In July 2017, together with the purchasing managers of a major German plant construction company, we set ourselves the goal of generating transparency in procurement management and reducing material overheads in purchasing by deriving feasible recommendations for action.

Within the scope of this project, four different optimization approaches were pursued as a result of an assessment survey and detailed analysis and investigated in collaboration with the purchasing staff using joint workshops. In a first meeting, the areas of responsibility and the associated effort for each individual purchasing employee were defined, the composition of the material overheads were analysed in cooperation with the controlling manager, and the global boundary conditions and their effects on the company were examined. In the second workshop, the focus was on the logistics area so that the entire process, from goods receipt and quality assurance to storage, could be analysed.

Our client has accepted the concrete recommendations for action with an appropriate evaluation, used them as a basis for further idea generation and the first implementation projects. Stringent implementation can thus sustainably increase the value of procurement management.

In 2017, we started our cooperation with Zycus. Zycus is a global procurement platform that has established itself among the big players in the market in recent years.

In a first joint project, MARKTGUT is supporting a leading provider of investment solutions for the global oil, gas, petrochemical and process industries in the introduction of the platform. The main focus here was on the definition and delivery of customer-specific interfaces to the SAP system. As a result, a fully integrated platform with SAP connectors and individual interfaces was delivered.

Following the successful completion of the project and the good cooperation with Zycus, MARKTGUT will continue to support Zycus implementation projects in the D-A-CH region. Zycus is thus fully integrated into our partner network and portfolio, whereby it remains of great importance for us to act independently of software in business consulting and not to pursue any sales approaches in this context.

MARKTGUT GmbH advises on systemic and strategic cost management, procurement management and digital management. The networking of these fields of action makes us successful.

The fact that our customers have a need for precisely this is shown by the approximately 30 worldwide projects that we successfully completed in 2016. By doubling the number of customers, we were able to more than triple sales compared with the previous year and close the financial year 2016 with earnings.

In addition to the expansion of our network of experts, we have set our sights on the further training of our staff in 2016. In 2017, all signs point to growth in order to continue to meet the project requirements and to realize the projects in the usual high quality.

In 2017, we will continue to expand our partnerships with the innovative IT company iTiZZiMO AG, ILB, the Technical University of Dresden, ÖPWZ and other national and international partners. We also invest in innovations in cost management, healthcare and digitalization.

One of the most important hospital groups in the German-speaking countries was one of our key accounts in 2016, with which we were able to participate in numerous projects in the area of procurement management for the healthcare sector.

The planned savings projects in the Eastern Region from the 2016 targets were in acute danger due to a lack of transparency, insufficient communication and automation challenges. Following the implementation of our MARKTGUT Excellence Rating, we were able to derive concrete fields of action and measures. Due to the complexity of the projects, we have structured the strategic implementation of these measures in a Project Management Office and monitored them with the help of standards and controlling measures.

The original savings target for the Eastern region was EUR 1.2 million. The savings target of EUR 1.8 million was more than exceeded by the structured hedging of the subsequent 71 projects.

This decisive success was ensured by creating transparency, the stringent implementation of concrete measures and the networking of stakeholders and departments.

The first step towards the transformation of purchasing towards excellence with industrial standards in the health care sector has thus been taken by our customer.

How can modern technologies such as augmented reality in combination with smart glasses, smart watches, smart phones or tablets support repair processes in large companies? This question was a core issue for our customer from the automotive industry and led to the initiation of a joint project.

Within the scope of a didactic concept, the repair instructions for the automotive group's products were analysed, evaluated with regard to didactics and ergonomics and finally converted into a new information design. In the next step, the optimized repair instructions were applied within a prototype.

The user is now supported by an appealing visualization of the workflows through a 3D model and augmented reality. This allows the mechanic to view even the smallest components from different perspectives and obtains relevant information, such as tools or configurations to be used, directly displayed on the tablet in the process. For the prototype a marker based tracking was used, which can be replaced in the further development by a tracking without marker.

Both the didactic concept and the exemplary application have been very well received by our customer and will be followed up accordingly.

In December 2016, together with our partner company iTiZZiMO AG, we carried out a project to integrate Smart Glasses into the order picking process of transport orders at a global cosmetics group. The project was set up as a proof of concept (POC) for a warehouse in Buenos Aires and will be rolled out worldwide after successful implementation.

The main focus in optimizing the order picking process was on connecting SAP to the prototype developed for Smart glasses. Using data glasses, materials taken from the storage bin are scanned and placed in the corresponding picking box. The information about the withdrawal is then forwarded directly to the SAP program, which displays the current stock and the write-offs. If the stock level does not match the quantity to be withdrawn, the actual quantity of material can be adjusted manually via the data glasses.

After the successful handover of the POC in January 2017, the project is now being pursued accordingly.

Intensive insights into the healthcare industry in 2016 have inspired us to launch our own initiatives in the area of eHealth. Familiar with the brand, we are pursuing efforts to place the patient and his needs at the heart of the healthcare system and thus send a signal to the industry to increase quality and transparency in care. First results are expected in the third quarter of 2017.

A family-owned company founded in 1965, with over 8500 employees and 18 locations worldwide specializing in electronics manufacturing in the automotive, medical and aerospace sectors, asked us last year for support on the subject of cost management.

The costing processes at the individual international locations were not transparent and hardly standardized, resulting in considerable additional costs and quality restrictions. The aim was to achieve a uniform costing across all locations. For this reason, MARKTGUT was commissioned to produce a costing map.

With the help of the derived recommendations and measures, it is now possible for our customer to implement standardization in follow-up projects.

For an Austrian telecommunications and traffic telematics group with worldwide branches, we have identified, evaluated and prioritized fields of action and measures for the modernization of existing procurement processes in expert workshops. Special attention was paid to the use of group synergies within the Group.