From strategic vision to real-world transformation. IT is no longer merely a support function; it shapes business models, innovation, and competitiveness. In a world marked by technological change, geopolitical uncertainty, and resource limitations, IT bears a dual responsibility: it must maintain the stability of day-to-day operations while also ensuring the company’s long-term future viability.
IT efficiency – that sounds like austerity measures, consolidation, and budget cuts. But anyone who thinks that way is missing the bigger picture. In a conversation with Frederic Betz, it becomes clear that this is about much more than just costs. It’s about governance, strategy, and how IT creates real value. An interview about complex decisions, knee-jerk reactions and why efficiency remains a perennial topic in the IT world.
Read more … IT efficiency is not a cost-cutting program, but a management tool.
At Anthropic, AI writes 90 percent of the code for new versions of Claude. OpenAI has released GPT-5.2 Codex, its “most advanced agent-based coding model.” Salesforce is calling this the year of the “Multi-Agentic Enterprise.” What sounds like Silicon Valley hype is the new reality at leading tech companies and a wake-up call for German small and medium-sized businesses and large corporations.
Many companies are faced with the challenge of integrating artificial intelligence into their organisation in a meaningful way - between the pressure to innovate, limited resources and cultural resistance. There is often a lack of strategic direction, targeted skills development for employees and an environment that promotes learning. Without a clear interplay between leadership, culture, governance and qualification, well-intentioned initiatives risk failing before they have a chance to take effect.
There are several options for automation: deep code automation, off-the-shelf automation with robot process automation (RPA) and, of course, automation with the help of generative AI. Each of these options has its own advantages and disadvantages that need to be considered when planning a solution.
Read more … Automation: deep code automation and RPA in comparison
Almost every company in Germany already has enormous potential to automate processes with robotic process automation (RPA). This potential is being significantly increased by the ongoing development of generative AI. The combination of RPA and AI, also known as Intelligent Process Automation (IPA), opens up new possibilities. By using the rule-based RPA bot to access generative AI, it is possible to automate complex process (steps).
Read more … Intelligent Process Automation (IPA) - combination of RPA and AI
In the digitalised business world, the automation of processes has become an indispensable tool for increasing efficiency and maintaining competitiveness. Bots, i.e. digital assistants, are playing an increasingly important role in this. The integration of bots into business processes enables companies not only to reduce costs, but also to improve the quality of their services and increase customer satisfaction. But how exactly do bots affect process automation and what role do they play?
Read more … Generating added value through process automation with bots
Merging companies is a complex process in which many factors need to be taken into account. One of the most important aspects is human resource management. However, HR issues are often not given sufficient consideration during purchase negotiations.
The experienced people & culture consultant Michaela Gottwald provides valuable insights into why human resources should be focussed on at an early stage and what challenges HR management faces in post-merger integration.
Read more … Human resource management as a critical success factor for M&A integration
The IT strategy is an important building block in the planning and further development of IT, regardless of whether it is organised as a department, business unit or even a group company. The IT strategy defines the objectives and ensures that IT understands the company's business objectives and aligns itself with them. In this respect, the annual review of the IT strategy is a good opportunity to check whether IT is still prioritising the right things and aligning its skills and resources with the needs of the specialist departments and internal customers.
Read more … Does an agile organisation still need an IT strategy?
In the digital world of work, some topics have become big in recent years that are now indispensable. RPA - Robotic Process Automation - is one of these topics and the management of even medium-sized companies can no longer avoid the question: "Why and for what RPA?" This article aims to shed light on the key reasons why companies around the world are increasingly turning to RPA, using RPA to optimise their business processes, reduce their costs and increase the efficiency of their business operations. From automating repetitive tasks to improving the customer experience, there is much to discover about how RPA will shape the future of the modern enterprise.
Robotic Process Automation, or RPA for short, is a technology that enables companies to automate business processes. It uses software robots that can perform human tasks in digital systems. RPA robots are able to perform repetitive, rule-based and time-consuming tasks by interacting with existing applications, processing data, retrieving information and making decisions.
The demands on a "modern" IT organisation have changed fundamentally; in addition to the classic characteristics such as operational stability and provision of current technologies with high cost efficiency, there are additional wishes and expectations driven by the specialist departments and business partners - the immediate implementation of new business ideas in digital products before competitors are faster and secure market shares.
Digitalisation thus places new demands on corporate IT. In addition to its traditional function, it must now play a central role as an enabler of innovative business models.
Read more … Adaptive IT - building blocks of an agile organisation
Every year, the magazine brand eins presents a detailed survey on the performance and acceptance of management consultancies in Germany. Since 2016, noventum has been one of the approximately 10% of consultancies that are praised by colleagues and customers in a survey. IT strategy and IT implementation are the successful consulting fields in which noventum scores again and again.
IT outsourcing is standard. If a company decides to have its IT operated by a service provider, this is not an unusual process. And yet the path to the sourcing partner is often not easy and burst sourcing contracts are not uncommon. But what has gone wrong if the partnership is not a real pleasure? IT tenders are the supreme discipline on the way to finding the right service provider and this is where things often go wrong.
