Good morning.
Hi, Michael. Good morning.
Great to have you here. Great to have you here. Michael, we are together on the stage for quite some years now to open C-Day.
Absolutely.
Always a great pleasure. Do you remember when we met for the first time on a C-Day stage?
I think it was in 2020. It was the year that the pandemic forced us to go digital with this event.
You're right, Michael. This was 2020, the year we went digital. By the way, isn't that a great story of digital transformation we are writing here?
Absolutely, absolutely.
What is your feeling now, Michael, about this event, the development, the stage we are on?
What is my feeling? In my view, the C-Days have evolved at an incredible pace since those days. This applies to the content, the professionalism of the production, and the digital platform as well. It's an incredible, inspiring collaboration with our partners. This is reflected back to us by our international customer community. This year, we are celebrating another premiere. You can now also participate in the C-Days 2025 via LinkedIn. A warm welcome to our LinkedIn audience.
Absolutely. Welcome to everyone watching us from LinkedIn. It's great to have you, obviously. Michael, may I remind you of one little detail? A detail that has to me become quite a tradition when I have the honor to share the stage with you here and opening the event. Should I?
Yeah, sure. I'm very curious what the details are on this.
I can tell you, and you know it. I'm always asking you one question when we kick the thing off here. This is, Michael, are you ready? Then you say?
Born ready.
Born ready. I know that. Why am I not surprised? Michael, shouldn't we share a little bit of our born ready history? [Foreign langugae].
Yes, I know. I'm ready when you are.
Michael, are you ready to go for the day?
I'm born ready.
Born ready.
I'm born ready.
I told you, I told you. Seriously, Michael, can one be born ready in a time in which everything is changing so fast around us and becomes growingly unpredictable? Aside from being born ready, what can one do to stay ready or to become ready? What do you do in this respect?
Yeah, that's a very important question. From my point of view, first things first. In times like these, where both technology and business models are evolving at an incredible speed, curiosity is key. Curiosity thrives on information. For that, one must take the time, which I do day by day. I read industry publications, talk to a lot of my colleagues, our partners, and customers from various industries. This is both inspiring, and I can benefit from their experience by also sharing my own experiences and ideas. It's a give and take.
Michael, let's talk some business now. We are addressing the three most challenging, most pressing issues for many of our customers with these C-Days. This is resilience, this is innovation, and this is productivity. I would like to take the opportunity to hear your thoughts about these three pillars of the event. Let's start with resilience. How do you define resilience for modern businesses? What are the main challenges your customers, our customers face in building resilient organizations?
How much time do we have here? I believe that resilience for modern businesses is defined by the resilience of the organization, resilience in terms of IT and security, and the resilience of individuals within a company. Organizational resilience means responding flexibly to change, meaning managing crises and emerging stronger. It requires, on the one hand, stable structures, and on the other hand, ongoing adoption. At a first glance, that sounds very contradictory. That is precisely the challenge. Stability through flexibility and quick adoption to changing conditions, a challenge for leadership now. IT and security resilience focus on robust systems to ensure business continuity during disruptions. This is our core business, and we can provide significant value to our customers in all essential areas: identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover. There's the vast field of individual resilience within, which is difficult to describe in just a few sentences. However, it is clear that a resilient culture involves openness, willingness to learn, taking responsibility, and tolerance to failure. Without these, it cannot work.
I confess, Michael, a big topic, but you made it crisp . Let's move on to the next topic. This is innovation. What role does innovation play in Bechtle? How do you foster a culture, a mindset, and openness for innovation in our company?
Yeah, we are, of course, dealing with technological innovations, such as in the areas of multi-cloud services, IoT, security, and AI, where significant innovations are on the agenda. We are also dealing with many smaller, quieter, but not less important innovations in our legacy business: data center, workplace, collaboration, and network. We are innovating across the board. Furthermore, we have acquired strong companies such as Planet AI, KubeOps, and DriveWorks, and have entered into partnerships with organizations like IPAI to help us go faster. At Bechtle, we promote a culture of innovation by integrating and utilizing innovative technologies in our processes, thereby fostering our employees' willingness to learn. For example, we were customer zero for Copilot and procured 5,000 licenses for our employees from day one, generating use cases that make us more effective, efficient, and productive.
Last but not least, we are also innovating our business model by gradually merging our previously separate go-to-market models, the system house on one side and e-commerce on the other, into an omnichannel go-to-market model. This enhances our ability to collaborate and opens up countless opportunities to leverage competencies and strengths in a completely new dimension.
A lot of innovation going on, obviously. Let's switch gears and go to productivity now, our third pillar at C-Days. Productivity, this is a field that each and every organization out there is focusing on right now. Whether it is a fast-growing enterprise like, say, from the fast-growing and emerging defense sector, or a public sector organization that faces the need to become more productive as their workforce is aging, or let's say an automotive supplier being amidst the turmoil of market changes right now. Michael, how is Bechtle helping all of these different types of customers in their areas, in their worlds, to boost their productivity?
We are helping customers to boost their productivity in many ways. At a glance, we are providing end-to-end digital solutions that align IT, business, and people for sustainable success. We offer and orchestrate modern technologies like multi-cloud services, AI, and collaboration tools to enable agile and efficient work environments. We also modernize data centers, workplace environments, and corporate networks to achieve IT security, optimal performance for business applications, and often significant improvements in energy consumption. This has an immediate impact on our customers' cost efficiency. In many cases, we also manage and orchestrate these solutions with our managed services, allowing our clients to focus on their core business and benefit from our scalability.
Michael, thank you for your thoughts on the three main pillars of the event. I know that you and your colleagues on the board and everyone in the organization, obviously, are working on a number of strategic initiatives that are on top of the agenda for us, with significant impact on our customers. Can you tell us something about these initiatives and what our customers can expect from them?
Absolutely. We are currently working on a whole range of strategic initiatives. We have already discussed one or another of them. I believe the most important strategic initiatives are, on the one hand, the further implementation of our European expansion strategy and the previously mentioned omnichannel go-to-market model. In addition, we are working on many initiatives to help both our industrial and public sector customers strengthen their competitiveness and thus, as a European company with German roots, contribute to the economic recovery.
We have to come to an end of our opening conversation, but Michael, we'll meet again quite soon here on stage. A whole group of wonderful speakers, partners, and colleagues are lining up to come to that stage. I cannot let you go without looking on what's next at Bechtle. What is the main message from your side for us, for today, for tomorrow, for the year ahead?
Yeah, Michael. Now the circle closes, and we return to the beginning of our conversation. We, Bechtle and our partners, make you born ready.
Born ready. The circle closes. Thank you very much, Michael, for your opening remarks to our show. There's one more thing. There's one more thing. Born ready is our overarching topic here, obviously. We have prepared a little surprise for you and for our guests. This surprise is the born ready Challenge.
Oh my God.
Now is the question, are you ready to take the born ready challenge?
I'm always ready.
Always ready. Here we go. Let's bring in the challenge. The challenge is quite easy. Here's the buzzer. Michael, you push the button and you'll find a selection of five surprise tasks. Let's see what the machine brings us. We have some fun here on stage eventually. Your button.
I'm not sure if I have fear or I'm curious.
Curious.
Okay, good. First out now.
Let's see, what do we get? Oh my God. We get badminton. The challenge here is to play a badminton match here on stage between the two of us.
Okay, good.
My last badminton match was something like, let's say, 20 years ago. Yours?
Not 20 years, but a couple of years.
I assume you have been a pro?
No, I'm competitive.
Let's roll up the sleeves, I would say.
Okay, yeah.
Kick it off. Okay, here we go. The rackets are already there. Wonderful. Thank you. We put it over here. Thank you. You start. Let's see. Whoo! Come on. One more.
One more.
Oh, okay. Ooh. One more.
One more.
Oh, one more. You're getting better. Or not. Okay. Thank you, Michael.
It was a pleasure.
It's a pleasure. Now we are ready to kick it off. Ladies and gentlemen, we are making C-Days history today. It's a privilege to welcome Mr. Michael Dell, joining us for his third time here on our stage, the only industry executive to appear on this stage so often. From founding Dell in college to leading it through massive industry shifts from PC sales to AI, cloud, and resilient infrastructure, Michael's journey is a masterclass in bold vision and embracing change. Welcome, Mr. Michael Dell, to our stage.
