Steven Depuydt

Since October 2017, Steven Depuydt has been the Chief Information Officer at Cebeo. Cebeo is the Belgian market leader in B2B distribution of electrical materials, solutions, and services. With a turnover of nearly €750 million in 2024, a network of 54 branches, a semi-automated distribution center, and more than 1 000 professionals, Cebeo serves installers and companies across sectors.

As a visionary technology executive, and together with his team, Steven is leading the end-to-end modernization of the company’s technological landscape, from hardware to software, ensuring the company is future-proofing it’s backbone. Upon his arrival, he was met with a self-developed and robust ERP system that had proven itself over decades, however offered limited options to meet Cebeo’s future ambitions. It was an infrastructure where all core applications were running on a single IBMi system.

During the last few years, Steven and his team focused on gradually enhancing the company’s technological foundation. This involved a renewal of the hardware, establishing high availability between data centers via a dark fiber connection, and replacing the entire network to enable a ‘move to the cloud’ strategy—a critical prerequisite for the ambitious transformation that would follow.

The cornerstone of Steven’s success is his approach, his strategic vision, which he calls ‘dismantling the monolith’. Rather than pursuing a high-risk, radical ERP replacement, he architected a multi-year plan to systematically develop business capabilities and replace them with best-of-breed cloud solutions.

Cebeo continues to invest and grow, and over the past few years has launched its new webshop, app, and S2S integration as part of a new omnichannel platform. In addition, the company invested in a new semi-automated distribution center in Blandain, for which the implementation of an advanced Warehouse Management System was essential. The IT department established a modern data lake before ultimately tackling the core ERP system itself. The ERP transition is currently fully ongoing, with amongst others the Finance function now fully on SAP, including auxiliary tools as Medius and AiVidens.

Steven’s leadership style is rooted in the ‘keep the core clean’ principle, favouring standard applications and avoiding heavy customisation to ensure long-term agility and maintainability. He operates as a true enterprise architect, meticulously documenting all processes, capabilities, and technology standards to manage the immense complexity of the transformation.

This technological change was only made possible through focus and collaboration across all departments. The IT department was expanded from 24 to 62 employees and new strategic roles such as enterprise and solution architects were introduced. The agile mindset was given its place throughout the organization. The creation of a Business Transformation Office and a Centre of Excellence created a synergy within Cebeo between Steven’s IT department and the business, creating company-wide commitment to the transformation.

Characterised by his team as a leader with a strong vision, boundless enthusiasm, and positivity. His ‘work hard, play hard’ philosophy fosters a highly motivated team culture. The vision first drafted in 2018 is becoming a reality. Cebeo, with the more than 1 000 colleagues, realizes this ambitious transformation to make the lives of its customers easier by offering them an omnichannel experience and sustainable solutions. This is fully in line with the Sonepar Group – of which Cebeo is a part – and uniting all colleagues behind the common goal: Powering Progress for Future Generations.