Company-History

2024

  • cbs launches RISE with FAST VALUE at the DSAG Annual Congress, thereby integrating the innovative SAP portfolio into its own consulting approach. cbs enables the best possible adoption and use of RISE with SAP solution options in the interest of the customer and in the context of the company’s individual business transformation.
  • Go-live at the Salzgitter AG steel production divisions: With the comprehensive SAP S/4HANA transformation program, the group is laying an important foundation for implementing innovation and sustainable development towards low-carbon steel production.
  • cbs expands the NEXT-ONE portfolio and integrates the consulting firm EPSFLOW. The successful company is considered a specialist in product lifecycle management (PLM) and, as a process consultant, is the trusted partner of numerous well-known industrial customers.
  • cbs establishes a global AI team and is spearheading innovation.
  • The cbs E-Invoice World Cloud is rebranded as e-world.cloud. This move underscores the versatility of the popular all-in-one solution, which has long offered not only classic e-invoicing but also e-payment, e-delivery, e-reporting, and EDI features.
  • The first cbs trainee cohort celebrates its 25th anniversary – and with it, the trainee program. More than 450 consultants have launched successful careers through the cbs trainee program.

2023

  • cbs acquires the consultancy projekt0708 GmbH. This successful company transforms, digitizes, and integrates HR processes using pioneering HR/IT strategies.
  • New subsidiaries are established in India, China, Australia, Croatia, and Turkey.
  • The company is growing faster than the market and has increased its revenue by around 22 percent compared to the previous year. This means that cbs generated revenues of 231 million euros. More than 1,300 people are employed by the group.
  • A quantum leap into the digital future: Finnish chemicals group Kemira migrates with cbs to a global SAP S/4HANA platform in a private cloud. The company establishes a complete global process and system landscape based on SAP’s intelligent enterprise architecture.
  • cbs expanded its management level and strengthened its consulting offering in the area of business consulting. Jürgen Lange, a long-standing partner and most recently Business Consulting Leader Germany at Ernst & Young, has been part of the management team ever since.
  • Dr Carl Winter joins cbs as Consulting Director. He acts as a link between the ERP and Transformation business units and the Technology/Digital Architecture unit.

2022

  • The cbs portfolio 2022 is characterised by NEXT ONE: the answer to the changing challenges of modern industrial companies. NEXT ONE combines global end-2-end solutions, innovative technologies, consulting for strategy, architecture and process design with unique transformation services to create a market-leading overall offering for industrial clients.
  • Long-standing Consulting Directors Benjamin Krischer and Henning Krug join the Executive Board.
  • Michael Hertel returns to cbs after five years at Rohde & Schwarz in Munich and becomes a member of the Executive Board. He is responsible for the Supply Chain Management division.
  • The Munich location, founded in 1996, is catching up on its 25th birthday celebrations, which had to be postponed in 2021. In addition, cbs locations open in Berlin and Leipzig.
  • cbs makes the largest acquisition in the company’s history with the takeover of consultancy firm Trebing & Himstedt Prozessautomation GmbH & Co. The successful company specialises in the digital transformation of smart factories and smart products.

2021

  • At the beginning of the year, the first cbs location in Scandinavia opens in Espoo, near the Finnish capital Helsinki. cbs Americas continues to develop and now also advises local customers instead of exclusively carrying out rollouts for European customers as before.
  • With Bürkert, a specialist in control and regulation systems for liquids and gases, another global market leader is benefiting from the selective approach to switching to the new SAP world. Real added business value is created for the customer in a very short space of time, particularly in the area of finance.
  • cbs enters into a strategic partnership with the consulting firm Deloitte. The aim of the partnership is to enable large existing SAP customers worldwide to quickly switch to the S/4HANA future technology by using the cbs ET transformation software.
  • A highlight of the year will be the Summer Summit in Heidelberg’s Halle 02 with guest of honour Christian Klein, Spokesman of the Executive Board of SAP.
  • There is a change in the cbs management team: Company founder Harald Sulovsky is stepping down and handing over his role as CEO to Rainer Wittwen, with Holger Scheel and Stefan Risse as the other managing directors. In the 25 years that the cbs founder has led the company, cbs has undergone enormous development.

