Press Room

Two-Digit Growth Rate and Consistency in Company Development Confirm Strategy of FRITZ & MACZIOL : INFOMAŽ

02/19/2009 - Financial Year 2008

200 mill. euros turnover and 20 percent increase on the previous year
Currently 650 employees at 15 locations
Maximum solutions expertise through thematic acquisitions
Expansion of customer-oriented services and design consultation

Ulm, 19th February 2009. — FRITZ & MACZIOL : INFOMAŽ has finished the 2008 financial year (01/01 – 31/12/2008) with the planned annual turnover of 200 mill. euros and is looking back on a successful year once again. With a 20-percent increase compared to the 2007 accounting period, the Ulm company is continuing the consistent two-digit growth it has achieved for more than 10 years. There are currently 650 staff members, of whom 440 are consultants. Around 3,000 customers are cared for from 15 locations in Germany and Switzerland. The company's continued positive development is the result of a consistent strategy of proximity and a solutions and customer-oriented approach as the systems company of the future. FRITZ & MACZIOL : INFOMAŽ has created the optimum conditions for growth over the next few years with this strategy. FRITZ & MACZIOL : INFOMAŽ has been part of the Dutch technology concern Imtech N.V. since 2006.

The 2008 financial year was also shaped by a strategy, for which the crucial success factors stem from FRITZ & MACZIOL : INFOMAŽ's total customer orientation and readiness to invest. With the current set-up as a systems company of the future, the corporate Group can react quickly and flexibly to current trends and focus themes and, in so doing, can fulfil customer requirements perfectly. FRITZ & MACZIOL : INFOMAŽ has expanded its solutions portfolio in line with customer and market-conditions with thematic acquisitions, e.g. in the business intelligence sector. Furthermore, the takeover of the solutions supplier IT&T has set the course for further expansion of the municipal business in Switzerland. With around 100 staff from three new subsidiaries and 80 newly appointed staff, the number of employees is now 650.

The development in detail:

FRITZ & MACZIOL Software und Computervertrieb GmbH
By taking over business intelligence specialist STAS GmbH and the SAP Partner NEO as 100-percent, still independent subsidiaries, FRITZ & MACZIOL has been able to strengthen the target and market-oriented expansion of it’s range of solutions offer in the concluded financial year. STAS GmbH, a Cognos Platinum Partner, is a highly skilled specialist with whom we can continue to promote the BI focus theme. STAS has won 75 new customers in the last year alone and, as a result, has continued its successful development. As part of synergy exploitation, the STAS GmbH expertise and know-how will also come into play in the further development of the products that are increasingly important to local authorities; Analysis and Steering Systems from the INFOMAŽ product family newsystemŽ kommunal.

With a 100-percent increase in turnover compared to the previous year, the business area SAP Services & Consulting has developed outstandingly. Support and services for around 400 IBM customers in the SAP environment and the positioning of trend themes such as virtualisation with SAP and VMware prove the high expertise of the certified SAP service partner FRITZ & MACZIOL. The acquisition of NEO Business Partners GmbH was, therefore, effected with an eye to further positioning and expansion with specialised solutions in this area. NEO expands FRITZ & MACZIOL's SAP service offer perfectly through customer-specific solution concepts, including in the area of SAP mobile sales & services, portals and SAP CRM based on the SAP technology platform NetWeaver. NEO is the European market leader for SAP mobile business.

FRITZ & MACZIOL has also achieved two-digit growth compared to the previous year in the IBM software solutions field. As an IBM FileNet partner, FRITZ & MACZIOL is one of the few IBM business partners to cover the complete portfolio of IBM in the archiving field with IBM Content Manager and FileNet solutions. Legally-compliant archiving solutions are just one area of process-oriented and cost-saving solutions increasingly requested by customers, for which FRITZ & MACZIOL offers demand-oriented offers from one source.

The provision of qualified and certified services on themes like IT risk management and IT project management is always gaining in significance in companies. As part of the Services company sector, FRITZ & MACZIOL offers support for the introduction of efficient IT service management and, thus, accommodates the requirements of a customer and process-oriented approach to corporate IT. In the IBM services business area – here FRITZ & MACZIOL offers, for example, high-end security solutions for network and infrastructure safeguarding, and hardware and software maintenance for operational security and investment protection in the company – the Ulm company achieved growth of around 65 percent.

With an increase of almost 27 percent, the area of systems integration has also developed positively. FRITZ & MACZIOL takes a pioneering role here with systems from leading manufacturers based on the latest technology. Themes, such as virtualisation and consolidation, were covered comprehensively and with the appropriate expert know-how. A broad portfolio enables the company to realise the best and most efficient solution for the customer every time.

At the same time, FRITZ & MACZIOL has further consolidated its position as a strong Microsoft Gold Certified Partner by expanding the Microsoft Competence Center with new staff and, as a result, technical and sales skills. In addition to the solutions offer for the strategic areas of infrastructure optimisation (IO) and software asset management (SAM), FRITZ & MACZIOL is entitled to offer all contractual forms for optimum licence management, as it has been named as a Microsoft Large Account Reseller (LAR) and Enterprise Software Advisor (ESA).

