Successful replacement of ICMS by corima financial status at Otto Group

The Otto Group is a global retail and services group with a clear focus on innovation and digital transformation. Having started out as a mail-order retailer, the Otto Group has repeatedly mastered the challenge of seeing change as an opportunity and successfully changing or reinventing itself. Today, the Group is represented by 30 major corporate groups in the Platforms, Brand Concepts, Retailers, Services and Financial Services segments, primarily in the three economic areas of Germany, the rest of Europe and the USA. The companies belonging to the Group include OTTO, ABOUT YOU, Manufactum, Hermes and bonprix. Around 41,000 employees generated sales of just under EUR 16 billion in the 2022/23 financial year.

In a group of this size, Corporate Finance has a wide range of strategic, planning and operational tasks that need to be managed alongside the core business. corima supports the Otto Group's financial management in the areas of cash management and transaction management, such as currency trading, money market, interest rates, interest rate derivatives and capital market products.

Since the introduction of the treasury management system from COPS in 2013, the Otto Group's Financial Operations division had been using the ICMS system component to prepare the monthly group-wide financial status. The foreseeable end of the life cycle of this solution meant that all those involved on both sides began preparations for the financial status relaunch using the corresponding corima module in good time. After calm but conscientious preparations, the project entered the hot, intensive phase in spring 2023 and has since been implemented.

"The fact that we have not yet reached the end of the implementation is logical for the period since the go-live in September 2023 to date," notes Sibylle Stender, Lead Project Manager - Financial Operations at the Otto Group. "But the results so far are certainly impressive. By replacing the ICMS financial status with corima, we have achieved greater transparency and speed of implementation in Corporate Finance and the finance departments of our Group companies. We were able to further homogenize our internal reporting by adapting the financial status structure to our balance sheet structure. The new filter options also allow for more flexible analyses and approaches. With the conversion into client and Group currency now possible, we have achieved complete clarity in the underlying exchange rates for our Group companies. Based on a stable, consistent database, we can create Power BI reports according to our requirements and distribute them throughout the Group. "Both sides were surprised at the amount of work involved in migrating from ICMS to corima. However, Frank Timmermanns, Division Manager at Otto, adds: "The good cooperation with the COPS team was helpful here. Our special thanks go to the consultants Ingo Luks, Christoph Gönczöl and Thomas Eckhardt, Product Manager at COPS, who were always there when we needed them. Thanks to their high level of commitment and good cooperation with the Otto Group project team, we were able to stay on course towards our goals in a resource-optimized manner from the start of the implementation to the hot phase of the migration. The short communication channels, especially in the daily online meetings, were a decisive factor."

"These daily meetings have really helped us to identify, communicate and tackle critical issues promptly. Now it's time to fine-tune and improve performance," says Thomas Eckhardt. "We are working at full speed to ensure that the new financial status in the Otto Group will enable us to leverage all potential and make the best possible use of the increased transparency in all areas."

Success Stories by COPS, individual complete packages from a single source for 45 years.

To be continued!