SUCCESS STORY – HÄFELE GROUP

Häfele’s BI Evolution: A Cyberattack as a Catalyst for Forward-Looking Data Analytics

“With Qlik Sense, our reporting is now just one click away. All the necessary reports are readily available, and we can dive deeper with flexibility.“

Andreas Bihler, Head of Finance / Controlling at the Häfele Group

The Customer

Häfele is dedicated to developing livable, sustainable spatial concepts for the living and working environments of tomorrow. Together with its partners, Häfele creates resource-efficient, multifunctional solutions that offer the highest level of comfort. Founded in 1923, this globally active specialist in intelligent hardware technology, electronic locking systems, as well as lighting and connectivity, provides its customers in over 150 countries with unique 360° expertise. With a comprehensive product range, numerous services, and a strong spirit of innovation, this family-owned company supports its partners in craft, furniture manufacturing, retail, and architecture — as a reliable partner from the initial idea through to planning and implementation of their projects. More than 8,000 employees, 38 subsidiaries, and numerous other representatives around the world form the team of this global player, headquartered in Nagold in the Black Forest. Since January 2023, the Häfele Group has been led by Gregor Riekena. Sibylle Thierer, as Chairwoman of the Advisory Board, represents the interests of the shareholder families. In the 2024 financial year, the Häfele Group achieved sales of €1.74 billion, with an export share of 82%.

Solution at a glance

Initial Situation

In February 2023, the Häfele Group—an international specialist in intelligent hardware technology, electronic locking systems, as well as lighting and connectivity—fell victim to a severe cyberattack that caused major disruptions to its global business operations. Thanks to proactive measures taken prior to the attack, a swift response, and effective collaboration with partners, Häfele was able to restore its operations almost entirely within just a few months. The company, based in the northern Black Forest, also turned adversity into an opportunity by undertaking a comprehensive modernization of its IT landscape.

This modernization included the BI environment. “Up until then, we had been using QlikView for our business data analytics. Rather than rebuilding a distributed, multi-server structure that would require significant IT effort, we chose to switch to Qlik Sense,” explains Andreas Bihler, Head of Finance / Controlling at the Häfele Group. “We had already been planning the migration to Qlik Sense for some time. In the end, the cyberattack served as a catalyst to accelerate the process.”

Solution

Seamless migration within four weeks

When transitioning from QlikView to Qlik Sense, Häfele relied on the support of Qlik Elite Partner Informatec, who had already successfully supported the company in previous BI projects.

Project preparations began in April, and the global go-live of the Sales App took place as scheduled in May. Informatec was responsible for planning the system landscape, selecting the servers, designing the architecture, and setting up all components and interfaces.

Since a full integration was not yet possible due to existing IT requirements, the SAP R/3 system was connected using the Qlik SAP Connector. Informatec handled the installation, setup, and server provisioning of Qlik Sense, as well as the implementation of relevant applications — including Vizlib for enhanced visualizations and Qlik NPrinting, which will be used in the future to automate report distribution. In addition, the Qlik Elite Partner supported the further development and creation of new applications.

Application Areas and Users

Global Qlik Sense Usage

Qlik Sense is used worldwide across all of Häfele Group’s more than 40 subsidiaries by around 1,100 employees in various roles and departments.

In Sales, users have access not only to classic sales KPIs but also to plan vs. actual and actual vs. actual comparisons, as well as analyses of revenue and contribution margin trends — a key foundation for identifying trends at an early stage. Detailed revenue data is also available, such as the share of online and offline sales, along with developments by customer, product range, market segment, or supplier. The data is updated up to twice daily to ensure it is always up to date.

Qlik Sense also includes a comprehensive Inventory App for analyzing global stock levels. Analyses of stock turnover and inventory coverage help identify potential write-down risks early and recognize movement types. Based on this, Häfele can manage inventory across locations and entities.

The Purchasing department uses Qlik Sense through the Purchasing App to analyze key metrics such as the volume of placed orders and price development. A particular value-add is provided by the so-called Sourcing Footprint, which shows from which markets and regions goods are sourced and forms the basis for robust risk analyses. This enables Häfele to better assess which procurement markets are particularly relevant and how the supply chain — from origin of goods to transport routes — impacts availability.

Also available is an Assortment App for product range analysis and management. “As part of the business planning process, we define a little over ten assortments to focus on,” explains Andreas Bihler. “With Qlik Sense, we can analyze these assortments on a daily basis — for example by revenue and sales volume per branch or region — and compare actual sales with the respective budget.”

Optimized Data Management and Harmonized Reporting

Qlik Sense is now an essential tool for Häfele when it comes to analyzing and providing SAP data. Users work with curated, regularly maintained KPIs. Particularly helpful are practical features such as bookmarks, which allow recurring reports and views to be saved and easily shared with colleagues.

Cross-departmental collaboration is further enhanced by an embedded function that creates dynamic links containing all active filters and settings. This allows multiple stakeholders to analyze a topic together or independently — always based on the same data foundation.

With the migration from QlikView to Qlik Sense, Häfele has unified group-wide reporting and introduced clear standards. This has significantly improved the consistency and comparability of reports — enabling well-informed decisions to be made based on a common data foundation. Performance has also improved, as Andreas Bihler adds: “We have significantly reduced both the processing times in SAP and the loading cycles in the Qlik environment.”

Scripts and data structures follow the “one fits many” principle and are designed for reusability. This ensures more efficient use of existing information and promotes data-driven decision-making.

Future

Next Steps: From Ad Hoc Analysis to a Global Data Platform

Additional Qlik applications are already in the pipeline — including evaluations for logistics based on SAP EWM data. Häfele is also preparing for the next stage of BI development: in the future, users will be able to create not only standard reports but also custom ad hoc analyses

To ensure that only centrally managed content is used, Häfele relies on a module from Informatec’s Data Automation Framework iVIEW. The iVIEW Library enables consistent use of master items across all applications. Content can be grouped into domains and specifically assigned to user groups, significantly improving governance and security. Updates are distributed in real time via subscriptions.

“In our material master alone, we manage over 500 business-critical fields — supplemented by data from the customer and supplier master, invoices, orders, purchase orders, and more,” explains Andreas Bihler. “With the iVIEW Library, we want to centrally manage this data foundation and make it efficiently available for ad hoc reports — to further simplify and accelerate our reporting.”

In the medium term, Häfele plans to build a global data platform that supplies all internal systems with curated, high-quality data. As part of its strategic evolution, the migration to S/4HANA is also on the roadmap. Thanks to Qlik Sense’s open architecture and flexible interfaces, existing analyses and dashboards can continue to be used seamlessly.

Looking ahead, one future option for Häfele — especially in the context of a potential move to the cloud — is to switch from the current on-premises deployment of Qlik Sense to the SaaS-based Qlik Cloud model.

„The migration to Qlik Sense has enabled Häfele to establish a harmonized and centralized reporting structure that sets clear standards and improves the consistency and comparability of reports. As a result, we can make well-informed decisions across the company based on a unified data foundation. In addition, we benefit from a significant reduction in SAP processing times and Qlik loading cycles, which has greatly enhanced overall performance.”

Andreas Bihler, Head of Finance / Controlling, Häfele Group

Summary