Portrait of Ralf Krippner: Founder and technology scout at ROBIOTIC
In the history of ROBIOTIC GmbH he plays a decisive role: Managing Partner Ralf Krippner was one of the first to recognize and outline the entire business potential of the IoT service provider vision 'ROBIOTIC' and founded the company together with Kai-Uwe Flormann. Since then he has shaped the strategic orientation of the IoT service provider as a technology scout.
20 years of experience in management of innovative technology companies
At the beginning of the 90s Ralf Krippner studied at the University of Paderborn. Early on, he became involved in university politics beyond his studies, was a member of the AStA in 1993 and met Kai-Uwe Flormann, the then chair of the AStA, there. The history of ROBIOTIC GmbH basically begins here: Krippner makes his first valuable contacts in the telecommunications industry with Flormann. Together they developed marketing ideas that led to the founding of TK-World AG in 2001. He is still a member of the board there today.
Krippner's own career as a manager continued at the same pace. A phone call was to decisively change and shape his professional life. In 2001 Ralf Krippner decided to take over as CEO of the family company Hoffmann + Krippner, founded by his father, and moved back to the company's location in Buchen in the Odenwald, Germany. "At that time, around 20 years ago, the company had around 100 employees and was still very much focused on the production of mechanical keyboards," recalls Krippner. "However, it quickly became clear to me that electronics and sensor technology would play an increasingly important role and would have to be integrated as technologies.” It takes around ten intensive years of change management to achieve the targeted goals: Krippner continues to develop the company into an international player with various locations and several hundred employees. A real success story: With a strong growth, H+K has virtually reinvented itself on the global market for customized keyboard systems with state-of-the-art electronics and modern, intelligent touchscreen operating units and has now firmly established itself. Since the beginning of 2016, Krippner has also been a partner / shareholder of TES Frontdesign GmbH. In 2017 he will join conbee GmbH, in 2018 he will acquire a majority stake in Helicom GmbH.
Privately, Krippner turns out to be a great music lover: "Good music is my way of choosing to relax. I enjoy getting completely involved in the mood of an album or concert. That brings me wonderfully out of the very extensive daily business and lets me switch off perfectly." Krippner's favourite artists are Mark Knopfler, Paul McCartney and James Taylor. In addition, he is involved in the local Lions club and is particularly concerned with regional promotion in the areas of youth education and youth work: "We develop mentoring programs in which we contribute our own experiences and resources.
Foundation of the ROBIOTIC GmbH - IoT, M2M, Digitalization
In 2017, Ralf Krippner makes a decision that will in all probability shape his future career just as decisively as the takeover of his own family business in 2001: Together with Kai-Uwe Flormann, he founds ROBIOTIC GmbH and becomes Managing Partner. It is clear to both founders: IoT is the future! And the M2M-oriented digitalization of business processes is a constantly increasing requirement from the market in the most diverse industries, which is not covered by competitors.
Since 2016, employees of Hoffmann + Krippner and TK-World AG have been gathering their expertise in a "Team IoT". Goal: The formation of a powerful service provider for the "turnkey", holistic implementation of IoT projects. The founders Ralf Krippner (H + K) and Kai-Uwe Flormann (TK-World AG) are clear: IoT is the future. The start-up company ROBIOTIC wants to act agilely and flexibly close to the customer and offer its services. The claim: individual, holistic IoT solutions with fast development cycles. "When I founded ROBIOTIC GmbH, I wanted to shift up a gear," explains Krippner. "At ROBIOTIC, we brought on board all the people who think agilely, quickly, flexibly and openly. Since then, we have been building a completely new organization for a completely new market. That's exciting! And we will see how successful we can be."
Krippner's role at ROBIOTIC has so far been clearly defined: As founder and co-developer of the overall vision, he assumes the role of technology scout. His area of expertise is the identification of market trends and the elaboration of concepts with which technology and with which partners these trends can be served by customers with reliable services from a single source. "In the near future, this role will increasingly be transferred to a complete technology management team consisting of proven experts who will contribute their very specific know-how from the various subject areas such as sensor technology, cloud platforms and data security," emphasizes Krippner.
ROBIOTIC as an integrated IoT service provider: Hardware, software, services - the global "more" on the market
According to Krippner, the strategy of ROBIOTIC GmbH developed right from the start not least from the experience of the various partner companies involved. "From the many discussions with customers, partners and market participants, a very clear picture emerged: The German market with its many medium-sized companies has recognized the topic of digitalization and the associated reorientation of business processes - but so far only a small group of entrepreneurs has been actively dealing with these challenges with their own departments or experts.” The mere connection of devices, machines and sensors to a platform and the recording of data values alone is not sufficient to achieve disruptive results: "We are convinced that deeper insights can be drawn from the data obtained and that the relevant business processes must be changed on the basis of these analyses in order to automate and digitize things. Only in this way can we create added value for the customer, for whom he wants to pay money in the end, for example for a monthly service, etc.," explains Krippner. The need for this exists in all areas. A strong trend and a good application example is currently the logistics area with the topics tracking and tracing: "Where exactly is a container in what condition on the road? This is a question that should be answered quickly in real time."
ROBIOTIC wants to inform about these challenges and especially point out the necessity for digitalization in the age of ‘digital factory’ and IoT to medium-sized businesses: "We want to give cross-industry thought-provoking impulses and clearly show them through special workshops. We offer this 'more' on the market and also make sure that it becomes a business success in the end. Making your company IoT-capable is not a nice technical gimmick - it is a necessity that will become vital for many business models!"
The ROBIOTIC network has meanwhile grown globally. Paderborn, Münster, Neuruppin, Frankfurt, Buchen, Zurich, Dallas: At the various company locations, specific know-how covers all IoT/M2M-relevant digitalization topics. "With ROBIOTIC, we can offer our customers comprehensive IoT solutions and organize this know-how in its entire breadth - there is currently no supplier on the market that can do this!”
veröffentlicht am : 2019-08-20 12:00
