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Inspirational Leaders
Inspirational Leaders
Digitisation strategies and visions for the
future: six pioneers in the spotlight
text
Benjamin Kleemann-von Gersum
& Sabine Simon
Rainer Gläss has grand visions for retail
Software for retail companies: this has been Rainer
Gläss’s area of specialisation for decades. As the founder
of GK Software – established in 1990 as a two-man
company with his business partner Stephan Kronmüller in
Schöneck in Saxony’s Vogtland region – he has developed
the company into a global player in the area of retail software.
According to its 2017 financial report, GK Software’s
sales amount to a good 90.5 million euros. More than 150
business customers in more than 50 countries use the
software solutions from southwest Saxony, by means of
which all the information from cash tills is forwarded directly
to the accounts, procurement or IT departments.
“The technology is becoming a crucial factor for retail
companies,” says Gläss, who sees the trend towards mobile
devices as one of the most important drivers of innovation
in retail. “We find ourselves in a phase of transition
between the traditional world of stationary retail and omnichannel
processes. It’s in this mélange that all retailers
have to redefine their positions.” The company founder,
who is also a member of the federal government’s Digital
Summit, pinpoints his vision: “We’re ahead of the game!”
It is, first and foremost, a challenge to himself, but also to
his high-performing team. And it’s a challenge they can
tackle in comfort at the headquarters in Schöneck, since
the management has created an Innovation Centre with a
café, lounge areas, after-work skiing and a fitness centre.
Gläss’s ties to his home region are evident from his engagement
in various areas, including the implementation
of a digital school concept for the sports secondary
school in Klingenthal. The next big topic for the industry,
Gläss believes, is artificial intelligence: “Retailers are
seeking optimisations in light of ever greater complexity,
such as enormous quantities of data,” he explains. It was
therefore a logical step for GK Software to take over in
2017 the majority share in Prudsys AG, based in Chemnitz,
one of the leading providers of agile AI technologies for
omnichannel retail.
www.gk-software.com
Katja Hillenbrand makes drinking water smart
Water, building technology and digitisation – these are central topics for
the future according to Katja Hillenbrand, Managing Director of Micas AG,
based in Oelsnitz in the Erzgebirge region. “From the inflowing water conduit
to a wide variety of applications in the building and ultimately the
waste water conduit, we use sophisticated sensors and a smart IoT package
to guide the water through the building,” says the Baden-Württemberg
native. Founded in the year 2000, Micas has grown continuously to become
an internationally active, medium-sized market leader in the area of customer-specific
OEM sensor solutions. Visions for the future? The entrepreneur
has plenty of them: for example predictive maintenance, intelligent
water provision, or central water management in the cloud. And it goes
without saying that Hillenbrand, who is herself a mother of two children, invests
in the future of her employees and their families: the company has
had its own kindergarten and childcare service for some years now.
www.micas.de
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