Thank you, Michael, and it's great to be here with you today, representing the entire Dell Global team. Bechtle has been one of our most valued partners for many years, and it's great to be back here for the third time. We love seeing customers around the world and serving them with you. Thanks for having me, and I look forward to the conversation.
Wonderful. Thank you very much. We are certainly joined by the other Michael. Mr. Michael Guschlbauer is here with us as well, again, our Chief Operating Officer at Bechtle and host to the C-Days. Welcome, Michael, again.
Hi Michael, and warm hello to all our audience out there.
Wonderful. My first question to both of you, gentlemen. Michael, you first. From your global perspective, what technology trends will be most decisive in shaping the IT landscape in 2025 and beyond? When you look specifically on Europe, what unique challenges and opportunities do you see for organizations in their digital transformation and AI adoption journeys over here? Are we moving quickly enough to truly capture the opportunity?
It's a great question. You know, I think the opportunities in AI for Europe are substantial. We estimate that it's roughly a $100 billion opportunity in Europe by 2030. Enterprises are just starting to adopt AI, and it is an incredible opportunity that unlocks competitive differentiation and advantage. We have now over 3,000 customers using our Dell AI factories. All this requires modern infrastructure. You have to organize your data, simplify and standardize your processes, and then apply AI. Of course, along with this, we still have multi-cloud infrastructure that is continuing to evolve with the rise of disaggregated infrastructure. We think 85% of organizations are going to be using generative AI with their on-premise data. Certainly, all the new PCs that are being rolled out have NPUs, so they're AI PCs, so the AI workloads can run locally on them.
All this also requires security and governance to make sure that it's done in a correct way. Certainly, we're applying a lot of automation to all these infrastructures, and managing the data and governing how data is used, protecting data, is going to be super critical. To answer your question, I think Europe could be going a little bit faster, and we want to help. I think lots of help is needed, but the opportunity, again, is tremendous to use AI to drive competitive advantage in businesses.
Yeah, Michael, you are mentioning AI, and we are obviously not surprised about that. You know, we see AI sitting on top of the strategic agenda of so many organizations. We are seeing the same organizations struggle to turn the ambition into real day-to-day impact. In your experience, from your global view, what keeps them away from really unlocking the opportunity?
I think when people first hear about this topic, there's a tendency to go find an AI project. I actually think what's really needed is to understand what problem are you trying to solve. What are the big things that can really impact a business? This is a fundamental re-architecture of how systems are built. In the past, we had all sorts of individual systems inside a business, and sometimes those would be connected together. With AI, you want to bring all the data together. This is just a new architecture. We've been helping customers to create the robust data pipelines and the infrastructure to be able to take all this data, turn it into results and outcomes, and improve efficiency. We have hundreds of these reference platforms and kind of starter kits, effectively, to help our customers and partners get going with this.
Internally at Dell, we're seeing very significant results in areas like support, with our own next best action tool, which helps our support people find absolutely the best way to solve a given problem. Certainly, in software development, with coding assistance, this is a well-known use case that is widely adopted and shows tremendous improvements in productivity and efficiency. Obviously, we can create our products faster and with higher quality. Another big use case is in sales, where our teams have a vast array of products and solutions, and the tools enable us to make sure our sales teams have absolutely the most current information to be able to work with their customers and help them solve problems.
Michael Guschlbauer, we hear Michael talk about the data and the architecture, but also about the infrastructure. That brings me to a topic that you were talking also a lot about. I hear you often speak about tech refresh. That is so urgent right now from your perspective. What is this? What do you mean with tech refresh? With tech refresh, and why now?
When I talk about tech refresh, I mean replacing or upgrading outdated hardware and software that limit an organization's agility, security, and scalability. This is urgent because legacy systems create complexity, inflate operational costs, and often block the adoption of AI and modern digital solutions that are critical for staying competitive. At Bechtle, we guide customers through a structured modernization journey, balancing risk, cost, and business opportunity while introducing future-ready architectures with cloud, automation, and AI capabilities. The results are tangible: faster innovation cycles, stronger security, improved user satisfaction, and a foundation that's ready for the next wave of transformation. There's another win: sustainability. By modernizing infrastructure, our customers also achieve significant improvements in energy efficiency, which supports both their environmental commitments and long-term business goals.
As you said, reducing energy consumption is one important element when it comes to refreshing these legacy IT infrastructures. Michael, you framed the whole discussion about IT and sustainability at one of your earlier appearances here at C-Days when you said it must be good for the business and good for the planet. What is your take on this today, Michael? Some talk about a growing sustainability fatigue even now. Do you observe this as well?
We still believe that it's good for business and good for the world. Look, having constraints is not a bad thing. There's no question that the world needs more energy because energy is the fuel for advancement. It also means that we can drive with these constraints a ton of efficiency. For example, our new 17th generation PowerEdge servers are way more efficient. Michael just talked about tech refresh. It's about a seven-to-one replacement ratio versus the ones from two or three generations ago, so you get this dramatic reduction in energy consumption for a given workload. People do want more workloads, but that is an inevitable part of the creation of intelligence and progress in the world. There's also an element here where the vast majority of customers want the AI to be responsible and meet some kind of responsibility criteria. That's something we also focus on.
When it comes to what happens at the end of the life of the old machine, we have worked with Bechtle to create a secure and responsible way to recycle those older machines and reduce the e-waste and actually create as much circularity and reuse of the ingredients because we don't have an unlimited supply of materials in the world.
Michael, you know, when we talk about energy consumption and the interchange between sustainability and tech modernization, tech refresh, the legacy in the data center is also big in many organizations. What's your take on that?
Yeah, absolutely. Legacy data centers and outdated IT systems are often energy-hungry and inefficient. Sustainability efforts work best when they align with business goals and deliver long-term value. Otherwise, momentum fades. If you are looking for practical ways to avoid sustainability fatigue, I'd recommend the panel here at C-Days with my colleague Antje Leminsky and sustainability leaders from Voith Group and the Mercator Foundation. They'll share pragmatic ideas on how to keep ambitious strategies on track.
Thank you very much for that hint on that interesting piece of content that we are having tomorrow morning here on that stage. Stay tuned for that.
Very good discussion.
You shouldn't miss that. It's really important. Gentlemen, many of our viewers today are working in one of the traditional leading business industries in Europe, like automotive and manufacturing. Looking ahead, not only through the eyes of those industries, what is your vision for the next wave of hybrid and edge computing in Europe? How do you expect these technologies to reshape the business agility and public service in practical terms? Additionally, how critical will talent availability and upskilling be in determining which organizations truly succeed in this digital modernization phase? Are we progressing, again, fast enough across Europe to close the digital skills and diversity gaps as well? Michael?
Yeah, you know, we believe, and Gartner and many others have said that 60% or more of the data-intensive compute is expected to occur at the edge. What is the edge? The edge is the advanced factories that you mentioned. It's energy, it's traffic, it's retail, it's healthcare. It's all the things that are happening in the real world. I think organizations are going to have these hybrid environments where there are some scalable, centralized analytic engines of the public and private clouds. The immediate and private, you know, privacy benefits that go with edge computing that occurs, you know, and a key point here is you want to bring the AI and the compute to where the data is being generated, not send it somewhere else. It's more critical than ever that we build out these edge capabilities.
To your point about skills, organizations have an urgent need for upskilling. There are just a lot of new capabilities that are needed now with all the new tools that we have. We need to retrain and reskill our teams so that we can take advantage of all these new superpowers that are being unleashed, for example, with AI.
Edge is certainly big in automotive manufacturing, many other industries as well. What's your take on this aspect with particular respect to automotive manufacturing, these key industries?
First of all, I totally agree with what Michael said before. Manufacturing, automotive, and other industrial sectors face tremendous pressure on progress, real-time data, and increased IT agility. Hybrid and edge computing are critical enablers here in this case. By processing data locally, close to where it's generated, these technologies reduce latency, improve response times, and unlock innovative use cases like predictive maintenance and smart factories. At Bechtle, we design and implement hybrid and edge architectures specifically tailored to the needs and compliance requirements of these industries. This local and flexible approach empowers organizations to be more agile and competitive in an evolving market. Additionally, maintaining Europe's workforce advantage means investing continuously in training and mentoring programs, a focus central to Bechtle's commitment to upskilling and closing skill gaps to support sustainable digital transformation.
