Blog & Inspiration

Everything is going mobile, virtual, and computers will do our jobs in the near future. Not so fast. AOL’s digital prophet David Shing puts a few pieces of the “digital story” into context offering a glimpse of how our digital consumption behaviors will adapt thanks to smart brands and omnipresent devices that bridge sight, sound, motion, touch, feel, scent to deliver a deeper emotional experience.

„Was der alles hat“ – dieser Slogan beschreibt das in Österreich ansässige Unternehmen Messerle ziemlich perfekt. Es bietet sowohl für Firmen als auch Privatpersonen ein breites Sortiment an Gastrozubehör, Bürobedarf bis hin zu Werbe- und Hygienemitteln sowie Verpackungen. Nach einem umfangreichen Webshop-Relaunch, durchgeführt vom PIM-Spezialisten Stämpfli, steht den Kunden ein neues Einkaufserlebnis zur Verfügung.

The dream of spaceflight for all should not remain a dream for much longer, at least not according to Sir Richard Branson and his private spaceflight company, Virgin Galactic, which has been working on a space transporter for commercial space flights for many years. Due to technical problems however, the launch has been repeatedly postponed. Now tourist flights have been announced for this year. In addition, the company recently introduced their pilots’ flight suits designed by the Japanese star designer Yohji Yamamoto in collaboration with the adidas Y-3 label. Gone is the well-known image of the white space suit: the future of fashion in unknown galaxies is black.

CPG companies pursuing digital strategies to improve or increase their top or bottom-line are finding that product (or raw material) information management and the distribution and sharing of information is crucial to their strategy’s success. This article looks at the necessity of a PIM and the underlying and parallel concept of managing your product information supply chain and why understanding this concept will be crucial to the success of a digital strategy.

Milan is leading in fashion and design with modern art playing a somewhat lesser role - but that was until Fondazione Prada started to care. The foundation is funded by the luxury brand bearing its name but emphasizes independence from the business as it aims for a cultural dialogue in the second largest city of Italy.

The beauty brand Estée Lauder has the values of a private company and the financial sophistication of a public company. Their leaders and their employees are driven by passion and new ideas. Today, Estée Lauder’s children and grandchildren are active and involved in the thriving house of beauty that she carefully built over many decades. But for them, it is much more than just a family business, it is a way of life. And that also includes helping other people – for example when it comes to breast cancer.

The teahouse Kusmi Tea is a tea dealer you can't avoid. In the beautiful boutiques, which match the corporate identity of the brand, you find the most diverse of taste creations - not only in the whole of Europe but even internationally, for example in America, Canada or China for example. The shops are mostly designed in the typical Kusmi style. This is where puristic white and transparent elements meet on colourful tins. The roots of Kusmi Tea go back to the year 1867. Founded in Russian St Petersburg, the company has been based in Paris since 1917. A moving and, at the same time, sad story which finds its happy end.

When Alfred Newman- Randy’s uncle - composed only a few bars in 1933, he had no idea that his music piece would continue to become a world famous synonym for the big screen: the 20th Century Fox fanfare. You’ll hear it too when you simply imagine the moving search lights and the equally famous logo of the Hollywood studio which pre-announced stars like Spencer Tracy, Shirley Temple, Joan Collins and Elizabeth Taylor in so many films. Now brace for Matt Damon as he has taken the lead role in their latest science-fiction production as we are heading for Mars!

Viele Branchen wurden durch die Digitalisierung in den vergangenen Jahren förmlich überrannt. Doch wie reagieren Zweige wie beispielsweise der Möbelhandel auf diese Tatsache? Erste stationäre Händler haben sich zwar frühzeitig mit dem Thema der Digitalen Transformation auseinandergesetzt, klar ist aber, es braucht Zeit, um sich an neue Prozesse zu gewöhnen und am Ende Akzeptanz seitens der Kunden zu erfahren. 

Von Ersatzteilen für Lkw-Anhänger bis hin zu Beleuchtungsanlagen: Fahrzeugbedarf Kotz ist ein wichtiger Player der Automobilindustrie. Um das 124.000 Artikel starke Sortiment perfekt zu vermarkten, haben die Spezialisten von Stämpfli das PIM-System mediaSolution3 integriert, einen Webshop erstellt und eine automatisierte Katalogerstellung realisiert.

