CEWE

The Company: About CEWE

One of Europe’s leading photo service providers, CEWE helps customers turn their photos into a wide range of high-quality products, from personalized photo books to greetings cards, calendars, and even mobile phone cases. CEWE spotted an opportunity to expand into a new market by acquiring WhiteWall, a company that supports professional photographers with gallery-quality photo printing and framing services across both Europe and North America. To integrate the new business unit into its group, CEWE had to find a way to separate WhiteWall’s core systems from its former parent company and get a new IT landscape up and running in a matter of months. By harnessing cloud technologies and adopting best-practice business processes, CEWE and WhiteWall have built a highly standardized, audit-friendly and efficient platform that meets the business’s order-to-cash, procurement and finance needs. 

The Situation: Foundation for Growth

The essence of the project is to create a foundation for growth. With SAP S/4HANA Cloud, we believe we have a system that can grow with us and form the basis for a billion-dollar company.

• Separate WhiteWall’s core systems from its former parent company without impact on the business. 
• Launch a new IT platform in time for the Christmas season – a deadline of six months.
• Increase order processing capacity to improve sales performance during seasonal peaks.
• Standardize payment processes to simplify accounting and accelerate financial closing processes.
• Adopt best practices to reduce manual work and enable the company to focus on its customers.

The Solution: SAP S/4HANA

Why SAP and All for One Group

• API integration with WhiteWall’s online stores and production systems, as well as third-party solutions for local requirements such as U.S. tax determination.
• Adoption of best-practice processes supported by SAP® Activate methodology.
• Support from All for One Group and SAP Preferred Success service, helping to unlock greater value from cloud solutions.
• Scalability through cloud deployment with SAP S/4HANA® Cloud.

The Results: SAP 4/HANA Implementation Benefits

• Delivered on time and below budget, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Improved audit ability, helping WhiteWall align with CEWE group standards.
• Reduced time taken to produce financial statements from several months to just three weeks.
• Increased efficiency in order-to-cash and procurement processes.
• Automated inter-company processes between WhiteWall’s European and US subsidiaries.

Prior to its acquisition by CEWE, WhiteWall’s order processing capabilities were limited by its existing systems, which prevented the company from taking full advantage of seasonal sales periods, such as the winter holidays. 

Today, SAP S/4HANA® automates and accelerates the order-to-cash process. From the moment a customer places an order on one of WhiteWall’s online stores, the SAP® solution processes the sales order, starts the production, manages payments from PayPal and other payment providers. The solution also handles delivery, as well as creating all the relevant delivery documents and invoices and sending them back to the online store to share with the customer. The whole process requires minimal manual intervention and has increased WhiteWall’s order processing capacity significantly, which should help to increase sales during seasonal peaks.