Thank you for your remarks on this topic. You know, gentlemen, we are now entering even the second half of what the European Union has outlined as the digital decade for Europe. May I ask you what the partnership between Dell Technologies and Bechtle can do to make this ambition a reality? Beyond awards and certifications, where has the Dell-Bechtle collaboration already made the clearest difference for customers? What are your top joint priorities to help European organizations become more digitally resilient and globally competitive in the remaining five years of this digital decade? Michael?
You know, customers do need a lot of help with these new strategies, and our partnership is intended to deliver that. We have a unique one-stop capability across AI PCs, modern data center, multi-cloud, AI infrastructure, and we're aligned together around investments in AI, multi-cloud, edge solutions that enable organizations to operate at greater scale and efficiency. This partnership really extends our capability and our reach, and we do have, with the Bechtle team, very broad strategic alignment on what we believe is important to customers, and we're working very closely in tandem to make those outcomes real for customers to help them advance every activity that they're engaged in.
Thank you, and Michael?
Our partnership brings together the global technology leadership and our deep European market expertise to help customize and modernize with AI and drive real innovations. We are accelerating data center transformation with APEX, multi-cloud, and AI factory solutions, and strongly positioned around a disaggregated data center approach to support evolving workloads. We are also shaping the workplace of the future through tech refresh projects, Windows 11 migrations, AI PCs, and advanced security recognition, such as Dell's Partner of the Year award in Germany, and our strong EMEA certification status underscore our joint capability, with a goal to grow even further. Our priorities remain clear: strengthen digital sovereignty, expand sustainable IT, and equip our customers to meet Europe's digital decade ambitions with confidence. It's not only one point.
It's more than one point, obviously.
It's more than one point.
As we need to come to the end of our conversation, I'd like to invite both of you to share a visionary thought. Looking ahead, what inspires you, gentlemen, most about the future of that digital transformation in Europe? What is the key mindset or action that you would like to encourage today's leaders to adopt in order to truly unlock the potential ahead?
I think the technologies that we see in front of us present an opportunity to reset how we think about human activity. We're seeing exponential growth in productivity and efficiency. The gains are far greater than the onset of the PC and the internet. It impacts all knowledge work. It's very possible that we will see a 10% productivity improvement globally that could add $10 trillion to the economy. That will create all sorts of opportunities for winners and losers, but it will also improve education and healthcare. I think the organizations that adopt this earlier will have a significant competitive advantage. Businesses really have an urgent priority to reimagine themselves based on what they can become with this superpower. It's time to get started, and we're here to help.
Thank you, Michael. Over to you.
Yeah, listening to that, I believe the ability to reinvent, as Michael Dell has done repeatedly, is exactly the mindset Europe needs. At Bechtle, we shape a similar history of adopting our guiding principles over decades to remain at the forefront. My vision is for more European organizations to embrace change with the same courage, to remove internal and external barriers, to make bold moves, and to accelerate innovation and modernization so they can lead with agility and resilience.
Thank you very much to both of you, Michael Dell, Michael Guschlbauer. It was again a very inspiring conversation, a great start to our C-Days. We are at the very beginning, having great content to come here on that stage, but that was really a great start. Thank you very much to both of you for taking the time being with us here today. Ladies and gentlemen, before we let Michael Dell go, I have a surprise question for him, and I hope he's saying yes. Let's find out. Michael, are you ready to take our born ready cChallenge?
Sure, I was born ready, so let's go.
Another gentleman here on stage who's born ready. You know, we have one here. We have one there. It's wonderful. A lot of born ready leaders here. Let's do it. It's quite easy, Michael. Michael Guschlbauer will assist us with this. Thank you very much for helping us out here, Michael.
I'm still listening today, yeah.
You are counting down from three to one, Michael. Once you are counting down, Michael Guschlbauer will push the button, and the result will be a surprise question for you coming out from this wonderful slot machine behind me here. Then we'll see what interesting question we have for you. Will you count down?
Three, two, one.
Let's see. Okay. We have the secret motivation question. That's a good one. That's a perfect one for you, Michael, obviously. Michael, my question to you is, your sustained passion for leading Dell over more than four decades is truly exceptional in the tech industry. What has kept that passion alive for so many years? Why did you choose to continue building and guiding your company rather than seeking a quick exit like so many other tech entrepreneurs we are seeing today in the industry?
For me, what I do is fun and interesting, and I have an incredible curiosity and desire to learn. When I see the impact that technology has in the world, that gets me just incredibly excited. I couldn't imagine doing anything else. If somebody told me that I couldn't do this, I would be super unhappy and depressed. Nobody's going to take that away from me, and you know, wouldn't think of doing anything else.
Wonderful. Thank you very much, Michael, again, for being here for the conversation, for taking the challenge. It's a great pleasure. Thank you very much, Michael. We are seeing us later again here on stage. For all of us, we are moving on in the program. Thank you, gentlemen.
Thanks a lot, Michael.
Thank you.
[Foreign language].
We have intrinsic motivation, the hidden motivation, as we just heard from Michael Dell. There's also open motivation. Our target here at C-Days is to see both types of motivation. I understand it. One of the most obvious motivations today is striving for digital sovereignty that keeps companies and keeps business, mobile accounts, users, the public sector. Everyone is dealing with this topic. Everyone wants to maintain digital sovereignty for good reasons. That is why this is part of our top topics here at C-Days 2025. Let's start directly with this central question. What does digital sovereignty actually mean? What does it look like? What is required? Can it, and if so, how can it actually be achieved? That's particularly important when we talk about this cloud strategy. From our perspective, from Bechtle's perspective, the following is decisive. We want to take a holistic approach without simplification.
We want to understand the topic because one thing is clear. Just because a data center is somewhere in the European Union, it's not sovereign as such. Our claim is, together with a wide portfolio of partners, to offer the best solutions for real sovereignty, real options in the digital world. No spoiler here, but sometimes there's a single word. The solution is multi-cloud. Before we start our first big panel on the sovereign clouds in Europe, for Europe, two comments. Here on our C-Days platform, we start our first survey. How sovereign do you feel out there with the cloud strategy of your company, the company or the organization you're working in? Do you have a professional or personal assessment here and share it with us? It just takes a couple of seconds. The topic of digital sovereignty will be relevant throughout the day.
Right after this panel, we will have Susanne Schmidt, CEO of our Bechtle company KubeOps, and Dennis Wimmer, Business Manager for multi-cloud at Bechtle, will talk about the orchestration of sovereign cloud architectures. Central topic when we talk about how digital sovereignty can be achieved. At 12:15 P.M., we have a live switch to Berlin from the studio here, and we have a high-ranking panel. We'll have Dr. Thomas Olemotz, our CEO, but also Nicole Dreyer-Langlet from Airbus, Ralf Wintergerst, the President of Bitkom. A top panel indeed. Here we talk about digital sovereignty in terms of economy, politics, and society. Summing up, sovereignty is all over C-Days for good reasons. A highly relevant topic for us. Let's start with our first panel. I'm very happy to have great panelists here on site and online.
The representatives of those companies really focus on digital sovereignty and have digital sovereignty as DNA because they provide the cloud for you and your companies. I'm very happy to welcome here, first of all, Eike Vomberg. Welcome, Eike. Eike is Product Lead Central Eastern Europe at OVHcloud. Then remote, Michael Hase. He's a Manager for EuroCloud at the eco - Association, important association.
Michael, great to have you, and thank you for helping us to assess this topic. Here on site, Stephan Ilaender. He is Field CTO at STACKIT. Welcome. Online, we have Thomas Weber from the Open Telekom Cloud. Vice President at T-Systems International. Hello, Thomas. Thank you for joining us remotely.
Good morning, everybody.
[Foreign language].
Back here, Claudio Serrano. He is SVP Sales at IONOS. We'll have more representatives of IONOS. You are the first. Thank you, Claudio, for being with us. Finally, here, when it comes to cloud, the responsible person is Melanie Schüle. Melanie Schüle, of course, you are here with us, Managing Director of Bechtle Clouds. Thank you for being here and thank you for setting up the panel. Ladies first here. The first question goes to you. Melanie, how do you address at Bechtle Clouds this new strategic topic, this strategic topic with your partner portfolio? What roles do the European cloud provider play here?
