The Automation journey of Deichmann SE

19th May 2023

As a partner, consenso was a guest at the UiPath Automation Summit 2023 in Munich. A day made for automation enthusiasts - with exciting presentations, informative stands and lots of networking! One item on the agenda: the joint presentation by Deichmann and consenso on the Deichmann SE automation journey.

The family business Deichmann was founded in 1913 in Essen, in the heart of the Ruhr region. The headquarters of the group of companies is still there today. Deichmann SE is now active with over 4,600 shops in 31 countries and employs around 48,000 people worldwide. Deichmann is the market leader in German and European shoe retailing and, with a large selection of shoes for all age groups, probably offers the most comprehensive range on the market (source: Deichmann SE, Essen).

The central element of the joint presentation at the UiPath Automation Summit was the roadmap that Deichmann SE developed together with consenso as a consulting firm for its automation journey and is now successively implementing.

The goal: the automation of processes with the help of Robotic Process Automation (RPA). With the help of RPA, recurring, rule-based tasks are automated in the company. An RPA software, here: UiPath, acts like a virtual robot that mimics human interaction. By capturing user input, executing predefined actions and communicating with other systems, RPA can process data, execute tasks and automate workflows. The advantage: the bots can be integrated into the existing system landscape, changes to the underlying infrastructure are not required.

Deichmann's roadmap started with the creation of a strategy and the development of the necessary technical infrastructure, for which UiPath was chosen as the platform. In the IT environment, initial ideas for bot deployments were collected and implemented as proof-of-concepts.

A key point of the roadmap is the topic of change management. A stakeholder analysis carried out at an early stage and a roadshow on the topic of automation are the means to ensure broad acceptance of the project in the company.

Citizen developers will play a key role in the automation process. Empowered by appropriate training measures, employees from the specialist departments can set up bots via so-called low-code platforms and use them to automate process steps or even complete smaller processes. The idea behind this: People with specific expertise or user knowledge in their work areas are enabled to develop their own solutions to improve their work processes or solve problems without having to constantly rely on the help of professional developers.

The ACoE - the Automation Centre of Excellence - is responsible for complex automation projects. This is also integrated into the approval processes of projects so that the topic of automation is automatically "considered" in all new projects.

Dustin Syfuß, Head of Competence Center Digitalisation at consenso, emphasises the special features of the retail industry in the context of automation. There are many starting points here and include, for example, articles, branches, master data of stationary staff, cash registers as well as customer touchpoints and suppliers/producers. "Good cases" for automation can be found wherever duplication takes place - and this is omnipresent in retail. If an activity that is regularly carried out in a branch is automated, the savings effect is multiplied by the number of branches - currently 4,600 at Deichmann. Or, for example, in master data maintenance by the number of staff. Or the number of articles. From an IT perspective, scalability is a key issue here.

consenso and Deichmann at the UiPath Automation Summit 2023 in Munich

We are looking forward to the further steps in the context of digitalisation at Deichmann in the context of RPA, but also with topics such as document understanding, test automation, anomaly detection, process mining, chatbots and AI cases,

And of course to the UiPath Automation Summit 2024!

Graphic: UiPath GmbH, Munich; Photo: consenso