2020

  • cbs America expands US HQ in Devon, PA
  • 25 years of cbs
  • Opening of cbs Freiburg
  • Opening of cbs Austria office in Vienna
  • cbs E-invoice Cloud used to process more than 2,000,000 documents
  • cbs Web relaunch

2019

  • J. Remmert joins the Executive Board
    Lorenz Praefcke becomes CEO of cbs Americas
  • Revenue > € 90 million, employees > 500
  • cbs completes world’s largest SAP S/4HANA transformation project for Viessmann
  • cbs America officially moves US HQ to Devon, PA
  • cbs hosts 20×30 booth at SAPPHIRENOW
  • cbs America attains Partner Edge status
  • cbs s.m.a.r.t. Portfolio
  • SAP & cbs: Selective Data Transition to S/4HANA
  • Launch of ET Software License Program
  • Salesforce connection available as a product / cbsCX ISV Package

2018

  • Relocation to new headquarters in Bahnstadt Heidelberg. Opening of cbs Rhein-Main.
  • First SAP Community Conference cbs ONE.CON. The event is held at the Print Media Academy Heidelberg
  • Opening of US outposts in Denver & Detroit
  • cbs hosts first ever booth at SAPPHIRENOW in Orlando, FL
  • Foundation of cbs CX – Salesforce consulting

2017

  • Launch of cbs MDV Master Data Validation
  • Oliver Dorsner & Markus Geib join the cbs Executive Board
  • Revenue exceeds € 80 million and employees surpass the 300 mark. Record revenue growth
  • Internationalization:
    Foundation of cbs Americas (HQ: Philadelphia)
    Opening of Technology Center in Malaysia (KL)
    Establishment of the Digital Solution Center in Barcelona
  • Opening of cbs Bautzen
  • World’s first standard software for SAP S/4HANA Transformation
    Enterprise Transformation 4.0 with comprehensive solution cbs ET for SAP S/4HANA®

2016

  • cbs adds Salesforce to its consulting portfolio
    SMA SmartFuture – global SAP CRM is replaced by Salesforce
  • Revenue exceeds € 50 million.
  • Me-We employer branding campaign
  • Groundbreaking ceremony for Heidelberg headquarters
  • Foundation of the HANA & UX business unit

2015

  • 20 years of cbs – the company celebrates its anniversary with 200 employees on Majorca.
  • Official launch of the E-invoice world cloud (at the time still NFe-as-a-service or Latam Cloud)
    Development of SAP-based cloud solutions (cbs E-Invoice World Cloud, cbs GTS Cloud)
  • Launch cbs S/4HANA Transition Program
  • First big US project – ONE Finance
  • SAP certified Provider of Application Management Services
  • Participation in initiative SAP Platform Development Accelerator for SAP HANA Cloud Platform with the cbs E/A Enterprise Analyzer

2014

  • Stefan Risse joins the cbs Executive Board
  • cbs employee numbers surpass 200 for the first time.
  • cbs becomes a member of the International Association for SAP Partners e.V. (IA4SP)
  • Market launch of SAP S/4HANA: cbs as a pioneer in conception, test, and customer projects
  • Acquisition of leogistics GmbH
    The Hamburg-based SAP partner and specialist in logistics and supply chain management (SCM) further expands cbs’ SAP solution offering.

2013

  • Foundation of cbs Singapore
  • Official market launch of ET for S/4HANA
  • Launch of the GTS Academy
  • cbs welcomed into SAP Validated Expertise program for Landscape Transformation
  • cbs uses SAP in a cloud environment for the first time
  • Participation in SAPPHIRE USA with partner Abeam Consulting

2012

  • cbs Enterprise Transformer – launch at the annual DSAG conference 2012
  • M-cbs extended with Enterprise Transformations
  • Opening of cbs Stuttgart.
  • Establishment of the GTS business unit

2011

  • Revenue exceeds € 20 million.
  • SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions (RDS)
  • cbs establishes the SLT (System Landscape Transformation) business unit.