At Bechtle Clouds, or generally speaking, at Bechtle, we rely on a wide partner portfolio. We have a multi-vendor strategy, open technologies, and everything in line with the customer needs. Over the past years, we've developed a wide portfolio via platform ecosystems, the partnerships we've had anyhow. For us, that is an essential element when it comes to digital sovereignty, this freedom of choice, the freedom of choice which we offer to our customers. That's our approach here. We develop the services and all the offers we have. On top of the vendor offers, we provide a very comprehensive portfolio so that the customers can cover all their needs.
Great. Thank you, Melanie. A very important catchphrase here, that might be overstretched somewhat, to be honest, is digital sovereignty in Europe equals made and hosted in Europe. Is that really the case? I'd like to hear about this from the cloud companies. Thomas Weber of Open Telekom Cloud, can you start, please? Digital sovereignty in Europe equals made and hosted in Europe. Is that sufficient?
I think this is a bit too short-sighted. We keep talking about the three dimensions of sovereignty. The first dimension, certainly, is who's got access to the data that is authorized to access or sometimes also unauthorized. The second dimension is the question, who's got control over the platform and who can give instructions as to what is to happen to the data on the platform, the metadata. One example, which we heard quite often in the past, is the example of the International Chief Prosecutor of the International Court of Justice. It's not only that I want my data to be safe and secure, but I also keep having access to them. There's the third dimension, and I think this is a dimension which is hardest to achieve for Europe. That's technological sovereignty. Software, open source approaches.
I think this is where we're doing quite well and where we are strong. There's another area where we have to catch up with, and that is hardware. We just heard Michael Dell talking, and if you look at the pressure and the stamina, chip-building capacities are being expanded in the U.S. Of course the question is, what would happen if we do not have these international deliveries towards Europe occurring anymore? I'm glad to have somebody from Airbus on the panel because I believe that we should take the aviation industry as an example, as a role model, because they 30 or 40 years ago had the idea of setting up the Airbus company.
I think this is something that we also have to achieve in Europe to think along these cycles because we don't have to hide if TSMC produces chips in Taiwan, then this also includes European technology, even technology made in Germany by TRUMPF, because they are the ones producing the templates with their laser machines. We don't have to hide our skills, but I think we need a vision in order to achieve sovereignty there.
Thank you, Thomas, for your first assessment. We have an executive talk with Stephanie Dismore, the Head of Europe of AMD, and we talk about the power of chip production and the technological advances here. That's thrilling insights provided here. Michael Hase from the eco - Association, in your association, you have a great overview. How do you assess this?
Sovereignty. This is something you can discuss very theoretically, and there are many definitions around about what digital sovereignty is: openness, transparency, freedom of choice, an important topic. Melanie just mentioned that. We agree with all of that. There's a very nice definition from the Competence Center Public IT. That's an excellent center. In a nutshell, it says digital sovereignty is a totality of the capabilities to move in a self-determined way in the public space, which is a nice definition, but it shows us also that it's quite difficult. Many IT managers, many people who are responsible for IT often feel driven or overstrained with these tasks or requirements. Sovereignty is not a binary state. It's not something that you switch on and have. It's a bit like IT security. Security is a process, and I agree with that. We agree also with this when we talk about digital sovereignty. It's a process. You need strategies for it. There's a number of abilities that you need.
Okay, thank you. Back to the on-prem here. Made and hosted in Europe. That's a topic that, of course, you represent at STACKIT, obviously, like you at IONOS. Maybe Stephan and Claudio, your take on that. Is it sufficient to have made and hosted in Europe?
Thanks a lot. I think made in Europe or made in Germany is not sufficient in my view. I think it's also important to create an ecosystem where we can really act like the hyperscalers, where you can expect to get the same technologies, and where you will then also see that the power of Europe lies in the fact of creating an analog software world. That's what we're doing amongst others. Here, of course, we rely very much on open source in order to maintain the necessary transparency that you need for digital sovereignty. Our approach always is to have a full-scale, transparent, cloud-native stack that enables you to offer hyperscaler functionalities on European soil. This is what we're doing where we say this is a major building block for a European future.
Claudio.
I can really just agree with Stephan. That's our way to go as well. I think we're all aware that data is the gold of companies today, or it's the oil of companies today. It's important for companies to be able to make their own decisions where they store their data and where they want their data to be in the future. We always agree that technology changes, and there are always new technology leaps that occur. Customers must be able, and this is our goal as well, customers must be able to act independently, make their own decisions. This is how we handle our own stack. We say companies are independent in what they choose, but also independent of external influences, like governmental influences. With the ecosystem, as Stephan said, we want to enable our customers to have that.
You've already mentioned it. It's about legal compliance. One important aspect here, but there's another important aspect, which is relevant for the companies who work with the clouds. Do the European solutions offer the performance that is required compared to the global leaders, the hyperscalers, to really compete against those? That is. Cloud users in a company need both. Let's talk about the performance, the technological performance. I'm interested, above all, to hear from you who represent the European cloud companies. Eike, what about OVHcloud? How do you position yourselves? Technological performance, an honest answer, compared to U.S. hyperscaler standards.
You've already touched upon it, Michael. Just to say, we've got a data center in Germany or Europe, and we've got digital sovereignty, and we offer legal compliance. That's not sufficient. You need great technological performance. For 26 years, we as OVHcloud are offering our products on the market. We have developed more than 100 services. Of course, compared to the very big hyperscalers, we cannot cover every single use case, but 95% of the use cases can definitely be covered. For the remaining 5%, we can also offer other solutions. Top performance is one part of the story. The other part of the story is the digital infrastructure. We've got 44 data centers worldwide, 27 of them in the European Union. Here we can also offer our customers a wide range of services on the one hand, but also local presence.
Thank you, Claudio. You next from IONOS perspective.
Yes, performance is important. Of course, we have to be able to compete in terms of cost, price, performance. Based on the infrastructure that we've built up over the years, we can also have that independence. We need a code stack that we have developed in-house to be able to compete in terms of price and performance. This is something we have. I can only say, test us, test the European hyperscalers so that you see it works. As has been said, not all use cases, but let's say 95% can already be covered today. As Stefan just said, through the ecosystem, there are also best-of-breed solutions in the cloud where you can perhaps even boost your efficiencies.
To continue this technological performance presentation. Telekom Cloud, Thomas Weber, you've been involved for many years. How would you assess this technological competition you're faced with?
To be precise, it's now been nine and a half years that we've been offering our Open Telekom Cloud. I think in the IaaS and PaaS environment, as the previous speaker said, we don't have to hide our skills, neither in terms of performance nor in terms of price versus performance ratio. I think here we are on a par with competitors. Of course, somebody else just said, rightly so, the higher we go in the stack, the more difficult it will be to overcome the dependencies that have evolved, for example, in terms of vendor lock-in. Quite a few of our customers with multi-cloud strategies, which have been relying on American hyperscalers, are currently struggling with that situation. How can they overcome this dependency in order to maintain sovereignty over their own data and be able to choose on their own?
Thank you, Thomas. Stephan. You are among the group of those. The rookies, really, but with a high level of maturity. STACKIT is really prominent. Your assessment?
Yes, when you look at how long we've been doing our work, we're perhaps the new kid on the block, but we have a lot of experience. The hyperscalers obviously started early, several years early with these technologies, but we've caught up. I think we really don't need to hide in any way. We have the same cloud-native structures as a hyperscaler. We have that too. I think the next step, that's very important, is also the SaaS layer. We want to be a hyperscaler. Many users like a hyperscaler. We have, for example, ServiceNow on the platform, strategy B. Next year with SAP RISE, we'll start with SAP RISE. We're always listed as the fourth hyperscaler there because in that technology and in that dimension, we're operating like the offerings require. I think that's an important point. We need to open the stack upwardly. I think we're on a good path there.
