Alte Neustadt: 35 employees, direct neighbourhood to the University Magdeburg – the software company Q-fin which can be found at the square “Wittenberger Platz” is a typical small start-up business in the IT sector expanding slowly but steadily. The employees of Q-fin program financial software for municipal suppliers of civil service in all over Germany. Additionally they consult banks in terms of software and supervise programmes concerning financial trade of a Swedish software producer.
How will the market develop within the next five years? Which products are in demand, which developments will be in existence until then? In order to answer these questions, big companies afford big future departments. Small businesses do not have time and above all no money. An innovation programme of the state and the EU provides a remedy for that in which the software company Q-fin is participating.
There is no doubt – a company like Q-fin could be established in all parts of Germany. “Our founder and chairman of the supervisory board, Peter von Pokrzywnicki, originates from Magdeburg and wanted to show that such a company works here, too”, explains Q-fin manager Daniel Büchner. Many employees of the company studied at the “Otto-von-Guericke Universität”. Q-fin cooperates with the university and would like to expand the collaboration because well-educated professionals will be needed in the future.
Future is an important point for Q-fin due to the fact that since April they participate in an innovation project of the “Mitteldeutsche Kommunikations- und Kongressgesellschaft” which is fostered by the state and a European social fund together with 19 other companies.
A team led by the trend researcher and innovation coach Sven Gábor Jánszky, usually responsible for innovation processes in bigger groups in Germany, will be visiting Q fin in the following four months on every occasion and will develop future strategies together with the employees. Jánszky and his team firstly carry on a conversation with industry giants in order to figure out current trends and in which area money is invested. After that risks and opportunities will be analysed and with help of a special method of creativity future products and strategies of the company will be designed.
“Especially for small companies in everyday business it is often difficult to analyse and evaluate current trends and to implement those in new business concepts. Large groups have already own future departments which daily invest in their future by using professional innovation management processes and the help of external innovation experts. But in small companies time and money is lacking in most cases”, explains project manager Sven Gábor Jánszky.
Both managers of Q-fin, Daniel Büchner and Sandra Fischer, were sceptical in the beginning, but after the first meeting with Jánszky their attitude changed. “We were surprised positively and got a good external view of our company” Daniel Büchner said. He studied computational visualistics at the university and there from, he already knew the concepts of “Idea-Engineering” of Professor Graham Horton. So he is the ideal person for the second part of this innovation project. An employee will be educated as innovation manager. He learns creativity techniques with which he is able to keep in sight the evolutions of the market. In the case of Q-fin there could be new laws, software trends and voice command which could change drastically the application of computer programmes.
With the help of this project 20 participating companies can prepare sustainably for the future assure and create employment, even after the end of the project.