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Category: Digitalization

Digitalization and transformation are on everyone’s mind. Yet we often encounter very different definitions of these terms. The reason is that every midsize company is at one level or another in terms of digitalization.

Katharina Auer

Process Optimization through Digitalization: A Lever for Stronger Earnings

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Prozessoptimierung durch Digitalisierung

Process and Resource Efficiency in Family Businesses

From our work with medium-sized family businesses, we have gained a clear picture: working on processes and comprehensive digitalization pay off. The 2022 study by the Witten Institute for Family Business (WIFU) shows that family businesses with a high degree of digitalization achieve significantly higher profitability and faster revenue growth than their competitors. Yet despite this potential, many family businesses still have catching up to do. The efficiency potential offered by further developing processes and using digital tools is by no means being fully exploited. This applies to all areas of the company, but especially to digitalization in production.

Digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) offer significant efficiency potential at many points along the value chain. Processes can be radically accelerated, managed holistically, and improved in quality. Digitalization projects consistently lead to increased earnings and greater resource efficiency. As a result, they make companies more resilient.

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Katharina Auer

Tightening of the EU AI Act as of August*: What This Means for the Use of AI in HR

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Editor’s note (June 23, 2026): The key requirements of the AI Act are currently still set to take effect on August 2, 2026. However, as part of the “Digital Omnibus on AI,” a postponement of certain obligations—particularly for high-risk systems—to approximately December 2027 is being discussed; formal adoption is still pending.

AI adoption in mid-sized companies

With the EU AI Act coming into force on August 1, 2024, the European Union established the first binding legal framework for the use of artificial intelligence. The regulation applies across all industries and company sizes, directly impacting small and mid-sized businesses. Rather than being a technology law in the narrow sense, it should be understood as a framework for responsible decision-making when using AI.

For companies, it is critical to understand that the EU AI Act does not only address providers of AI systems. Organizations that implement AI systems or AI-enabled features within standard software are also considered operators and are therefore responsible for how these technologies are used in their specific business context.

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Yadana Thein

Focus on Efficiency – Putting Organizational Efficiency into Practice

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Improving Collaboration Efficiency Within the Company

The efficiency of individual departments or areas within a company does not necessarily equate to high organizational efficiency. Achieving organizational efficiency requires an end-to-end view of processes, which are typically designed to span across departments and functional areas. Defining and structuring interfaces plays a central role in enabling cross-departmental efficiency.

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Yadana Thein

Fundamentals of Organizational Efficiency

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Foundations Efficiency

Organizational Efficiency Is the Efficiency of Collaboration

The competitiveness of German companies is currently suffering from high energy costs, high labor-related expenses, excessive reporting requirements, and slow approvals and bureaucracy. Admittedly, the ability to influence these factors is limited. Instead, companies must focus on improving efficiencies to achieve desired results with minimal resource consumption.

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Fabian Reinhardt

Automation through Digitalization – in Medium-Sized Companies

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Digitalization and artificial intelligence are offering SMEs more and more opportunities to automate processes and workflows. Automation is a key element in organizing companies efficiently and thus making them fit for the future.

Through automation, tasks are transferred from employees to machines or systems. These carry out automated processes to achieve the task objectives without employees having to intervene.

The advantages of automation are obvious: significant efficiency gains, largely error-free operation, adherence to regulatory compliance and scalability are adequate responses to the ever-increasing competitive pressure and the shortage of skilled workers. The implementation of automation steps in medium-sized companies takes place in administration, manufacturing and production as well as in logistics, as there are many opportunities here to achieve the desired objectives.

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Fabian Reinhardt

Smart, patient, available around the clock: The Role of Intelligent Chatbots in HR

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Recruitment used to be a time-consuming business: HR employees spent hours sifting through applications, conducting interviews and evaluating potential candidates. This is changing fundamentally with the use of intelligent chatbots. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) and the automation of processes are on the rise in German companies and their HR departments. Only a few companies are currently using AI in HR, but many have planned the use of AI-based tools. The Leibniz Institute for Economic Research ifo conducted a Randstad-ifo HR manager survey on the use of AI in HR departments in the third quarter of 2023. Although the results showed that only 5% of the companies surveyed were using AI in HR at that time, a quarter of the companies were planning to use it. AI-based chatbots are among the up-and-coming technologies here. As intelligent virtual assistants, these text-based dialogue systems can significantly relieve the burden on HR departments by taking over time-consuming HR tasks. Chatbots are placed in the respective platform – such as Microsoft Teams or the intranet. They are able to generate and curate content. In this function, chatbots can take over the company’s standardised communication processes, such as the written exchange with applicants. Read more

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Katharina Auer

Transparency & Planning Security: ERP Systems for SMEs

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Introducing digital technology into your own company is anything but trivial and poses a challenge for many companies. The introduction of an ERP system, i.e. a software solution for enterprise resource planning, requires a lot of preparatory work before the actual digitalisation of processes and workflows can begin.

But first: why an ERP system? An ERP system bundles real-time data from all departments in one system and thus provides a comprehensive overview. This makes it much easier to plan, control and monitor relevant business processes in a focussed manner. Trends and patterns in these processes and among stakeholders are recognised and potential problems are visualised at an early stage. This up-to-the-minute transparency across all areas of the company enables company managers to make the right decisions at the right time on the basis of solid data.

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Katharina Auer

Introduction of a new HR IT system and a lively learning culture for the future viability of the company

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In order for a company and its organization to be future-proof and marketable and to be able to constantly question, develop and change accordingly, it needs, among other things, a lively learning culture. Nowadays, with all the fast-moving changes and requirements, organizations and their employees should continuously learn and tap into their knowledge. The focus of change is therefore shifting more towards the employee, and with it the continuous learning of the individual and the development of knowledge and skills. Can the company’s current knowledge and learning tools provide employees with the necessary resources and opportunities for continuous learning and knowledge reference? Or do other formats, tools and methods need to be used and practiced?

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Fabian Reinhardt

Digital Transformation in Process Management

From staff shortages to inflation: in the future, companies that perform well will be those that are efficient. Automated and standardised processes are an important basis for this. Data-centred, digital processes create efficiency and transparency in all areas of business. Routine tasks can be automated through digitalisation and processes can be monitored, controlled and continuously improved. Transparent, digital processes enable companies to identify potential and improve overall performance. Weak points can be recognised early on, errors can be reduced and the company can react quickly to changes or new requirements in the market. In short, the digitalisation of processes is a crucial component of a company’s competitiveness. Read more

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Katharina Auer

Forward-looking Partnership: INCTEC and THE MAK`ED TEAM start Cooperation

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incontext.technology GmbH from Heidelberg and THE MAK’ED TEAM GmbH & Co. KG, with locations in Nuremberg and Karlsruhe, have agreed to cooperate. With this step, both companies are extending their value chain in all relevant questions of digitalisation and digital transformation in medium-sized companies. The synergy of management and process consulting on the side of THE MAK’ED TEAM and innovative technology on the side of INCTEC, as incontext.technology is called, leads to tailor-made concepts for the requirements of our two client companies. These can be realised with future-proof technology in almost all functional areas of medium-sized companies.

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