Partners say we are well on our way in the stack. We're moving upwards. We're closing the technological gaps that might exist due to the longer experience the U.S. competitors have. It's interesting and exciting to hear this. That's music to my ears to see how confident you are. Let's do a reality check. Michael and Melanie, your turn now. Let's start with Michael from the association. Michael Hase, do you agree with the provider's view here?
To a large extent, yes. To a great extent, yes. I think it's quite difficult to say whether they cover 95% - 90% of the use cases. In general, I agree with Stephan, Thomas, and Eike. The European super scalers, as we call them, that's an IONOS term, basically, can offer all of the basics across the board. I fully agree with that. I think this is also something where we can somewhat be proud of the European cloud industry. As Stephan already said, you started out later than the hyperscalers. Nevertheless, you got to this level by now. The European cloud industry really got their basics right. I see another advantage of the European providers, namely that they comply with open standards, open interfaces, as Stephan mentioned.
I think this commitment to the open source, which is something all of the providers that we are talking to today have in common, is important because in Europe, we can only catch up if we have interoperability between the different platforms. I think none of the panelists here would say that we want to lock in our clients. Here, the commitment to openness and interoperability is something they all have in common.
Thank you. That's a nice bridge to the next question where we talk about the competition, interoperability, common ground. First of all, back to Melanie. In your portfolio, in the Bechtle Clouds, you have this competition every single day. We have established partnerships with the hyperscalers. We have the European super scalers, whatever you call them. How do you perceive this?
I can only confirm what's been discussed. I didn't do any survey to cover the % points, but we see equal performance in many areas between the hyperscalers. If you want to use the term European super scalers, from our point of view, what counts now is the expansion of the ecosystem, the expansion of the training opportunities, and the cooperation to really foster cooperation to strengthen the European benefit which we have here, and to turn this into a compatibility for our customers. Also, together with the U.S. hyperscalers, obviously.
I think if we now focus in Europe alone on the ecosystem, what does it need in additional training opportunities and what opportunities exist? They should be used more. How can we bring the European horsepower on the road? We are convinced of the European performance, and we have great expectations linked to our European strategic partners to really continuously expand the offer to our customers in line with the GDPR, all regulations. We have a clear benefit in Europe. I hope that in cooperation, we can further expand this in the future.
Melanie and dear colleagues from the cloud companies, sometimes we get support from an unexpected area, and we can use this. The question now is, I have the sales guys here, product guys. Is your best salesperson now Donald Trump? His politics and the changes he's driving, does that drive your business?
What else is required? I mean, we don't want to rely on his impact. From your point of view, what is required so that in the public sector and in the business, what has to happen so that the European clouds gain even more momentum? Is Donald sufficient?
Yeah, that's a very good question, Michael. I think that the current geopolitical situation, to call it that, is helping us a bit in sales. If we didn't have the technological power, it wouldn't help us. We are perceiving that in companies or from the public sector, there is an increased demand. That's true. We're seeing the first pioneers on the part of customers who are courageous enough to use multi-cloud or hyperscaler strategies and use European vendors. We can only call on people to say, you know, go to the European cloud, be brave, be courageous, be bold. There are some positive examples. For example, the Schleswig-Holstein federal state is very much relying on OpenStack and open source. We're also working with DAX and MDAX companies and also Commerzbank with Commerz Real. They just went into the OVHcloud because they found that we as a European vendor can offer what they need as a financial institution. We can only say to organizations, please be bold.
Donald plus courage. Stephan, you are really hitting the pedal. Everyone is observing this closely. Do you agree?
We keep calling him our Chief Demand Officer, actually, carringly , Actually, this is a phenomenon which is not going to disappear. I think the political situation has not only changed because of Mr. Trump, but basically, and I think this has reinforced the trend that used to be before. This has been more than just a wake-up call, obviously. Indeed, we now have a lot of demand from the public sector, but also from other areas where it is about data that are highly important for European citizens. This covers the health sector or defense. In all of these areas, it is important to be able to run a cloud infrastructure which allows you to choose for yourselves. The first step is by survivability. You've got to be able to continue operating your cloud and the software, and you also have to be able to develop it further from thereon.
These are criteria which we're pushing massively, where we invest all of our know-how into. Of course, we also try to enable our partners in the industry and in the public sector. We have set up a university for that purpose or an academy where you can get trained to use these technologies. I do this especially with clients from the public sector. I think it's very important to enable them to use these clouds and to use the ecosystem in the way they need it.
Nice translation for C T O. Yeah, we take this with you, or CDO rather. So, Claudio and Thomas.
[Foreign language].
Your brief comment, but really, really brief because we are running out of time. Let's, Claudio, Chief Demand Officer, what else is required?
I would say he helped us scale up. In Germany and in Europe, many have started to look at multi-cloud. You can see, looking at our list of references, also from the public sector, we're represented everywhere. There are many technical processes we're running in the cloud. What we're seeing is that these processes are being scaled up. There's a lot of demand from final customers also, for multi-cloud and maybe to use a second or third cloud or to consider that. Based on open source simplicity APIs, of course, we have the experience of decades also that we've built up. This is something that our customers can use today and have been using for years.
Thanks, Claudio. Thomas, your final brief comment?
Yes, happy to do so. Donald Trump, best Sales Officer. I think it's good to open the doors, but still, it's us who have to walk through these doors and then score with our own strong performance.
Nice and concise. Thank you. The last question goes to Melanie and Michael. I'd like to say thank you to the representatives of the European cloud companies. Great job you're doing here. Great initiatives. Great that you're here together. We'll hear more about collaboration that is required and how much competition is essential to really push performance even further. There's still a gap. We have to close that. How do you, what's your take on this, Melanie and Michael? Collaboration on the one hand and competition on the other hand. What is required and what has to be done?
Competition strengthens innovation and innovations. Collaboration strengthens standards. I think we need a balanced ratio here. Right now, I'd say we are focusing too much on competition. Everyone is trying to take the lead. I think of a quote. If you want to make fast progress, you have to join forces.
If you can do this in Europe, I've mentioned it before, if we can do this together in Europe, we have both innovation, innovative power, and standards. We are unbeatable.
Michael, that's the fate of the association. They always get the last question, but it's not much time left.
I can live with that. Thanks. I see it very similarly as Melanie in the commercial aspects. You can't compete. There's also antitrust law. Let's say we are pre-competition. We have pre-competition activities and we lead companies and providers that are all members of the eco - Association, by the way. Of course, when you go together, you can work on standards. I agree with Melanie, and that's going to happen. As I just said, the strength, I think, lies in the interoperability of European platforms. They should certainly march ahead in that direction. I would like to add one more aspect.
[Foreign language].
Okay, I have only a few seconds. Ecosystem expansion is very important. We, as an association, can provide support there because we are the ecosystem builder as an association. We bring companies together, both competitors and also vertically: the sales, consulting, integration, training partners, etc.
That's the fate of the facilitator. You have to cut people off. Sorry about that. I'm very grateful to all of you for the good collaboration here on stage, in the panel, that you've been so open, that you are willing to take the discussion. That's an important topic. It'll be relevant throughout the C-Days. That's an excellent start to digital sovereignty in Europe, and I'm looking forward to the continuation. Thank you to all of us.
[Foreign language].
Thank you.
Over the next minutes, we'll have an interesting talk about multi-cloud.
[Foreign language].
We're going to continue this. By the way, the survey to which we've invited you is still open. Please use the opportunity to tell us what your feelings are about multi-cloud and sovereign clouds in Europe. This is one of the most exciting topics that we can talk about here. In our world, I'm very happy to welcome two experts from the Bechtle family here. One of them is Susanne. Susanne Schmidt is Managing Director of KubeOps. KubeOps is a company that we have that has joined our Bechtle family just recently. It adds very important skills. We have our multi-cloud strategists from the Bechtle Clouds here on the stage. Dennnnis Wimmer, he's Business Manager. I'd like both of them to join me here on the stage. Welcome, Susanne, and welcome, Dennis.
[Foreign language].
[Foreign language].
Absolutely. [Foreign language].
Yeah, it's nice to be back here on the stage. It's nice to see you. Dennis, for you, this is a home game. You know this event. You've been here very many times. It's nice to see you again. Of course, Susanne, it's nice to welcome you for the first time. It's your first time at the C-Days this time. Do you like it so far?
