Financial Crime Worth £2 Billion and the Criminal is Still Free!

🚨 Warning: This Isn't Just a Story

First: The Crime Scene

The Beginning: Digital Transformation Dream

In 2011, Lidl was a very successful company - with over 10,000 branches in 30 countries. But they had a problem: their old internally-built system had become outdated and slow.

The executives decided: "That's it, we need to modernize everything." Not an unusual decision - according to Gartner and McKinsey studies, 70% of digital transformations fail.

The decision was clear: use SAP system - the world's most famous enterprise resource planning system. The new system was called eLWIS (pronounced like Elvis in German).

The dream was simple: one unified system for all branches, all data in one place, everything working smoothly.

Imagine your company as a large house with many rooms:

• Accounting: Calculates money coming in and going out
• Warehouses: Tracks available inventory
• Sales: Deals with customers
• Human Resources: Manages employees

SAP system is like electricity connecting all these rooms together, so everything works together instead of each department working alone.

The First Crime: The Lidl Case — £2 Billion Stolen in Broad Daylight

Chapter One: The Promising Beginning (2011-2015)

Initially, everything was going perfectly. The project started in 2011 with a budget of €201 million. The team was enthusiastic, management was confident, and SAP itself was pleased with this major client.

May 2015 - The historic moment: The new system went live in Austria. First country to use eLWIS.

The result? Brilliant success!

Branches in Austria were working, employees were adapted, warehouses were organized. Lidl decided to continue and implement the system in other countries.

April 2017 - The pleasant surprise: SAP itself honored Lidl as one of its best clients!

Management was happy, employees were proud, and the future looked promising. Everything indicated the project would succeed.

But something strange was happening beneath the surface...

Chapter Two: Discovering the Disaster (2015-2016)

After the system was implemented in more countries, a strange problem began to appear. A seemingly small problem, but it was a ticking time bomb.

The Problem: Inventory calculation method.

For 20 years, Lidl had been calculating inventory at purchase price (the price they paid to suppliers).

Example: A shampoo bottle bought for £10 → they record it in the system at £10.

But SAP works completely differently: it calculates inventory at selling price (the price they'll sell to customers).

Same shampoo bottle → SAP wants to record it at £15 (selling price).

When they discovered this problem, they had two choices:

Choice One (Correct): Change their way of working to match SAP.

Choice Two (Wrong): Modify SAP to match their old way.

Lidl chose the second option. And that was the beginning of the end.

Chapter Three: Hell (2016-2018)

Instead of Lidl changing their way of working, they decided to modify SAP. This was a catastrophic decision.

Problem One: The modifications were extremely complex. Not just simple settings - this was reprogramming entire parts of the system.

Problem Two: Every time they modified something, something else broke. The system became unstable.

Problem Three: Costs began to increase insanely.

The Terrifying Numbers

At the crisis peak, there were:

• Over 1000 employees working on the project
• Hundreds of external consultants
• Cost: Jumped from €201 million to €500 million (150% increase!)
• Duration: 7 years instead of 3-4 years

And the result? Zero.

Nothing worked. The system was unstable, complex, and impossible to develop or maintain.

The Final Moment: Cancellation Decision

July 2018 - Jesper Højer (Lidl CEO) sent a memo to employees:

"The strategic objectives of the project cannot be achieved without spending more money than we've already spent. And we're not prepared to do that."

The decision was clear: Complete project cancellation.

After 7 years of work, thousands of work hours, €500 million, Lidl returned to the old system they wanted to get rid of in the first place!

🕵️ Investigation: Revealing the Real Criminal's Identity

After the story ended, everyone started asking: Who's responsible for this disaster?

Is SAP the Criminal?

No.

SAP is an excellent system working in thousands of successful companies worldwide. Companies much larger than Lidl use it successfully.

Even Jean-Claude Flury (President of SAP Global User Group) said clearly:

"The fault is Lidl's, not SAP's."

Are the Consultants the Criminals?

Partially.

Lidl relied excessively on external consultants. At one point, there were hundreds of consultants working on the project.

The problem: These consultants had no real interest in the company's long-term success. The longer the project took, the more money they made.

Are the Employees the Criminals?

No.

Employees were victims. No one trained them properly, no one explained why this change was important, and no one listened to their complaints.

When they started resisting the new system, it was a natural reaction because they felt something wrong was happening.

The Lesson Learned

Lidl's story isn't a story of technological failure. It's a story of management failure. Studies indicate that 73% of ERP systems failed to achieve their original objectives, and the main reason is always managerial, not technical.

The system was good. The idea was right. But execution was a disaster. McKinsey confirms that companies globally see significant room for improvement in governance and oversight.

Companies that succeed in implementing these large systems do one thing differently:

They change their way of working to fit the system, not the other way around.

If Lidl had done this from the beginning, they would have saved €500 million and 7 years of their lives.

Conclusion

33% success rate for projects following these tips Instead of 67% failure, you can be among the 33% successful ones.