The term stands for itself: IT turnaround management aims to turn around a situation, often a crisis situation, into one that is manageable and controlled. A proven toolbox helps to overcome crises. But even in times when there is no acute crisis, it is worth taking a look at this toolbox. Because where a complex application landscape meets high costs, optimisation potential is often not far away. Timely action with an analysis of IT costs and a check of the application landscape and infrastructure can not only prevent a potential IT crisis.
Every year, the magazine brand eins presents a detailed study on the performance and acceptance of management consultancies in Germany. Since 2016, noventum has been one of the approximately 10% of consultancies that are praised by colleagues and clients in a survey. IT strategy and IT implementation are the successful consulting fields in which noventum scores again and again.
Digital transformation - i.e. the realignment of a company in terms of strategy, business model and the resources and processes used through the use of digital technologies - is relevant for all companies. The transformation process should be carefully prepared in order to identify unnecessary sources of error and convert them into success factors. Experienced consultants can help.
Organising a congress for a few hundred visitors with twenty speakers and opportunities for networking and meeting is a great challenge online. This year's IT Strategy Congress of IT-Forum Nordwestfalen and IHK-Nordwestfalen has been held online for the first time. The consultants of noventum consulting were responsible for the technical implementation with Microsoft TEAMS. In the end, organizers and participants were enthusiastic about a perfectly staged congress.
Read more … IT strategy congress online with over 500 participants
When two companies merge, two technical worlds usually become one. Higher efficiency, scaling effects and the basic idea of "one company - one system" are the guiding principles of any integration. Since a large-scale IT integration cannot wait for every side event, smaller special applications are often dragged along and end up in isolation. This pragmatism helps at first, but subsequently causes problems and leads to a dead end.
Read more … Successful M&A transactions also include complete IT system integration
For the seventh time in a row, the magazine brand eins and the statistics company Statista have presented a detailed study on the performance of management consultancies. noventum consulting is among the best in this study. In a detailed special issue entitled "Consulting", brand eins presents the study.
According to the World Economic Forum up to 10 percent of the global gross domestic product will be generated via blockchains by 2027. Reason enough to take a good look at this technology already today. The upcoming opportunities of blockchain technology have, in fact, found their way into discussions on the executive level. Especially in terms of the alignment of the long-term IT strategy, the topic of blockchain should be taken into consideration in order to be able to identify early on opportunities for your own company. However, decision-makers should have a clear understanding of the potential impacts of the technologies on processes and industries.
In the selection of their IT provider, customers must pay particular attention to quality and costs. Especially the question of cost is quite often the triggering factor to start tackling a sourcing project. Especially in the assigning of commodity services, a lot of companies then do not see significant differences between the numerous providers and consider additional decision criteria other than price and quality to be insignificant. What is forgotten in this quite often is that a well functioning cooperation also includes a good communication. In day-to-day business subsequent to the signing of the contract, a lot of different employees of the customer and of the provider also have to clarify controversial questions with each other. If this does not work, the strong focusing especially on the cost factor can quickly turn out to be a "bottomless pit". What initially appeared to be economically lucrative becomes very expensive mid-term. What is to be concluded? In the process for selecting a provider, one additional factor is gaining increasing importance as a decision criterion, the so-called "Cultural Fit".
Read more … Cultural Fit – matchmaking for providers in IT outsourcing projects?
The "brand eins" magazine and the "Statista" statistics company once more have presented a detailed analysis of the performance of business consulting companies. noventum consulting is among the best of this analysis. brand eins is presenting the analysis in a comprehensive special edition titled "Consulting 4.0".
Even still today, IT is merely a means to an end at a lot of companies. The history of in-house IT is long and twisted, the basic technical facts are confusing, and only comprehensible to „old hands“ at the company. IT serves merely as a tool for the core business and does therefore not receive the attention of a strategic factor in the planning that is decisive for success. At the same time, IT costs a lot of money and has to prove that it has an up-to-date cost/benefit ratio. This is the moment for a paradigm shift: the end of reaction and the beginning of strategy and planning. Hartmut Ossowitzki, management consultant at noventum consulting, has been working as an IT specialist for more than 20 years and advises heads of IT regarding the setup of a strategic EAM (Enterprise Architecture Management).
Read more … Enterprise Architecture Management: no sound planning without overview
Communication in large hospitals takes place through innumerable channels. In addition to the already highly complex issue of data communications, this does also and still affect the classic area of telephony. The use of mobile end devices is a matter of course in day-to-day hospital business, but here is where problems and challenges occur that are owed to the special hospital situation and that require special solutions. Extraordinarily heterogeneous systems as well as radiation-sensitive areas on the hospital grounds are just two of the numerous topics that an integrated solution must take into consideration.
Read more … Integrated mobile service solutions for hospitals
Just like the call for order, safety, and planning, the call for quality in IT is always topical. This applies when large changes are ahead as well as when realignments and problems occur in normal operations. Each and every major change is followed by a consolidation, be it after a merger, a spin-off, an insourcing or outsourcing, or after periods of severe cost reduction. The next step is the call for an increase or reestablishment of quality.
