During the third Coffee Club Cologne on 17th February 2018 in Brühl Pablo Beyen, CEO of bevuta IT, gave a presentation about the topic Innovation to numerous delegates of various mid-size German companies from Cologne and the surrounding area. Pablo Beyen, who by that time has already been the CEO of bevuta IT for 18 years, explained why Innovation and Visions play a big part in the pursuit to constantly develop technologies and maintain a competitive society.

In the following text we are going to sum up the main aspects of this presentation.

This is the video of the presentation held in German:

Digital Hub Cologne

The creative minds behind the Coffee Club Cologne event are called Digital Hub Cologne GmbH. Their focus is to connect startups from Cologne and its region in order to create cross-sectorally networks consisting of highly skilled experts. Furthermore they try to establish the so called Colognebay as an attractive location for national and international startups. On their official website, the Digital Hub Cologne states that their most important mission is to develop sustainable digital business models in Cologne and its region. The City Cologne, University of Cologne, and the Chamber of commerce of Cologne are just three of the numerous big institutions who already joined this project.

Innovations

”Midsize companies should focus more on creating innovations on their own”

With this plea Pablo Beyen begins his presentation. German midsize companies do have splendid know-how when it comes to tasks regarding engineering, but this strength turns out to be also a weakness of German midsize companies. Thus these companies focus too much on their main strengths, trade and production, and therefore limit their tremendous true potential. It always were entrepreneurs who tried to satisfy their hunger for innovations and therefore revolutionized the society and its behaviour down to its last segment. Even today we still harvest the fruits these pioneers once sow. The prominent examples are the inventor of the first automobile with a working combustion engine, Karl Benz and The Wright Brothers, who went down in history with their invention of the first engine driven airplane. Especially Karl Benz’s courage to think creatively stood out. His answer to the need of the society for faster horses was the automobile. Nowadays we cannot imagine a world without cars and the appendant industry is now the biggest one of the Federal Republic of Germany. The hunger, lust and pioneering spirit of the former and upcoming entrepreneurs are still living on in our modern society.

”Someone started a company with the vision to fly to the mars. 15 years ago people would have called this person nuts, but he is on his way to achieve this very goal.”

This quote illustrates the big chances but also the big risks for the domestic industry. If the trend to focus on already established and working branches rather than trying to think and work “outside the box”continues, then the German industry is seriously risking to lose touch to the technological development. Further we are risking to get outrun by other competitors. German entrepreneurs should embrace their strengths and embed the idea in their heads that they can create innovative products by themselves. Mid-sized companies have the big advantage of a relatively small staff which allows them to come up with solutions and implement them faster compared to their bigger counterparts like Mercedes or BMW. We do not lack creative thinkers in Germany. Every year thousands of young freshly graduated students finish their studies and enter the domestic labour market. They obviously lack experience and practice in the work world but it is worth to integrate them in the companies and regard them as a sort of investments for the future. Further mid-sized companies should combine their know-how about the work world with the creative and out of the box thoughts of the graduates. Both can greatly profit from each other and together make sure that technological development of the domestic society keeps on moving forward.

”We do not stop with 400 km/h cars. We're just getting started!”

And with this quote we would like to point out the main point of this presentation: We did not reach the edge of the technological development yet and we should seize the chance to invest in the right parts in order to profit from the progress. There are already autonomous cars of the company Waymo driving on US-American streets and they are going to make professions like Taxi Drivers or Truckers completely obsolete in the near future. To be fair, we also have to mention that innovations imply pre investments and therefore bear a certain amount of risk in them. That is why we should realise our strengths and weaknesses, so we can find competent partners who can help us compensate our weak points, and realise new projects on these joint ventures.

Development subsidies

Currently the state Nordrhein Westfalen is giving out subsidies for companies that intend to digitalise their business model. The so called Digitalisierungsgutscheine intend to strengthen the innvoationpower and growth potential of companies settled in NRW. For analytical and implementation processes the state is paying up to 80% of the total costs for small companies. The “Gutscheine” range from 10.000 to 15.000 Euros. These subsidies aim to lower the bars for small and midsized companies to digitalise themselves i.e their business model. Seize the chance and let us join your project to digitise your company!

We, the bevuta IT, specialized on digital processes and digital products. We want to be a good sparring partner on equal foot level for our business partners. Therefore we always try to comprehend the branch our partners are working in and always pay them the proper amount of respect. If you are planning to digitise your company in the near future, we would like to join you in your project.

Please feel free to contact us at any given time and set up a personal call with our experts.

We are looking forward to join your projects and discover new and interesting branches!

Telefon: +49 221 2826780 Email: mail@bevuta.com Twitter: @bevuta_it