You may not know it, but almost everyone encounters tesa and its products in their everyday lives. Whether in the battery of an electric car, as a component in a smartphone, in the construction industry, or as an adhesive solution in your own home – tesa is there where you least expect it. With a history of more than 125 years, tesa is one of the world’s leading manufac­turers of tapes and self­-adhesive product solutions for industrial and professional cus­tomers as well as consumers, supplying more than 7,000 products.

With 5,000 employees in more than 100 countries and 14 production sites, tesa faced a new challenge in the wake of growth and expansion: how to improve the HR services and communication needs of global teams.

The company was already operating on multiple local HR solutions that struggled to keep up with evolving demands.

For this reason, tesa set itself the goal of driving digitalization and moving to a single, harmonized global HR solution that could manage employee and company data worldwide. Looking for synergies and solutions, tesa decided to go with SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central for its digital HR transformation. Beiersdorf, tesa’s parent company, and SAP already had an existing relationship, so it made sense to follow the same path.

“SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central is the tool to reach our goal of innovating HR for our business,” said Marta Knutelska, HR digitalization manager for tesa. “With this new tool, we want to improve transparency and ease-of-use concerning our HR topics for all employees and managers worldwide.”

With SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central, tesa now has a better-running HR service for their teams around the world, enabling greater visibility and transparency across the organization. With interactive organization charts, employees can now explore the structure of their entire organization even better and quickly access key contact information to help them stay better connected. Beiersdorf acted as an internal partner through the implementation, sharing best practices and lessons learned.

“This implementation was so smooth and would not have been possible without the collaboration between Beiersdorf, BSS, and tesa. Because our teams worked so closely, the implementation went fast without any bigger issues,” said Knutelska. “We are a global company with global structures. Thanks to SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central, we now have seamless visibility and improved access to the right data.”

The company will continue to push forward its HR digitalization in the next couple of months. With SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central, tesa is one step closer to a more visible, collaborative, productive, and future-ready workforce. This change also fits perfectly with the company’s “People Values,” which include working cross-border in large, international teams that drive things forward together.

Learn how to manage your workforce and improve people experiences with a single global HR platform.


Sam Holleman is an employee communications manager at SAP.