Die Erkenntnis, dass auch im B2B-Bereich Marketing- und Vertriebsaktivitäten über alle Kanäle in einem einheitlichen Omnichannel-Kundenerlebnis münden müssen, hat sich mittlerweile durchgesetzt. Der Weg dahin ist jedoch lang und steinig. Schon die konzeptionelle Vorbereitung und Planung erweisen sich oft als größere Hürde. Doch das muss nicht sein.

Digitalisation is not a trend, it is a profound, far-reaching social evolution. Against this backdrop, the coffee machine manufacturer WMF presented its new ‘Future in a Box’ technology concept at this year’s spring trade fairs. It offers restaurant owners, hoteliers and coffee machine operators all the relevant instruments for the digital customer experiences of the future. The focus was, on the one hand, on turn-key concepts for contactless and cashless payment systems and on telemetrics, connectivity and apps. On the other hand, the premium product supplier provided deep insight into its development agenda regarding innovative touch payment systems using near field communication and biometrics.

Cognitive systems can change the way companies will be thinking, acting and working in the future. With Watson, IBM is developing a semantic search engine that can collate and answer questions asked in natural language. In the future, this kind of software could support us in many areas, such as in making complex decisions that have to be made under extreme time pressure. Dirk Heitmann, Director of Cognitive Solutions for Germany, Austria and Switzerland at IBM, tells us just how this works and how Watson could otherwise be deployed in the future.

Companies seeking to be both sustainable and globally successful must uncompromisingly face the challenges of continuous digitisation. For these high-reaching and specialised transitions a leader who operates according to the right philosophy is an absolute prerequisite. Janina Kugel is exactly that person. She has opened us the doors to one of the most important technology companies in the world and tells how Siemens tackles it all.

OpusCapita Group Oy’s acquisition of the jCatalog Software AG has gone into effect on 1st May 2016. Founded in Finland in 1984, OpusCapita is a market leader in the Nordic and other regions for the management of digital invoices, documents, financial processes and cash management. Its turnover is about 260m euros. The firm operates one of the leading networks for e-invoicing and its 2,300 employees serve 8,000 customers in more than 50 countries. OpusCapita is part of the Posti Group Corporation which essentially belongs to the Finnish state.

The automobile industry’s latest hot topic are autonomous vehicles. Will machines soon take over control entirely, reducing drivers to mere passengers, or will the new technology open up space in terms of time and freedom? As one of the world’s largest automotive, ZF Fried-richshafen AG is shaping the development of driverless vehicles decisively. The firm provides the full range of sensors, processors, HMI and intelligent mechanical systems, which build the basis of automated driving. We spoke to the head of research and development Dr. Harald Naunheimer, about the opportunities and risks involved in the autonomous driving experience.

Most companies today are in a process of digital transformation and are among other things continuously creating new systems for e-commerce, content management and content marketing. Few however care about the integration of all these different areas through interfaces both technical and procedural.

The real and virtual worlds are becoming ever more entwined, modern information and communication technologies are merging with industrial processes and are consequently changing the production landscape to an increasing degree. Festo examines this change holistically and from various perspectives. As a global player, the company supplies pneumatic and electrical automation technology to factory and process automation customers in more than 200 different sectors. Its products and services are available in 176 countries throughout the world. We talked to Dr Roger Kehl, CIO, and Urda Stieler, Head of IT Sales at Festo, about the digital present and the future of the company.

Last year was the year of wearable technology; and in particular, the year of the Apple Watch. Next up: smart clothing. From the ‘cognitive dress’ that broadcasts your emotional colours to conducting fabrics, Samsung has a division which at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas launched no fewer than eight such tech-inspired fashion items. Marking its first foray into the ultimate wearable computer, Samsung Fashion C&T seeks to be perfectly suited to weave affordable fashion with mobile ambient intelligence; clothing that people would actually wear and find useful in their lives.

In the past, all manufacturing and retail companies have tried to optimise the product supply chain. This was accomplished primarily to support the typical buying style of consumers in the “Brick & Mortar” world. But in today’s e-commerce and mobile-based retail environment, the challenges for manufacturers and retailers have increased in many ways when it comes to data management.

Never before has the world been as networked as it now is. But how should we design a digital future in which data are the lifeblood of companies? Industrial Data Space forms the basis for safely and autonomously exchanging data. It supports enterprises when using these innovation potentials and provides fundamental data services; i.e. the anonymisation of data, integration services and the setting of “expiry dates” for their use. As a result, it makes an important contribution towards the digital transformation of companies.