Perspective: Mr. Novotny, you demonstrate in your workshops how digitization can improve products and processes in companies and you have now gone on to digitize the workshop itself. HDS19 is the keyword and HDS stands for Hybrid Digital Services. What does that mean?

Thomas Novotny: Digitization and the speed of IT are increasing so rapidly that old technologies can no longer keep up with them and new technologies are crowding into the market. In other words, market digitization is driving innovation forward extremely quickly. The cloud platform HDS19 helps our customers to understand the topic better and go on this journey with us.

Perspective: You used to have a presentation case – entirely analog – for your workshops, didn’t you?

Novotny: Yes, and I always had to bring it with me. I used to make pins and stick everything on flipcharts together with the participants – all very traditional.

Perspective: It seems only logical that you have now digitized the case and the workshop itself …

Novotny: Well yes, because it is now technically possible to do so. I have all the tools that I present to the customers live at my display and can access them immediately. For workshop participants, that is much more exciting than watching someone stand in front of a PowerPoint slide or write something on a flipchart, which they may not even be able to read.

Perspective: The HDS19 cloud platform solves that problem. Attendees can add charts, images and even videos from anywhere for everyone to see. The HDS19 workshop is based on the consultative selling approach principle. What exactly does that mean, Mr. Novotny?

Novotny: Workshop participants identify a challenge at their own company and develop a solution approach that we call the nucleus. It can be a matter of cost, security or software, for which we seek the right cloud solutions. The customer can try out these solution approaches in-house after a mere three weeks. They later become software building blocks or processes (modules), with which the company can tackle initial challenges. In this way, we have already developed 21 new modules, which can be continuously developed further, jointly with our customers in this year already.

Perspective: For many customers HDS19 stands for flexibility and agility. For what else does it stand?

Novotny: For our customers, collaboration via the cloud means they are no longer bound to any location or time constraints. Furthermore, companies no longer need to keep so much IT expertise in-house because the cloud provider is in charge of that. In our digitization workshops we really do lead people around the world into the cloud and let them experience and collaborate on a topic live. That is what makes it so fascinating. People are delighted. They no longer need to travel and hang around at airports.

Perspective: The workshop is designed for employees at all levels. Executives, team leaders and end users experience digitization solutions of all kinds. Can you give us some examples, Mr. Koeroglu?

Sahan Koeroglu: Yes, HDS19 is suitable for a wide range of participants and for many different industries, but especially for the insurance segment because in many cases field staff needs very fast access to data. The same applies to banks, which need to react at short notice to certain impulses in different segments. Last but not least, HDS19 has a great appeal to the automobile industry, in particular because they always have to respond very quickly to customer requirements.

Perspective: Experts say that if you want to digitize, you must take outset considerations such as security, terminal device independence and modern collaboration tools into account from the very beginning. What else?

Novotny: You need to find the right solutions for your company, be bold and not just to copy the others. Investments – meaningful ones of course – also play a crucial role. There is no point in digitizing here and there. All terminal devices must be included in the collaboration, for example, and like digitization in general, must be adapted and made usable for your own ideas, processes and challenges. That way, all employees and all customers benefit from digitization.