Yes, I like it very much. It's a very important format because customers of Bechtle attach a lot of importance to multi-cloud and the whole bandwidth of cloud vendors that they have such an impression.
This is the reason why my role was created, to bring together the whole power of the Bechtle group, the power of all our vendor partners, and to be able to make the optimal offering to our customers.
Yes. For you, this is novel in a way. You have a new hat on this time. Both of your hats, both of your roles, lead you here on the stage today. Let's take a look at what you have in common, and how that comes together. Before we do this, Susanne, I think a couple of weeks ago, I saw a contribution on your LinkedIn account where you were at the IT Future Congress with a couple of colleagues. This is a congress in Germany. There was a wall where it said that you are offering a sovereign cloud solution for clouds made in Germany. Now, this is a European and international, nearly a global stage. The question to me is, Susanne, is this also true for clouds that are not from Germany? Can you create this piece of sovereignty for clouds from any other part of the world?
Yes, absolutely. We have a solution that does exactly what the slogan says, namely sovereignty in any cloud and the whole thing made in Germany. This is what we are and what we live.
Wonderful. Very exciting. I'm curious. Could you tell us a little bit more about who KubeOps is, what you do, and at a high level, how you do it?
Yes, of course, I will. KubeOps complies with a solution that's been used in the public sector for several years. It's compliant with the highest security criteria with open source technology, but with the absolute highest level of security. It's a great starting point for sovereignty, which I can take into the cloud. The customer has the following advantages. They can access any cloud in the same way, take the sovereignty into each technical infrastructure they use, and have the best opportunities to automate and gain interoperability.
It means they can change between the clouds. This happens, they always have the same technology stack. Since they can also store a backup and restore it elsewhere, they can change over within a very short time. This goes as far as active-active sync between cloud vendors. You are really sovereign because you have the freedom of choice between vendors. You can change between vendors. There is no longer the dependency that you want to avoid.
Interoperability, freedom of choice, sovereignty, very nice buzzwords in this time. Dennis, you have been supporting many customers on their way into the cloud for many years. Do you like what you're hearing?
Yes, I sure do. I would like to say that the spirit is very agile and that simple can-do mentality is something I like very much. On the business side, with the KubeOps solution, we have the possibility to say we connect the multi-cloud world with a hybrid world. We connect EU vendors with U.S. vendors and, in the on-prem, data center. That's a great, good thing.
You have a very rich portfolio already, both cloud vendors and solutions to play the role of a broker between the clouds and for the customer in the cloud jungle, because it sometimes is a jungle to make it a little easier and more straightforward. What's the specific value added that you get with KubeOps in your portfolio?
KubeOps brings enormous competencies when it comes to Kubernetes management in the highly regulated environments as well. We've used the competencies, the skills, and our own services have been expanded to enable additional services to make them really cross-cloud, to work across clouds.
That is, workloads can be scaled from one cloud to the other or moved from one cloud to the other, which, of course, means that the customer has freedom to act, the option to act free, freely, and portability. That, combined with Kubernetes as an open source tool, makes us fully sovereign. That combined and made easy is really the big value that I see in the solution.
Can I ask you some more questions? Please make the answers short. The first question, Susanne, is to you. Is the thing just large enterprise for large organizations, big companies, or are you also addressing small and mid-sized businesses?
Both.
Thank you. The same public question to you. Public sector or private companies?
Also, private companies. Security and sovereignty are important for all.
The third question, Dennis, is to you, and it's not easy to answer it this short because we're entering the exciting field of European regulations. A lot of things are happening there. Of course, we have a number of regulations from Europe that are in force and many new are coming. Which of these regulations are you addressing now or are we addressing together with KubeOps, even better from our portfolio?
I would certainly talk about the GDPR. We talk about the Data Act, the NIS 2, and a lot is happening on the political stage. Some more will come.
Absolutely. I think with the three central topics that you've just named us, or talked about, there's practically no company for which this would not be relevant. It's nice to have this partnership here on the stage. It's nice that you are both here and that you have been able to give us an important flavor into the discussion on multi-cloud, sovereign clouds, etc. We have to adopt a can-do attitude, a practical hands-on spirit. This is what we've done. It's the right approach to be successful in the cloud. Thank you for your attention. Thanks for coming. We continue in our program now.
This next session is about innovation, innovation, innovation. In fact, I should have said it seven times because I know that seven is a magic number for this next session. I'm delighted to welcome here on stage Mr. Nils Müller. Hello, Nils.
Hello, Michael.
Nils leads TRENDONE, and TRENDONE is a trend-based innovation and strategy consultancy. Nils, I know you'll not be alone on that stage, and I know you're bringing some magic to the show. We are all very curious to find out more. This is your stage now, Nils.
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the exclusive presentation of the seven levers for innovation and new growth here at the Bechtle Competence Days. My name is Nils, and I'm super happy being here with you today, but I'm not alone. I have with me my colleague Christiane, Christiane Wolff from Munich. Welcome, Christiane.
Hello and welcome from my side and also from Munich to everyone there in the studio. For being part of the Bechtle C- Days, this is really magic to be here. Together, we interviewed 70 C-level leaders, and we sifted dozens of academic and industry studies and shaped the findings into our Seven Levers workbook, a practical guide for boards that want to convert insight into action. My part in this partnership with TRENDONE is clear. As a Strategic Communication and C-level Positioning Advisor, I help the people who must live those levers: CEOs, CIOs, CFOs, CHROs, and translate them into day-to-day narratives, rituals, and signals, because a lever only moves when its story is told, owned, and repeated. Now I give back to the studio and Heidemann.
Christiane, it's so wonderful working with you because you are an expert in C-level communication, and I'm a futurist, a trend researcher, innovation strategist. I help companies to zoom out. Actually, this is my first chart. We want to zoom out together and get the big picture, you know, like the overview effect, to see the overview of the seven levers for innovation success. If you zoom out, sometimes you zoom out for hundreds of years. Actually, we start in 1770, with the industrial society. Now we move from ICT, from the computing age, where we are all born, to the next economic big supercycle, the next economic wave, to the wave of superintelligence. This causes a lot of conflicts and chaos in the world. We even see geopolitical chaos, like the U.S. and China battling about who will be the superpower of the next age for superintelligence.
It's not only a geopolitical battle. It's also a battle between human and AI because the question is, what is the reason and what is the core purpose of being a human in the age of superintelligence? It's a lot of friction and chaos in the world because at the moment, we change to the next economic supercycle. This will not be the ICT, the computing age anymore. It will be the age of superintelligence. The question, especially for Germany and for all industry economies, is what is our positioning? What is our core value proposition? At the moment, it's the Industry 4.0. We say we are leaders in smart factories, building digital factories, smart and scalable. Now, in the age of superintelligence, we need to move one step forward and connect ERP, the smart factory, with CRM.
The factory immediately knows in the Industry 5.0 what the customer of the future wants. The factory is connected to the needs, the desires, and wishes of the customer of the future. It's hyper-personalization. It's tailor-made products. It's much smarter factories as we have today. This is a lot about not only hardware or software. It's the intersection of hardware and software. Actually, it is cyber-physical systems. If you wonder the future of your company and you are in industry or aviation or automotion, for example, Airbus, it's not only hardware. It's a combination of dozens of computers, sensors, and ecosystems around. It's a cyber-physical system that works brilliantly. That's it where we go to in the Industry 5.0. Now we have a very, very special surprise for you. We have the magic lever.
To start off with our first lever for innovation and growth, which is actually a bit obvious, it's called German mut. It's super important because usually the Germans have German angst. When the world is in chaos, the Germans have German angst. Angst causes them to not move. Of course, we need to move faster than ever because the U.S., China, all other countries are very, very fast moving forward. We need, even in times of geopolitical chaos, energy crisis, cyber attacks, fake news, to move. For this, we need German mut. We give a little push to this with the Sondervermögen. You know, this is EUR 860 billion. Actually, this is the GDP of Switzerland. EUR 860 billion we get as Sondervermögen. This not only goes to defense. If you look deeper, it goes into infrastructure. It goes into regional communities.
