Dear Mr. Prester, thank you for allowing us to talk to you about your experiences with transformation. As an introduction to the topic, we would like to ask you what you actually mean by transformation?
Florian Prester: We would be delighted to - transformation is indeed an exciting topic and more topical than ever. We understand transformation as the continuous further development of our offering, adapted to the changing needs of our customers. Considering that we are a second-generation software house, this sounds strange at first - But we are living proof that this is possible and have already proven many times in our 40-year company history that we can successfully adapt to new circumstances and customer requirements.
Why is it especially important for medium-sized businesses to tackle transformation?
Florian Prester: The market is continuously changing and competition is growing as well. This means we have to adapt production, processes, product portfolio and business models. For medium-sized companies in particular, this is essential for survival. We work very closely with our customers. We understand - indeed, "live" - our customers. But if we lose close contact with our customer base then we become interchangeable and lose the location advantage that the customer values right now. Transformation offers two things: the opportunity to further expand competencies and to realize innovations. We use this potential primarily together with our customers.
What challenges do you see yourself and especially SMEs facing in this process?
Florian Prester: On the one hand, SMEs in Germany have always been innovative and networked, but on the other hand they are limited in their resources. We can not afford many undesirable developments, as we almost all develop our business from our own resources. A big challenge is of course the search for employees; especially here in Bavaria the best specialists are in great demand and of course you have to come up with something special to acquire them. We always try to make use of the advantage of being a family business; after all, even with almost 200 employees, we actually know everyone personally. Each and every one of them is valuable and receives individual support. The new achievements of the "New Work" are not a burden for us, but an enrichment: We enjoy the freedoms and are able to win both potential customers and employees for us.
In addition to these new challenges of collaboration, the challenge of digitalization is of course omnipresent, but this is our daily work environment and here we are very well positioned. We develop both for our clientele and by means of funded projects on the cutting edge topics, in line with our motto: We do digitization - but safely!
Do you have a special achievement with which you meet the issue of transformation?
Florian Prester: At this point, I would like to refer to our agile software factory. Here we have perfected the common principle of agile software development for our customer base. We are able to offer cross-industry agile software performance on a sprint basis, which can be ideally integrated into our own developments. Our proxy product owner (the counterpart to the customer's product owner) is responsible on our side for ensuring that customer requirements are implemented 1:1. He has the customer glasses on, is always available for the customers and has the task of bringing project-specific know-how to the point in order to deliver agilely with and for the customers.
What can you offer the automotive industry?
Florian Prester: We are experts in software development, quality assurance and testing in safety-critical domains. With our know-how and experience, we offer valuable services that are important for mastering the transformation, especially in the automotive industry, such as digitization, securing developments, regulatory consulting, the areas of safety and security, as well as education and training.