Read more … Bringing costs and quality into the right balance with IT service improvement programs
In the financial industry, digital customer communications were the domain of the direct banks for a long time. With the Electronic Mailbox, the IT service provider of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe savings and loan bank finance group is contributing to making the digital customer relations dialogue an essential customer care component of the regionally active savings and loan banks (Sparkassen).
Read more … Digital customer relations dialogue in the financial industry
Aside of the day-to-day and line business, projects are what is intended to effect any major change in the business processes. Heterogeneous working groups gather around the new task, at times staffed only internally, and at times also jointly with suppliers or consultants. The managers bearing these responsibilities must ask themselves who should be working on the project, which expertise and experience should the prospective team members bring to the table. Project management as skill, as best practice, as framework – which approach is the right one? Wolfgang Plemper who, as Director at noventum consulting is responsible for the project management training portfolio, is on the road with this topic at universities and companies knows different means: Prince2®, IPMA and other approaches.
Read more … What‘s the right training for practical project management – IPMA (GPM) or Prince2®?
The CHAOS Report of the Standish Group has been telling us for 20 years already that IT projects in a clear majority of cases do not achieve their objectives. Be it 16 % achievement of objectives in 1994 or 39 % in 2012, IT projects are not a safe bet and whether the increase by 23 percentage points of the last 20 years is actually the result of a stronger focus on objectives can definitely be doubted.
Due to fluctuations in the economy or changes in the financial results of the companies, the expenditures for IT are subject to cyclical changes. Measures kept in abeyance in the short term and the cost savings resulting therefrom are offset in the next quarters. Increased investments are done again, only to ring in the next round of cost-cutting.
How often do you hear the familiar saying "Only that which can be measured can also be managed"? Managing includes three central tasks: setting objectives, determining paths, and achieving objectives.
Licences are a topic for any company that utilises non-in-house software for the support of its business. At medium-sized and large companies, the overview over the software used and the licences bought is lost quickly. The task of a licence management is to maintain an overview, be able to state the licence situation at any time, and to support an audit or the purchase of new licences.
Read more … Software licence management is a must for any IT company
The IT of the clinics of the future is faced with substantial challenges. Not only are huge amounts of data generated by new imaging processes, but these also need to be processed, presented, stored and archived. Now, at first glance this might not appear to be anything unusual. Of course, this is true for the data of a patient staying at the University Clinic. However, when the data of this patient is to be stored for the duration of said patient‘s life and if in addition also all the data that was not generated at the clinic is - in our example - to be stored in the patient‘s file, then the whole is becoming a challenge that can only be mastered with great difficulty.
The customer care card of the Münster municipal works is becoming electronic and features new opportunities for the future. The change is powered by a conceptionally and technically sophisticated IT system.
It has been on the market since 1998 and counts roughly 60,000 customers at this point – the PlusCard, the Münster municipal works’ customer care card. Since spring 2013, the company has been equpping its PlusCard with a chip, rendering the card electronic. The new, intelligent PlusCard supplies its customers with new offers and services with genuine additional benefits. As a first electronic service, the Münster municipal works have introduced the electronic bus ticket (eTicket). It constitutes the basis for several transportation products which allow for a flexible use. The first eTicket product made available by the Münster municipal works is the 90 minute ticket, which has been on offer since March 2013. Its use is especially flexible, since it automatically determines the best price depending on the number of rides already used spontaneously and there is no basic fee attached. A further flexible ticket is in the works for release come autumn 2013. This ticket is aimed at subscribers and automatically calculates the fees according to time of use.
For several years now, COBIT has been received and accepted as the framework for IT governance, both in an international context and in Germany. And like every framework, COBIT, too, is regularly being revised and adjusted to changing needs. In April 2012, now, COBIT 5 was published and is replacing version 4.1. Here, this article introduces you to the innovations in COBIT 5.
Imagine being the technical manager of a huge skyscraper. Every day you have to fulfil the demands that require technical modifications of the building that you are managing. Changes such as adding a new girder section to the building or sometimes even collapsing some of them, moving the pipes of the plumbing system, modifying the capacity of the heating and air conditioning systems, etc.. While handling these modifications, you have to make sure that your building is still stable and the people living in your building are as comfortable and safe as possible.
Companies have to establish a clear vision of the future if they want to know how to assure long-term success. With the help of an IT roadmap, business strategy, IT strategy and current IT trends are systematically put in relation to the IT services offered. Furthermore, very specific parameters such as hardware and software cycles, as well as pending expansions, are introduced to the IT roadmap.
Companies have to establish a clear vision of the future if they want to know how to assure long-term success. With the help of an IT roadmap, business strategy, IT strategy and current IT trends are systematically put in relation with the IT services offered. In an interview, Wieland Schäfer, head of the LWL.IT department, explains his motives for creating an IT roadmap for the Landschaftsverband regional council.
Read more … Westfalen-Lippe Regional Council (LWL) draws IT roadmap
In the pertinent media, be they digital or print, the topic of EAM (Enterprise Architecture Management) is en vogue. The CIO online portal addresses „Painful EAM project experiences“ and urges those responsible to not approach the topic too technically.
Read more … EAM Enterprise Architecture Management – Looking for Pioneers?
