Portrait of Kai-Uwe Flormann

The man in the background

In each project there is one or two people who are involved from the beginning; who often act in the background, but still act continuously as Spiritus Rector. At ROBIOTIC, this role falls not only to Ralf Krippner but above all to the company founder and managing partner Kai-Uwe Flormann, in whose hands many threads have converged since the beginning.

A quarter of a century of experience in the telecommunications industry

A look back shows why the history of ROBIOTIC also began with him: Flormann studied economics at the University of Paderborn in the early 1990s. Early on, he became involved in cultural promotion and university politics beyond his studies. In 1993 he took over the office of AStA Chairman for one year and worked there together with Ralf Krippner. In 1994, Flormann became an authorized signatory in the telecommunications mail order company, and in 1996 he founded a specialist telecommunications wholesaler that still exists today, focusing on the marketing of services and telecommunications systems. His fellow student and friend Ralf Krippner shares Flormann's commitment in many areas. However, the volumes are too small for hardware distribution. And so the first experiences gained for the new medium Internet lead to the "TK-World" concept, which they consistently continue. In 2001, Kai-Uwe Flormann founded TK-World AG together with Ralf Krippner and transformed the company into what is today a leading online reseller: TK-World AG revolutionized the digital marketing of tariffs and connections for major telephone providers and has been a partner of Deutsche Telekom and many other major carriers right from the start. In 2018, it became the subsidiary spectrum8, which specializes in project business - another success story that has been operating under the umbrella of TK-World for 13 years. Against this background, Flormann describes one of his basic management principles as "I like to think and plan sustainably".

The path to becoming an IoT service provider: The ROBIOTIC foundation phase

"After several discussions with Ralf Krippner, who has managed the Hoffmann + Krippner company in Buchen since 2002, and also with network operators, one of the starting points of TK-World with ROBIOTIC clearly emerged for me", Flormann describes the beginnings of the IoT service provider. "For IoT applications, there is an ever-increasing demand for technical services, for example in M2M connection management: The ideal transmission path in the area of mobile data communication simply runs over SIM cards - including virtual ones - and in the B2B sector we are the experts with many years of experience and the best relationships to all network operators in TK-World AG.“

These considerations will be put into practice at the beginning of 2016: Employees of the companies Hoffmann + Krippner and TK-World AG gather their competences in a "Team IoT". Goal: The formation of a powerful service provider for the "turnkey", holistic implementation of IoT projects. The start is already in June 2016: ROBIOTIC is launched as a joint venture. The company owners Ralf Krippner (H+K) and Kai-Uwe Flormann are clear: IoT is the future. The start-up company ROBIOTIC wants to act agile and flexible close to the customer and offer its services. The claim: individual, holistic IoT solutions with fast development cycles. With the foundation of ROBIOTIC GmbH in 2017, Flormann becomes Managing Partner.

"For the first time, ROBIOTIC brings together the world of Buchener H+K and the world of Paderborn-based TK-World AG in a joint service approach, in which both bring the different, but at the same time decisive, competencies to bear," is how Kai-Uwe Flormann describes the synergy approach.

At the same time, the experienced manager is convinced that the heads behind ROBIOTIC, based on their experience and their wide-ranging know-how, have the opportunity to recognize problem areas in the area of communication with and between "smart things" and to solve them holistically. "In addition to selecting the right sensors and the accompanying hardware, it is precisely the supposedly simple and indispensable points such as SIM card management, contract details and data billing that often cause problems. Here we have the ideal opportunity to include TK-World AG and our subsidiary spectrum8 in the ROBIOTIC joint venture for the project business. As a result, both companies are also developing themselves further with regard to the trend topics of digitization, industry 4.0 and IoT".

ROBIOTIC as business model of the future for industry 4.0, digitization and IoT

ROBIOTIC himself sees Flormann in the right environment at the right time: "The entire market is currently changing rapidly. Maybe you will be a little too early in the market, but you have to stay tuned!” The future-oriented technical standards 5G and NB-IOT are also already in the starting blocks. "To ensure a smooth process, it is important that we take over everything we can digitize," emphasizes Flormann. "Together with the sensor know-how of H&K, based on standardized software platforms of our partners, we offer an optimal entry scenario for all potential customers who want to realize IoT projects! Both for medium-sized companies, which usually cannot build up their own resources here, and for large and international projects - our service resources are absolutely scalable for all needs."

Flormann explains that the business model of ROBIOTIC GmbH is consciously future-oriented due to its holistic orientation: "Hardware, software and services - the company offers everything from a single source and is thus the only provider in the market that masters the complete IoT process chain. It is a joint venture of reliable, experienced partner companies and team players, some of whom have been working together for decades and, thanks to their broad global network, are able to obtain optimal conditions for their customers' projects. "And of course we are open for further partners! You can't cover the market completely on your own, and you don't have to occupy everything yourself."

Kai-Uwe Flormann has found his role in the ROBIOTIC Management Team - not in the operative area, but in the moderator role for the discussion of various topics. And as the expert for tariff and contract topics in the telecommunications sector, for digital transformation and the successful combination of offline and online worlds.