GFT expands industry expertise with acquisition of in-GmbH

Stuttgart / Constance, 8 January 2020 – GFT Technologies SE today announced the acquisition of software supplier in-integrierte informationssysteme GmbH (in-GmbH). With effect from 1 January 2020, GFT took over the Constance-based company with around 40 employees and thus expands its expertise in the field of shop floor transparency and process integration for industrial clients.
 

"The company in-GmbH is an ideal fit for our industry portfolio,” says Michael Hecker, Director Industry at GFT. “Our growth strategy is geared towards offering clients a full range of services for the implementation of their digitisation strategies. We are therefore keen to strengthen our expertise in the horizontal networking of business processes and be able to provide more of our own, scalable software products. The acquisition of in-GmbH represents a further expansion of our asset-based strategy." The company, which already entered into a strategic partnership with GFT in summer 2019, will continue to work independently at its base in Constance and target further growth – but in future with the support of more than 5,500 international GFT colleagues.

By acquiring the company, GFT is accelerating its current industry offensive, expanding its expertise and gaining a new location. The addition of innovative IoT and Industry 4.0 solutions to the portfolio is a key component of GFT’s large-scale diversification strategy. After making a name for itself on the global market as a digitisation partner for the financial services industry, GFT is now in the process of broadening its client base, especially in the insurance and industrial sectors. The acquisition of in-GmbH also brings numerous major industrial clients.

The digitisation of production and business processes with the aid of IoT platforms is a central topic for many industrial companies. With its cloud-ready platform solution "sphinx open online", in-GmbH already has a proven and versatile range of instruments in its portfolio. The platform enables clients to network, visualise, control and automate things and data – from machine status messages to the energy consumption of buildings and intralogistics. The other products of in-GmbH are also designed to raise the transparency and controllability of business processes to a new level.

"We have created a powerful product range which is being constantly expanded and which provides our clients with new knowledge and perfect processes without troubling them with technological details. It is based on the collective, long-term experience of our software experts. Our goal has always been to scale up our overall portfolio and drive it forward internationally. The fact that we can now offer and enhance our solutions as part of the GFT Group means we can serve clients around the world," says Siegfried Wagner, founder of in-GmbH, who will continue to serve as Managing Director.

The acquisition of in-GmbH is already the second takeover for the GFT Industry Unit. In July 2019, GFT acquired AXOOM GmbH (at the time a subsidiary of the machine builder Trumpf). AXOOM’s experts have specialised in guiding machine producers and manufacturing companies on their path to digitisation. This focus is expanded by in-GmbH as it also serves major clients in the automotive, logistics and energy management sectors – for many years in some cases. Since 1989, the company has been a thought leader in the field of integrated business processes. "This makes in-GmbH a good fit for us as we’ve been established on the market as an IT and software service provider for almost the same amount of time,” says Marika Lulay, CEO of GFT, with reference to the strategic expansion of the company’s industry expertise. “This mix of experience and know-how of the latest technological trends represents considerable added value for our clients in the industrial environment."