For Managing Directors Heribert Fritz and Oliver Schallhorn the growth achieved in turnover and staff in the last financial year shows that it is possible to guarantee positive development with expertise quality and an eye for future themes even in stormy times: "Thanks to expanded structures and the thematic expansion strategy, we can rise above classic systems companies in the market and establish ourselves for all IT areas with our portfolio in hardware, software and services and our own expert team. The success of this maximum market and customer-orientation is our incentive to keep following this path."

INFOMAŽ Software Consulting GmbH
The corporate and product strategy that INFOMAŽ has followed from the start without compromise has also proven its worth in the 2008 financial year. With round about 850 installed authorities and around 55,000 users a day, the company is one of the leading providers in the market in Germany. Including Partnergroup, there are already 450 local authorities – cities, communities, districts of every size – using newsystemŽ kommunal with double entry. Particular milestones include the decision of the district of Uelzen and six other authorities to take the step to double entry with INFOMAŽ, and the Lower Rhine authorities of Geldern, Rees, Straelen and Wachtendonk, who have chosen autonomy in financial accounting with the help of newsystemŽ kommunal.

The crucial factors in the lasting success of INFOMAŽ include the company's future and product strategy. In addition to finances and accounting, consistent consideration is given to the associated processes and information for which the INFOMAŽ solution is increasingly taking a central role in municipal IT and is becoming a platform of significance. Current and future customers get a much broader and deeper offer than from a double-entry supplier.

With the new products Analysis and Control System and Document Management, INFOMAŽ offers the key technologies and finished processes. However, by expanding with new modules for the Property and Buildings Management component and Law Enforcement, the supplier is supporting the future-oriented projects of the local authorities.

To be able to fulfil the requirements of the local authorities completely as an attendant partner in the course of the change process, INFOMAŽ formed the department consultŽ kommunal at the start of last year. An experienced team takes on the conceptional advice and support for local authorities and public institutions – also for non-INFOMAŽ customers – on the road to double-entry accounting, the cost and activity accounting and also the asset recording and assessment.

In neighbouring Switzerland, INFOMAŽ has also been very well set-up since last year. The takeover of Swiss Information Technology & Trust AG (IT&T AG) has promoted municipal business there. The two companies offer the best conditions for expansion and optimisation of the applicable solutions offer with their established products and know-how.

Consistent investments in staff potential and future-oriented product development are the key for the INFOMAŽ Managing Directors Eberhard Macziol and Oliver Couvigny to maintaining a leading position in the municipal software market: "Our fundamental basis for success with INFOMAŽ and newsystemŽ kommunal is positioning early on through excellent knowledge of continuing themes and developing and realising new solutions from practical experience with local authorities. Thus, the customer is certain of meeting a high level of expertise, knowledge and experience at every stage of decision making and project realisation. And we will continue to offer that in the future. Furthermore, the close connection to FRITZ & MACZIOL enables mastery of new technologies, which is not possible or is difficult for classical suppliers."

INFOMAŽ has consolidated its positioning as an expert solutions partner with two successfully concluded test procedures in the last financial year. As a result, newsystemŽ kommunal has proven its quality as a practical, legislation-compliant process through the VERPA difference testing and the first certification of a double-entry accounting process issued in Hesse on an OKKSA basis.

INFOMAŽ has been confirmed as a strong Microsoft Top-Partner worldwide for the third time by inclusion in the "2008 Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle" and "2008 Microsoft Dynamics President’s Club". A further distinction is participation in the Microsoft ISV pilot programme "Certified for Microsoft Dynamics NAV". This is a confirmation that newsystemŽ kommunal meets the highest standards for Microsoft partner software solutions. The process has now been successfully tested based on Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009. INFOMAŽ has also reset its courses from a technical perspective: from autumn, users of newsystemŽ kommunal can access numerous technical and functional innovations with the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 Client.

Strong European position of Imtech
Expanding Imtech’s European position in ICT in combination with strengthening its position as an IBM and Microsoft business partner is a top priority of Imtech. Besides the strengthening of FRITZ & MACZIOL : INFOMAŽ, Imtech made great progress through acquisitions in Austria (ILS), the UK (REAL Solutions) and Belgium (Fit IT, Ebit and Thinking Solutions).- With its ICT activities Imtech is now one of the stronger players in the ICT markets in the Benelux, the DACH countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) and the UK. This position gives extra opportunities to the ambition of FRITZ & MACZIOL : INFOMAŽ.

Outlook FRITZ & MACZIOL : INFOMAŽ
All solutions and systems expertise, software and services are supplied from one source tailored to requirements with the unique set-up and structure as a systems company of the future. In addition to excellent applications, INFOMAŽ customers also get support on purely technical IT themes, which are growing in number and significance due to the ever increasing integration of all platforms. Here, everything from the company Group comes "from one source". The continual expansion of the team and solutions range with regard to the market and customer requirements will also be a crucial factor of all activities in 2009.