Just under a quarter of all working people in Germany are still employed in industry. In contrast to almost all other industrialized countries. That is what accounts for our relative stability. Economically, politically and socially. To ensure that it stays that way, I am now looking for comrades-in-arms, especially in the SME sector. In a way, this text is an elevator pitch, a short version, so that those I want to address can quickly see what I’m talking about.

For more than 30 years, the industry has been in the process of digitalization. A lot of money and time has been invested, and yet all this has still changed far too little in the industry. Especially not to the business models. Even Industrie 4.0 brought a new push in automation and robot use, but no fundamental change. Product manufacturing and sales are still the core of value creation.

Now everyone expects – and the laws will force – that industry in particular will make a decisive contribution to climate neutrality.

Digitization can actually help to move from the business with things to the business with the Internet of Things. And that can certainly be even more profitable than the product business. But there is no blueprint for this. The companies that want to get there need expertise, specialists, access to research and knowledge, and they must know what is needed and should be used from the providers of digitalization.

Why have digitalization and Industrie 4.0 achieved so little so far? Because many realities, especially in industrial SMEs, have not been taken into account or have been taken into account too little. But it takes the practitioner’s perspective to deliver tangible results.

I would like to bring together those who want to change their companies to form a powerful interest group. With like-minded people, it’s easier to find a path through the digital jungle. They will probably be SMEs, founders and owners of family businesses who still have a connection to their products, for whom their business is still a matter of the heart.

I’m looking for company leaders who understand that lighthouses are needed when the ship threatens to run aground. I am looking for those who, despite all resistance in society, business and politics, are prepared to build and be such lighthouses.

My project is not a counter-project to existing organizations and initiatives, it is meant to complement them. As a strong-willed and smart community of interests for a digital industry: the only chance for a future of the industrial location Germany and Central Europe.

 

Feedback highly welcome!

I am happy about every comment, about every feedback (also about a contact mail), and especially of course about interest in the circle to be founded.