The $NZ138 million (Euro 70 million) contract will see the creation of a highly successful business transformation project of global business-to-business distribution services. This will allow Hagemeyer, with annualised sales of approximately billion (Euro 8 billion), to further enhance its leading position.

The contract comprises installation of Lawson’s Movex platform including the e-collaboration solution and Lawson Trading Portal technology within Hagemeyer’s world-wide distribution network. The agreement will involve all Hagemeyer operations in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the US.

The project starts with the design of the Hagemeyer core business processes. Followed by the configuration of Movex according to the designed processes. To confirm process design and application configuration a series of pilot projects will be run in UK, Netherlands and New Zealand. Culminating in a global roll-out throughout the world.

New Zealand was chosen to be a pilot site due to its business sophistication, suitable implementation window combined with proximity to Lawson’s Asia Pacific development resource for the project, based in Sydney.

With project planning for New Zealand complete, the New Zealand pilot is scheduled to go live by Q3 this year.

”The partnership with Lawson is important to the success of our business. We are now very much focused on integrating our international portfolio of companies into a single dedicated service organisation”, says Mr Peter Hagedoorn, CIO of Hagemeyer.

The company saw Lawson as the best provider of worldclass functionality. This will be based on the Lawson wholesale model as well as leading technology in the marketplace and product configuration areas. The main reason for Hagemeyer’s choice of Lawson, in strong competition with other companies, was the excellent fit with existing and future business requirements. In addition Lawson’s global presence and technology strength were main arguments in favour of Lawson.