When Expertum – a professional services company with operations in Belgium, the Netherlands, Croatia, and Slovenia – decided it was time to modernize its core processes, they didn’t just swap out their legacy system, they redefined how the business works. Last year, Expertum decided to implement SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud a strategic choice and a logical step as SAP-partner.
In this interview, we speak with Ilse Brock, COO Expertum Group and Wim Feys, CFO Expertum Group who guided the rollout of SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud for Professional Services, a five-month journey that resulted in greater transparency, faster invoicing, and significantly improved decision-making.
Getting people on board from the start. Your implementation had a strong focus on internal engagement. Why was that so important?
Ilse Brock: One of the most critical success factors was involving our users from day one. Even before formal training, we invited our administration team to hands-on sessions in the starter system. We showed them how the end-to-end processes would look and gave them a sense of the future way of working.
Wim Feys: These early demos sparked real interest and even excitement. It wasn’t just about showing screens; it was about showing how their work would improve. That helped build trust and momentum early on.
Embracing standardization. How did you approach process design during the project?
Ilse Brock: We relied heavily on SAP Best Practices and kept customizations to a minimum. Our Expertum Public Cloud consultants led fit-to-standard workshops with process owners and key users. This approach helped everyone understand how their work fits into the broader process landscape, and how much was already available out-of-the-box.
We used the key user extensibility framework for the few adaptations we needed, which made the system easy to maintain and scale.
Wim Feys: These early demos sparked real interest and even excitement. It wasn’t just about showing screens; it was about showing how their work would improve. That helped build trust and momentum early on.
Turning bottlenecks into breakthroughs. What are some of the biggest process improvements you've seen?
Wim Feys: One of the biggest pain points in the old system was customer invoicing. It was largely manual and could take up to several weeks to complete. It was also the only way we could really estimate revenue, which made monthly closing slow and reactive.
Now, invoicing is fully integrated, and we track revenue daily, thanks to the connection between timesheet entries and the general ledger. We no longer rely solely on invoicing to understand performance. With clear month-end procedures, we’re able to close the books in a matter of days; a massive improvement in both speed and quality.
Scaling across borders: how does S/4HANA support your international operations?
Ilse Brock: S/4HANA Public Cloud supports accounting standards for multiple countries, so we can comply with local requirements while keeping a consolidated overview at group level.
A great example is intercompany invoicing. Previously, if a consultant in one country worked on a project for another entity, it involved a lot of coordination and manual effort. Now, the flow is fully automated. It’s seamless and saves a huge amount of time.
Driving Business Value: What’s been the overall impact on the organization?
Wim Feys: The results speak for themselves. We now have faster invoicing, quicker month-end closing, daily visibility into revenue, better tracking of receivables and payables and more informed decision-making.
The system is also stable, fast, and gives us complete transparency across countries. With single sign-on and automated user provisioning, it’s secure and easy to manage. And most importantly, even our most demanding users – like our consultants – really like using it.
What’s next?
Ilse Brock: Now that the foundation is in place, we’re looking to further optimize reporting and analytics, and explore automation opportunities in other areas. But the core message is clear: by standardizing and engaging our teams from the beginning, we didn’t just install a new system: we built a new way of working.
Conclusion
This implementation of SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud at Expertum shows what’s possible when technology, process excellence, and people-driven change come together. In just five months, the company moved from manual processes and delayed insights to real-time control and integrated performance management, proving that transformation doesn’t have to be slow or painful. It just has to be smart!
