Proving Yourself More

Born and raised in Straubing, Germany, Beate Kirwa was born the same year as Fabian Henrichsen - founder's son and current CEO of the Henrichsen Group. Since January 1, 2018, the now 39-year-old has been Head of Professional Service and Portfolio there, and now a new challenge awaits her.

E-3: Ms. Kirwa, what is the reason for the Henrichsen4s spin-off?

Beate Kirwa, Henrichsen4sOriginally, Henrichsen was a classic ECM provider. Over the years, however, we have continued to grow. Various business areas with individual product lines were established and expanded together with the respective manufacturer. When we transfer these to our own companies, we can concentrate more clearly on the strategic orientation and the special requirements of the customers in the respective business area. 

E-3: Why at this time?

Beate Kirwa, Henrichsen4sThe SAP area came to us much later as a business field and was initially more of an appendage: customers bought an Easy archive and later also added their first SAP components. Over the last two and a half years, our SAP business unit has become increasingly specialized and built up its own expertise in the area of SAP product development. We now want to focus this further with our team and present ourselves to customers on the market even more specifically as an SAP specialist. The claim: Smart SAP Solutions 4 Success. Smart here means that our SAP solutions integrate seamlessly and silently into the customer process. SAP Solutions stands for our own SAP solutions and add-ons in the P2P environment. Success stands for the success of our customers, which we want to support with our solutions and consulting modules. 

E-3: Where do your ideas for SAP add-on products come from?

Beate Kirwa, Henrichsen4s: We collect customer ideas. Within a year, we have recorded almost 90 such suggestions on how SAP systems can be improved with add-on products. We evaluate and test these in a lean way with other customers. We prioritized some of them and started programming them. We started about five years ago with small add-ons. That's how we came up with a solution for the order confirmation process. In the meantime, we are building entire solution lines ourselves; goods receipt management is one of them. The topic of purchasing is currently in the foreground for us. We are developing into a manufacturer with our own solutions and are therefore no longer a pure reseller of other manufacturers' products.

E-3: What role will remain with Henrichsen if the actual business takes place in the subsidiaries in the future?

Beate Kirwa, Henrichsen4sAs in a holding structure, Henrichsen as an umbrella organization and holding company provides central services such as service management, marketing, accounting, as well as everything related to our system house business.

E-3: What will the realignment change for customers?

Beate Kirwa, Henrichsen4sIn principle, nothing at all for existing customers. We have already separated sales for new and existing customers in the past year 2021 and established so-called winning teams. These teams are ideally placed to advise our existing customers because they know them in detail, the local contacts, IT conditions, and so on. There are fixed sales and project-related contacts for our customers in the teams.

E-3: What does your professional career look like?

Beate Kirwa, Henrichsen4sI studied international business administration with a focus on controlling at the European Business School in Munich, with a scholarship from my employer at the time, the machinery and plant manufacturer Krones in Regensburg. After graduating, I first worked there in international sales for North America and then spent three years carrying out a wide variety of process optimization projects: Manufacturing as well as sales and financial processes with a focus on FI/CO.

E-3: Challenges await you as managing director of a new subsidiary. How did you recommend yourself for this internally?

Beate Kirwa, Henrichsen4sThe spin-off was a project that lasted a year and a half. In the course of last year, we carried out a change management project to define exactly how we want to position ourselves in the SAP environment in the future and provide new support for existing customers. Due to my length of service, I was able to contribute many suggestions that were well received and have since proven successful. Good management during the pandemic and perfect workload management ensured that we never had short-time work despite customer project stops. In addition, I have taken on new responsibilities whenever necessary over the past few years: in portfolio and change management in 2019, and in the expansion of existing customer management in 2021. Together we have built a great team. 

E-3: Thank you for the interview.