Maximilian Thür began his career at cbs in July 2015 as a working student in Corporate Sales and Marketing in Heidelberg. During this time, he wrote his master’s thesis at the company and had his first contact with SAP by becoming more deeply involved in consulting in the finance context. It then quickly became clear to him that he wanted to develop further with the trainee program, which he started in October 2016 in the Finance department. Max had already been interested in consulting beforehand, but this only really took shape during his time as a working student. He is now a Consulting Director in Finance and Controlling and has already been able to bring several groundbreaking projects to a successful conclusion at cbs.
From trainee to Consulting Director
After successfully completing the trainee program, Max was quickly integrated into the project at the high-tech company TRUMPF near Stuttgart. The focus here was on harmonizing the global structures in the finance department. He was promoted to Senior Consultant when he led the project as team leader. The project took him to China, Japan, Switzerland and the USA, where he successfully carried out two go-live implementations.
Immediately afterwards, he started a new project at MAN Truck & Bus in Munich, where he was promoted to manager and took over the project management for the S/4HANA preliminary project “ONE Finance”. This project included the migration of the MAN T&B production system. In the flagship project with SCHOTT in Mainz, he led the Finance & Controlling team. The international glass technology specialist switched from the old SAP environment to the new, digital S/4HANA world. This transformation digitalized the processes and enabled system-supported, forward-looking analyses – worldwide in all countries and companies. Max took over the program management a little later in the project and was also responsible for the steering committee. In addition to these large projects, he was also involved in smaller transformation projects. Since December 2021, he has been responsible as program manager and on the steering committee at Blanc & Fischer. The successful S/4HANA go-live took place in April of this year. He is currently working with Oliver Dorsner, member of the Executive Board, on the Giesecke+Devrient S/4 transformation project, which is due to go live in 2025.
Building and leading a team
During his time at cbs, he built up a team in Heidelberg that now consists of eight employees. Together with Sebastian Hellmann, he is responsible for the Finance department and contributes to the project organization with CEO Rainer Wittwen and Susanne Kappauf.
People, passion and innovation
As a consultant to global market leaders, you are constantly dealing with challenging, new and interesting topics. That’s exactly what motivates Max. When he decided to work as a student trainee at cbs, he was enthusiastic about the people and the fields of activity.
This means that every day is different, but at the same time you experience progress from day to day. The dynamic nature of the business, which is influenced by external factors, ensures constant change and makes the work exciting. Such factors include ESG (Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance), i.e. the framework conditions for taking environmental, sustainability and social issues into account within companies, or the influence of artificial intelligence on the business world.
In the business context, there are always different requirements, which is why the daily work always remains challenging. He also says that it is worth the effort and energy when you work for years towards a point in time such as the go-live of a project and the success ultimately pays off. That is something special. The Schott S/4HANA project left a lasting impression on Max, as it was considered a groundbreaking pioneering project. Many things were implemented that had never been done before, such as the retroactive introduction of margin analysis and the historic change of the leading fiscal year variant. It was an arduous but definitely worthwhile journey, he says.
The open-door culture, the way of working together
Since it started almost 10 years ago, the company has grown from around 300 to around 1,300 employees worldwide, and both Max and the company itself have undergone remarkable development. It is the culture and the people that make cbs what it is. For him, the “Power of Orange” symbolizes the strength and cooperation of the employees as well as the open corporate culture that he experiences every day at cbs. He also remembers past events, which are something special every year. This also shows how big cbs has become and how well the network works.