This goes into education, into health, in planet centricity, of course, in the transformation into a carbon-neutral industry. We have a lot of sustainability investments and so on. Actually, the Sondervermögen will give a push to the German economy and help us to move forward for innovation and growth. Because this is so special and it's such a big, big, big investment, we put this lever as number one. You could think about, as your company, how can I benefit from this budget? Where can I put products and services, for example, in the field of dual use, where I move a bit my portfolio into defense, infrastructure, education, health? How can I benefit from this? Ladies and gentlemen, now we move to the second lever, which is called multi-optionality. Multi-optionality is like if you're a C-level or a decision maker, you feel it at the moment.
You feel it that you have so many balls in the air that sometimes an additional ball comes to you. You have more and more balls in the air. It's all your options. It's not like in the past where you had like every two years, every three years, your strategy session. Strategy was like putting one ball after another. At the moment, and you feel this, is having many balls in the air. You need to find focus. You need quick decisions. You need to decide in which balls you invest, in which options, which balls you pause because maybe they come later, and which balls you start immediately with partners and ecosystems. Management is more like an endless cycle of foresight, orientation, strategy, and transformation, which is really looping, looping, looping. This comes from the lever number three.
I'm happy to put the lever number three, which is called the non-linear economy. We are not anymore in the linear economy, which was in the past where you had like production things, capital, human labor, factories, and so on, putting it to the system with an output of products. This is no longer the case. 90% of assets today are not tangible anymore, like factories and machines. 90% of your assets of the big companies are intangible. It's knowledge, it's data, it's algorithms, it's patents, it's humans, it's customer access. 90% is non-linear. Non-linear means that there can be very quick changes because, of course, you can change a non-linear system and a digital system faster than the old economy. You can jump from one opportunity to another. You see this with the big companies. Every two weeks, three weeks, they announce something new where they leap forward.
It's incredible. In the non-linear economy, change and the speed of change is really terrific. Of course, AI is the driver for this because AI automates not only processes, but full companies. In 2030, you will be able to build full companies with a set of agents. Like a bank, an insurance company is nothing less than a big algorithm. We move the next lever, number four, which is the AI master plan. In your company, it doesn't matter if you just have 100 employees or 1 million employees. You need an AI master plan. Not only AI experiments where you say as a leader, oh, my employees do AI. No, no. As a leader, you need to think about where do I put my investments, my best talents, my resources. You should have an AI portfolio.
This AI portfolio should not come from the present because the projects you do now should be ready in 2027, 2028, and then should last until 2030, 2035. Your AI strategy should come from the future, from 2035, for example. You anticipate the future, and then you go back to the present and do your AI portfolio. You start with the future exploration. Where will my company be in 2030, 2035? Then you go back. What decisions do I need to do today to reach this goal? An AI master plan should always be built from the future. Like if you do a master plan for a city, you not start with today. You think about how will mobility be in the future because your city will be there for 100 years. How will customer needs, happy citizens be in the future? That's it.
Build your AI master plan from the future. Then think about what is your portfolio and how will I communicate this to my employees? This is very important. Never say everything will be automated because then they are afraid. Later with Christiane, we will again talk about C-level communication. This is also very important in the age of AI. Next lever is number five. Now you need more and more innovation capabilities, more and more innovation resources. You should set up innovation teams, innovation task forces, innovation hubs to move forward because there's so much to innovate, not only in your core business. It's also beyond your core, building, set up totally new ecosystems and creating new growth. Innovation should not be like here stopping. This is the first time ever where innovation investments, especially in small companies, reduce. This is really, really sad.
We should all invest more into innovation to create new growth, especially in times of uncertainty. In times of uncertainty, maybe your competition falls behind and you have the chance to innovate and go faster, further. For innovation, there's a special key to success. I call it innovation diversity. You also say neurodiversity or having a diverse team. I move forward to lever number six, which I call, and Christiane did it together with me, the female force. I hand over to our studio in Munich with Christiane to explain the female force.
Thank you, Nils, for sharing the magic five levers. I'm very happy and proud to share the next two with you. I have to say the number six, the female force, I'm a little bit sad that I have still to present it in 2025. I thought we would be a little bit further, but I guess this is one of the most magic levers that we have. I will give you some insights from that. I think positioning starts from within. For women in leadership, it's not just visibility. It's strategic impact. Our study findings: only 24.1% of leadership roles are held by women. This is a five-year low. At the same time, data shows companies with high diversity generate on average 45% of their revenue through innovation. They are 21% more profitable and have 2.04% higher cash flow return. Productivity increases by 32% in diverse teams.
I think these numbers really count. What does this mean for you in practice? We don't need token roles. We need visibility with substance. Female force becomes impactful through targeted communication. Internally, via strategic role clarification, mentoring, and also via corporate influences. Externally, we need deliberate positioning on stages, in the media, and also on LinkedIn. Now we switch to our final lever, number seven. We think that this lever, lever number seven, the psychological safety, is the most important one to be successful with all the other ones. If you have not a psychological safety in your company and within your people working with, I think you could not be successful with lever five to six. One of our interview partners, Ralf Gernhold from Deutsche Bahn, said digital leadership is courage in action, especially the courage to let others speak. Why does it matter?
AI turbulence, geopolitical shocks, and hybrid work feed anxiety. As Nils mentioned before, fear suffocates experimentation. In our interviews, these are the pain points our 70 leaders voiced. One, teams hide bad news when leaders broadcast certainty. Zoom or Teams fatigue erodes spontaneous idea sharing. Number three, transactional offices kill serendipity. What does this mean for leaders like you in practice? Number one, inside-out storytelling. Closed-door narrative labs to craft a cohesive why, now, next message before any press release. Number two, fail-forward formats. Town halls and red team Fridays where executives open with their own recent mistakes. Number three, spaces that speak. Partnering with workspace providers to design zones that invite debate and quick prototyping. What does it mean at the end? Female force and psychological safety are not HR side projects. They are profit levers. Let's shape the future of leadership and communications together. Now I give back to Nils in the studio in Heidemann.
Christiane, thank you so much. I mean, this was so inspiring. I wish for all the leaders there that they create a space for their employees in psychological safety, where employees are open to innovate, to experiment, and having like a platform. The company actually is like a platform for learning. Of course, you can do mistakes and failures, but you always use them to learn from this. This is innovation. Innovation is a big experiment and also strategy nowadays. You can never be sure. It's an experiment, and sometimes you have to align. Remember, my endless cycle of strategy, you always have to align and be quick response. Thank you, Christiane. That was really, really, really amazing. I'm also very happy to collaborate with you and work with you because you are a C-level expert helping to communicate this. My company is doing trend-based strategy and innovation consultancy. We are both happy to connect with you on LinkedIn. Also, Christiane has a special format which helps executives and leaders to communicate better.
Yes, thank you, Nils. If these insights from the Innovation Leaders Study have sparked ideas or questions, I'd be delighted to explore how strategic communication and C-level positioning can become powerful levers for transformation and visibility. I'd like to invite you to a 30-minute executive impulse session. If you're open to it, I'd be happy to schedule a time for us to dive deeper into your specific challenges and opportunities. Just drop me or Nils a short note directly or via LinkedIn, and we look forward to continuing our conversation with you.
Christiane, I say this is such a big present from you to give this to the audience, the 30-minute executive session. I add something on this. I give us a three-hour visioning and strategy session, which uses trend and the global changes as a basis to build a better innovation strategy. You can also quickly download our study so you have it as a PDF. Thank you very much for the invitation. Enjoy the rest of the Bechtle Competence Days and all the best for your future. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Hello, Nils.
Michael, it was such a great pleasure being here with you.
Thank you very much for the presentation. Very impressive. Great survey. Very interesting. Nils, before you leave, we have one more thing for you. The unscripted things are often the best things.
I'm excited.
You're excited, and for a reason. Are you ready to take our born ready challenge here on stage live?
I'm ready.
You're ready.
I'm ready.
That's wonderful. Here we go. Bring in the buzzer, please. Here is the buzzer. The thing is quite easy, Nils. You push the button when you're ready. It counts for a second, and then you get a surprise question.
Wonderful.
Let's see what the question will be. We are even now curious about your answer. Here we go. Let's see what it brings. Oh, OK. That's a perfect fit.
I know.
That's a perfect fit for you, my friend.
It fits my work.
Yeah, it fits your work. The overrated trend. What we want to learn from you, what we want to know from you is what is, from your perspective, an overrated trend right now?
