Contract management in retail quickly becomes more complex as a company grows. Purchasing and supplier agreements, leases, employment contracts, sales agreements, and contracts with international partners all need to be centrally accessible, deadlines must be monitored reliably, and responsibilities clearly assigned.
Last year, our customer story with rebuy showed how digital contract management can simplify these processes in retail. Now, CECEBA, another established retail and manufacturing company, shares how it uses Inhubber to centrally manage contracts, automate contract workflows, and securely control access to sensitive contract information.
CECEBA is a medium-sized family-owned company with around 130 years of history and is now run by the fifth generation. The group operates in areas including men’s daywear and nightwear, swimwear, women’s nightwear, and workwear, combining manufacturing with a broad B2B and B2C sales network.
For this customer story, Dr. Elena Mechik, CEO of Inhubber, spoke with Nick Schäfer, Managing Director and Shareholder of the CECEBA Group. Nick Schäfer is particularly responsible for the company’s external operations, including sales and production, and introduced Inhubber around two and a half years ago as one of his first digitalization projects at the company.
How were contracts managed at CECEBA before Inhubber?
Nick Schäfer: “We’re a family-owned company with around 130 years of history. Naturally, structures have developed over many decades — and when it came to contracts, things were particularly decentralized.
Contracts were stored in different folders and departments. In some cases, only individual teams had access to them, while responsibilities were not always clearly defined.
Deadlines were also tracked manually in Excel spreadsheets. One of the specific triggers for the project was actually a missed termination deadline.
That was the point when I said: something this important simply can’t be managed without a proper central tool. That’s when we started looking for contract management software.”
What was particularly important to you when choosing contract management software?
Nick Schäfer: “A central repository was one of the first priorities. On top of that, we needed reliable deadline management and clearly defined access rights.
Especially with sensitive HR contracts, it has to be absolutely clear who is allowed to see them. At the same time, someone working in sales doesn’t automatically need access to production contracts.
So for us, it was really about clear responsibilities and a clear structure.
Another very important factor was usability. A tool costs money, so it needs to create a real improvement and, most importantly, people actually need to use it. If it’s too complicated, employees simply won’t work with it.
Those were the main criteria for us when making the decision.”
Why did you choose Inhubber?
Nick Schäfer: “Inhubber is very easy to use while still being flexible enough to adapt to our individual requirements.
It was important for us to be able to change structures quickly and adjust the system whenever our processes changed.
And then there were the core requirements we had already identified: deadline management, access rights, central storage, and straightforward usability.
Because our contract portfolio is so diverse, we need a tool that allows us to structure very different types of contracts in a clear and consistent way.”
What types of contracts does CECEBA manage with Inhubber?
Nick Schäfer: “Our contract portfolio is very diverse.
We have contracts related to production and purchasing, as well as HR and employment agreements.
On the sales side, we manage various customer contracts, including agreements for shop-in-shop concepts and consignment models.
We also have leases and commercial agent agreements, both in Germany and internationally.
So our contract portfolio is relatively complex. That’s exactly why having one central structure is so important for us.”
Which departments currently work with Inhubber?
Nick Schäfer: “Inhubber is used across many different areas of the company.
Purchasing, for example, is responsible for contracts related to production and logistics. Our internal sales team manages customer contracts, HR handles employment agreements, and accounting is responsible for areas such as leases.
Marketing also works with Inhubber, for example for sponsorship agreements.
We’ve defined clear contacts and responsibilities within each department. That means every team knows exactly which contracts it is responsible for.”
How does Inhubber support digitization, AI analysis, and contract search?
Nick Schäfer: “In a company with more than 130 years of history, you naturally accumulate a lot of contracts. Some of them were still available only on paper.
So the initial process of digitizing and uploading everything does require some effort.
Inhubber helps by automatically extracting information and pre-filling fields. That makes the process significantly faster.
Another major advantage is search. I don’t always need to know the exact name of a document. I can simply search for a term and find the relevant contract.
That saves time and makes everyday work much easier.”
Which contract processes have you digitized or automated with Inhubber?
Nick Schäfer: “A good example is our international commercial agent agreements.
It’s not always easy to physically send a contract from one country to another. But of course, we still need a legally valid signature.
We now handle this entire process through Inhubber. The contractual partner receives an email, opens the process, verifies their identity, and can sign the contract digitally.
