packages for each category, which could be prioritized, assigned and edited by project participants. Every participant could see the progress of each connection, as well as of the category as a whole. The sequence was planned in advance by SEEBURGER and the partners, and agilely adapted as necessary during the project.

An overview of work packages and their status by category e.g. near the end of the project

About the Zumtobel Group

The Zumtobel Group is an international lighting company and a leading supplier of innovative lighting solutions, lighting components and related services. With its Thorn, Tridonic and Zumtobel brands, the group offers its customers around the world a comprehensive portfolio of products and services. The group is listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange (ATX Prime), currently employs around 5,800 people and is represented in around 90 countries.

https://z.lighting