2010

  • Rainer Wittwen joins the Executive Board at cbs.
  • First international BI project
  • Launch of the cbs PI adapter for AS2 and EDIFACT under Open Source license (OPI2) on Sourceforge
  • World first go-live of SAP GTS 8.0: global export compliance platform as standardized corporate solution

2009

  • Holger Scheel joins the Executive Board
  • Central integration platform: Successful rollout of SAP NetWeaver PI for a global energy and petroleum company
  • Support is added to the cbs portfolio as a permanent consulting service
  • Establishment of international partner management

2008

  • Branch office opened in Hamburg
  • Foundation of cbs Switzerland
  • cbs4DI Excellence solutions: SAP Best Practice for the manufacturing industry
  • First major complete GTS project in the Netherlands.
  • This customer project is used as the technical basis for the subsequently launched cbs E-Invoice World Cloud

2007

  • cbs becomes SAP Special Expertise Partner for SAP GTS, Manufacturing & High Tech, SAP NetWeaver PI, PLM, SCE
  • cbs awarded contract for global rollout program (new global process template, international rollout) at a market-leading industrial company

2006

  • 100 employees.
  • The product DMF (Data Migration Framework) and SHC (Standardization, Harmonization, Consolidation) tool is published
  • cbs provides SAP user companies with a proprietary EDI solution based on the SAP NetWeaver exchange infrastructure.
  • M-cbs template published for template rollouts

2005

  • Merger with Materna GmbH.
    As an internationally positioned management consultancy, cbs now also represents the consulting and SAP expertise of the Materna group.
  • Opening of the Dortmund branch office, under the management of Stefan Risse
  • Relocation to new offices in Heidelberg. The company now operates two data centers.
  • cbs celebrates its 10-year anniversary with all employees on Majorca.
  • SAP Special Expertise Partnership SAP NetWeaver Exchange Infrastructure

2004

  • cbs Fit for Future event on SAP NetWeaver
  • cbs becomes a member of DSAG e.V. (the German-speaking SAP User Group)

2003

  • Development of the M-cbs project methodology
  • Complete implementation of the SAP Business Suite (all components) for a major Mexican oil company in cooperation with SAP

2002

  • Revenue exceeds € 10 million for the first time.
  • Establishment of the Basis business unit.
  • First customer event: cbs Fit for Future

2001

  • Workforce grows to 50 employees over two locations
  • Portfolio expansion and establishment of the business units BI, CRM, SCM, and BIT
  • ERP template development for major pharmaceutical company’s European rollout. APAC and Americas follow in the subsequent years. The system becomes the industry standard.

2000

  • R/2-R/3 migration, development of an integrated process architecture for 5 business areas and companies of the world’s biggest automotive supplier.

1999

  • Holger Scheel becomes Head of Corporate Sales & Marketing and develops the cbs logo that is still used today.
  • cbs welcomes graduates onto its first trainee program. Many of these graduates are now in top management positions at cbs.
  • The biggest R2-R3 migration in the mechanical engineering industry!

1998

  • Training adopted as a key pillar of cbs. First ever cbs Consultants’ Day with 18 consultants
  • cbs enters a team of employees into the Heidelberg marathon for the first time
  • Development and implementation of a global, distributed R/3 system architecture. To facilitate this, cbs sets up a global architecture team for corporate customers.

1997

  • microsap is rebranded cbs Corporate Business Solutions.
  • The name Corporate Business Solutions reflects the cbs’ unique and continued focus on enterprise-wide business solutions
  • The new logo represents the five phases of M-cbs project methodology; a methodology that remains central to all cbs projects today.
  • Launch of the first cbs website.
  • Revenue exceeds € 1 million for the first time.
  • Establishment of the SAP Basis business unit.
  • First SLT projects in the form of R/2-R/3 migrations

1996

  • First move to Heidelberg offices (Tullastrasse). Branch office opened in Munich.

1995

  • In 1995, former SAP consultants, Harald Sulovsky and Tarek Kramer, establish the company microSAP as an independent SAP corporate consultancy for international industrial companies.
  • First office in Rauenberg.
  • The company’s focus is global digital business process solutions and complete SAP R/3 implementations
  • First global ONE system/ONE client solution in manufacturing industry with rollout to 24 countries