Even in the Crisis, SPH increases Sales
and invests in the Future

SPH AG, the leading software solution supplier in the field of Digital Transformation and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) in the fashion, retail and e-commerce industry, was able to record a 20% increase in sales in 2020 compared to the same period of the previous year.

Sales in the past financial year were traditionally based on strong business in the fashion industry. The fashion, sports, retail and e-commerce segments recorded significant growth, with the distribution of sales in the various industry segments remaining stable in 2020.

“Despite the global crisis and especially in the fashion industry, we were able to achieve our ambitious growth targets for 2020. I am very proud of these results and of all my employees who have made this possible”, says Detlef Beiter, CEO and shareholder of SPH. In 2021 and in the years to come, we will build on this performance and continue to provide our customers with our innovative software solutions and consulting services.”

The growth driver of this success is the product group IN:OMNICHANNEL and IN:FASHION, based on Microsoft Dynamics 365 as well as the cloud business. The business sector process consulting and project implementation achieved the largest increase. With IN:FASHION, SPH has succeeded in designing a tailor-made solution for the fashion industry – consisting of in-house products as well as unique solutions from partners. This gives fashion companies an individual, tailor-made suit for future processes and digital requirements with the help of standard software.

In 2020, we had exceptional challenges and interesting opportunities
2020 started on a promising note with the EuroShop in Düsseldorf – the world’s leading trade fair in the retail market. Unfortunately, the following trade fairs had to be cancelled.

With the DIGITAL FASHION DAYS in October 2020, SPH launched its own event format at the well-known luxury hotel ÖSCHBERGHOF in Donaueschingen. Under the motto “Shared Intelligence – Digitalisation in the Fashion Industry”, the who’s who of the fashion industry met to exchange ideas and inspiration. Industry leaders such as Engelhorn, Peter Hahn, Microsoft, Roland Berger, hachmeister & partner and Reutlingen University with its Faculty of Textile & Design as well as 10 other speakers enjoyed two days of intensive exchange with 100 top managers from the fashion industry.

Customised products and solutions
Product innovation plays an important role at SPH AG. For more than 45 years, our goal has been to offer the best solutions with the latest technology to provide our customers with convincing added value.

The collaboration with the Anglo-Dutch company K3 Business Technologies, which started in 2016, has since achieved remarkable results. Their product K3|fashion is a key component of the SPH industry solution IN:FASHION. This is complemented by the IN:OMNICHANNEL product for optimal service of all channels, as well as other solutions in the areas of management dashboards for analysis, planning, forecasting and reporting, EDI, PIM and modern payment solutions. For IN:OMNICHANNEL alone, more than 20 new features have been developed in the last 12 months due to high demand.

These products represent a comprehensive range of appropriate and integrated standard software products for any fashion company. And all this within a single software solution with no interfaces – fully integrated. This makes the solution unique in the European market.

As early as 2018, SPH AG was awarded with the “Innovation Prize IT” for IN:FASHION and IN:OMNICHANNEL and can boast the title of „Microsoft Gold Enterprise Resource Planning Partner“.

In the area of traditional IT, based on the IBMi series (AS/400), we have been serving customers in the mail order business for more than 30 years, including companies in various product sectors – from coin trading to the cosmetics industry. The SPH Direct software, developed many years ago, remains the core IT solution for these long-standing customers and has undergone a number of software enhancements and upgrades in recent years. This established SPH customer base has remained loyal to this software for over 30 years. A team of consultants, some of whom have been with SPH for over 40 years, provide support and services to these customers.

The year 2021 has started well
During the first months of 2021, SPH was able to continue the good development from 2020. This has been achieved through a number of new major customers who started their projects with us last year as well as through new projects and many new prospects. In particular, the fashion industry, which was hit hard by the pandemic, has a significant backlog in digitalising and optimising its business processes and enterprise IT.

Overall, we have already exceeded last year’s level. “The sales development in the first quarter of 2021 is promising and allows us to look optimistically at the rest of the year and to grow by 25%”, says Detlef Beiter. “For the rest of the year, we are planning a large number of strategic new hires in our consulting team to support our customers with more expertise in fashion and retail processes as well as Microsoft products. The growth of SPH means that there are exciting career opportunities for everyone – whether it is on the management ladder or as a technical expert – SPH will support everyone in the team in their development and give them their personal opportunity.