In 2001, Timberland decided to serve the Asian market again itself and established an Asian headquarters in Singapore. All corporate processes needed to be established again. Sales were organized via the national companies concerned. All shared services were pooled in a back office in Singapore. As regards back office finance software, the client had the following options:
- Infinum (already in use in the USA)
- DCW (already in use in Europe)
- Local Asian software suppliers
- Worldwide introduction of Oracle
Following a comprehensive review, the US parent company decided to commission consolut, a long-standing trusted vendor, to introduce DCW, as DCW is designed with the language interface clearly separated from the functionality of the software.
Timberland decided to introduce DCW with an English-language user interface and consolut carried out special programming work to supply the missing functions for the various Asian countries. The various adaptations involved included:
- Japanese depreciation method (salvage value)
- National payment procedures
- Printing of cheques
- VAT Returns
- Interfacing to HSBC Hexagon banking software
Standard processes such as reminders, payment programs, accounting entries and asset management were implemented and training was provided on site. As all local employees were newly recruited, they first needed to be trained in the internal processes of Timberland. In this context, consolut, acting as a long-standing partner, managed know-how transfer largely independently in liaison with the parent company.
Interfaces were programmed for the following special features:
- Invoices for internal processing
- Intercompany transfer of goods
- Wages and salaries
- Transport
The highlights of the project included cultural challenges, the coordination of three different time zones, with Mannheim (CET, UTC +1h) as the centre and the development of new functions for the Asian market. In addition, consolut faced the special challenge of intercontinental (Asia, Europe, USA) remote support following the go-live.