We’re then notified once the contract has been signed. In the case of a commercial agent, for example, we know that everything is legally in place and we can send out the collection.
The whole process has become faster, more efficient, and much more structured.”
How does deadline monitoring work today?
Nick Schäfer: “Deadline monitoring is much more structured today.
We receive automatic notifications whenever an important contract deadline is approaching. That means nothing gets overlooked, and responsibilities are clearly defined.
I don’t have to constantly log into the system or open individual contracts just to check whether something needs attention.
Inhubber proactively lets us know. That makes the work much easier.”
How does CECEBA manage access rights and permissions?
Nick Schäfer: “We work very strongly with department-based structures.
Purchasing, for example, has its own area, and other departments work within their respective structures as well.
For sensitive contracts, it’s important for us to clearly define who is allowed to access them. Someone in sales doesn’t need to see HR or production contracts if they’re not relevant to their work.
This gives us clear responsibilities while also making sure employees aren’t confronted with contracts that have nothing to do with their area.”
What improvements have you seen since introducing Inhubber?
Nick Schäfer: “Since then, we haven’t had another situation where a termination deadline was missed.
Inhubber proactively alerts us whenever an important deadline is coming up.
At the same time, deadline monitoring and responsibilities are clearly structured. Nothing falls through the cracks anymore.
Another major benefit is search. The amount of time we spend looking for information has dropped significantly. Even during a conversation, I can quickly pull up a contract or check a specific piece of information.
That makes us faster and reduces administrative work.
I can’t honestly put the impact into a precise number or say that it saves half an FTE, for example. But the improvement is very noticeable in our day-to-day work.”
How did the implementation of Inhubber go?
Nick Schäfer: “Whenever we introduce a new tool, we have one person who takes the lead on the project. That person then also trains the other employees.
Inhubber’s interface is very straightforward. It’s not rocket science.
We introduced the system step by step. First, we built our folder structure, and then we gradually brought individual departments into the system.
We deliberately didn’t try to change everything at once. Instead, we digitized contracts piece by piece. That made sense, especially because some contracts had previously existed only on paper.
We were able to move from department to department relatively quickly.
In the end, employees were mainly happy that there was finally a clear structure.”
Which companies in the retail sector would you recommend Inhubber to?
Nick Schäfer: “Once a company reaches a certain size, I believe a contract management tool becomes essential.
If a small business only has three contracts, it probably doesn’t need dedicated contract management software yet.
But once you’re working with many different contractual partners and have things like termination deadlines to keep track of, the situation changes.
The more diversified the company is — with production, sales, HR, and other areas — the more useful a central tool becomes.
Put simply: the more contracts a company has, the harder it becomes to keep an overview. At that point, you need software that brings structure into the process.”
Would you recommend Inhubber?
Nick Schäfer: “We’re very happy with Inhubber.
Today, we have clear structures and clearly defined responsibilities for the different areas.
At the same time, the tool has continued to evolve over the years. That’s important because, just like any other software, a contract management solution can’t stand still.
We’re very happy with the way Inhubber has developed, and we would definitely recommend it.”
The CECEBA case shows why contract management software becomes particularly valuable for retail companies working across multiple departments, sales channels, and contract types.
At CECEBA, the contract portfolio ranges from production, purchasing, and customer agreements to HR contracts, leases, international commercial agent agreements, and sponsorship contracts.
With Inhubber, CECEBA has created one central structure for managing them:
- Contracts are managed centrally with clearly assigned responsibilities.
- Termination deadlines are monitored automatically.
- Employees are proactively notified when action is required.
- Access rights can be structured by department and responsibility.
- Sensitive contract information can be made accessible only to authorized users.
- Existing and scanned contracts can be digitized and searched more efficiently.
- International commercial agent agreements can be signed digitally.
- Contract management workflows replace manual processes and reduce administrative effort.
- New departments can be integrated into the central contract management system step by step.
For retail companies with complex structures, the value of centralized contract management becomes especially clear in areas that previously relied on Excel spreadsheets, separate folders, and manual reminders.
Instead of having to regularly search for deadlines or documents themselves, responsible employees receive the information they need in a structured way and at the right time.
This turns contract management in retail from a purely administrative filing system into a digital process that creates greater transparency, clear responsibilities, and reliable contract workflows.
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