If you want to learn something, I have to really explain to you that all trends are overrated in the beginning. You know the hype cycle?
Yes.
Actually, all trends are overrated. If we hear about metaverse, wearables, IoT, if you go back in the trend history and edge AI and whatever, all trends in the beginning are overrated in the short term. They are underrated in the long term. We always underestimate the long-term impact. We overestimate the short-term things.
OK.
This is always important. It's all about timing. When you invest in trends, you should not invest too early where the trend is a hype and say, like four or five years ago, we all go into metaverse now. No. You first observe, and then you do the strategic decision, what you do and how you do, together with the timing. All trends are overrated. I must say at the moment, many companies I work with have an AI tunnel view. You know, when you go on a motorbike, 300 mi per hour, you get the tunnel view. That's what happens. They go faster and faster in AI, and they miss everything what's around them. AI is important, but it's not the only thing.
OK, thank you very much. Great answer.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for that explanation.
You're welcome.
[Foreign language].
Innovation.
Above all, the power to implement innovation is something companies cannot have enough of these days. We talked about AI. We talked about the cloud today, and we'll continue doing so. These are so powerful resources for new thinking, for innovation, and new opportunities in companies. I watched Nils, who easily moved the lever from one innovation to the next seven dimensions, which Nils and Christiane presented to us. Of course, there's also a bit of conflict involved because in many companies, there are massive forces acting against the lever being pulled in the first place. You know about this. This might be bureaucracy, lack of resources, strategic lack of guidance. It's not so easy moving these levers of innovation.
In the next couple of minutes, we can again talk to the two, Christiane and Nils, here on our stage at C- Days in order to once again discuss the question of why innovation succeeds or fails. First of all, hi to both of you, Christiane and Nils. I know you're quite busy these days. Where are you today, by the way?
I just arrived in Cologne at the DMEXCO. Nils is going to join me later. I think he's currently at the airport. Our study, which we just presented to you, will then also be presented here in Cologne on stage. We're looking forward to that and we're happy to have that live chat with you right now.
I'm glad to have you. By the way, the participants here at the C- Days, we also asked them about the obstacles that sometimes prevent innovation and which need to be overcome if you want to be an innovator within the organization. Maybe we can have a look at the results of that survey as well. Christiane, you're also advising companies and organizations where you talk about innovation and opportunities and also sometimes about the obstacles. What's your view on this? Like I do, you see the results of that survey for the first time. What's your spontaneous response?
That's exactly what I also hear when I talk to our clients. Of course, red tape is a massive obstacle and also a lack of vision in politics. These are very important issues. The environment is highly relevant as well.
However, and that's what the seven levers have shown and what's also seen in my advisory business, it's not so much about the technological matters, but it's much more about the mindset, psychological security, which we present as lever number seven. These are the things which are mentioned by the people I talk to. Being certain that you have an environment that allows you to take courageous decisions because we know innovation, creation, and ideas do not work in a space of fear. We need a sense of security and leaders that provide you that level of safety and security through their openness, their communication, and through their tolerance to failures. The external factors are highly relevant and important. Actually, it all starts with the mindset, with psychological security, and also starts with an openness to errors and failures.
Thanks, Christiane, for these insights and your comments of these first results. Nils, welcome to you as well, first of all. Good morning. [Foreign language] . Great to have you again.
[Foreign language].
Now, in our discussions with companies, we also see that the lack of skilled labor is a very pressing one. Many companies, which are struggling, often refer to that lack of skilled labor. In your study, you also stated very clearly that establishing AI in a corporate strategy is highly relevant. If that succeeds, if that happens, how will this impact the discussion about the lack of skilled labor in your view? Let me ask it by way of a provocative question. That pretext of a lack of skilled labor, will that still apply in three to five years if AI is so omnipresent?
Michael, that's no longer accepted as an excuse because the question also is, what is a skilled worker? Highly specialized experts, we will need many more of them. There's a current study of us, which we presented at the World Economic Forum, + 7% growth. This is the area where we need real experts, and they will become more and more important. What's also getting more and more important are core human skills: emotions, relationship, creativity, everything that makes a human a human. In the age of artificial intelligence, it's about being more human. It's about being a real special expert and having a strong focus on the core human characteristics. The problems will rather rise at the job entry level. It's the assistants, the junior staff, those who take on their first jobs. Here we must make sure that we allow them to leap forward onto an AI-augmented level. Specialists, and that for me is skilled labor, we'll need more of them.
With your study and your advisory business, you also encounter many companies. Do you see any role models or good examples there on how this AI-specific upskilling can be implemented also in the context of an increasing need of innovation? Do you have any role models which you can cite, best practices?
There are companies where everything is AI-native and every employee is AI-ready. On top of that, they've got an AI strategy, which we call the AI master plan, where the top management jointly defines the areas of focus, the roadmap, clarity across the company, which matters they will invest in, in what sequence. The superpower of all employees, there are great examples. Gebrüder Daufner is one example, which really has achieved positive results, motivating the entire team. There are many other good examples as well.
Otto is another good example. We also conducted interviews with Frederic Fischer from Otto during our study. If you really watch closely what's happening at Otto, they're doing a lot. They have become a real pioneer in terms of AI. What I think is most exciting, they have created a community in the Hamburg area, inviting many other companies to participate and to drive AI forward jointly. I think that is also a great example, once again, here to build up a broad-based community across the entire industry.
Thank you very much, Christiane and Nils, for your insights on the results of our ad hoc survey, which once again highlights what you also described in your study. Once again, thank you for having joined us and having shared the study with us. Yes, our participants can also download the study.
This is an invitation to everybody to have a close look at that study because it includes a lot of great advice and ideas how innovation can succeed. Thank you to the two of you. I hope you'll have a great day wherever you are in Cologne and on the next stage. Thank you for having joined us live this morning again.
Thanks, Michael. Have fun. Thank you and enjoy the C- Days. Bye-bye. Have a good time.
Here at C-Days, we continue with the four next sessions in one go, so to speak. We'll have two executive interviews in the next block, first with Dirk Müller-Niessner and Konstantin Ebert. Good opportunity to share the vision we have together. A topic that I'm interested in is the international reality we have when you work with Bechtle. We have our leadership team from Bechtle International next. We'll talk about these aspects. A very European approach is our road trip, Apple at Work. That's the name here. Our Apple partner takes us on a European trip to see how Apple can be used. Finally, I've mentioned it before, another executive interview with Stephanie Dismore from AMD. We'll talk about the strategic relevance of production. Four sessions in one go. We start right away.
Ladies and gentlemen, now it's time for another executive interview here on our C- Days stage. To me, and I assume to you as well, each and every executive interview we are doing here is special. Isn't it unique, the opportunity to come here to one place, spending a few hours with us, and then, you know, listen and learn to the best tech companies in the world, to the leaders of these companies, the most ambitious, the most innovative, the most influential? From time to time, there even comes an executive interview our way here on that stage that stands out. This applies for the next one for a simple reason, because it brings a leader to that stage and a company and a brand that have not been here before.
We are very proud and delighted to welcome here on the C- Days stage for the first time Lenovo, and representing Lenovo here today, Mr. Matt Dobrodziej. Matt, come to us, please.
Hey, thank you, Michael.
Hey, good to see you.
Good to see you. How are you?
Wonderful.
Thank you.
It's great that we're having you for the first time. We are really delighted, Matt. You know, I've seen some of the figures quite recently of your last fiscal year, and I was quite impressed. First of all, 20% revenue growth is a strong number, isn't it? What impressed me even more, to be honest, is that 40% of your revenue is coming from non-PC business. That surprised me substantially. What are you doing?
Thank you, Michael, and thank you to the entire Bechtle team for having Lenovo and myself here on stage. Thank you for the compliments about the business. We can't deliver results like this without partners like Bechtle, who frankly enables our journey and the progress that we've been making in the EMEA region and worldwide. Your comment about our non-PC business, many of you know Lenovo as the number one PC company in the world. We're number one in four out of five regions. We're number one here in EMEA. As you mentioned, we are growing our business outside of just PCs. We have products from the pocket to the cloud. Whether it's mobile phones, whether it's tablets, whether it's our infrastructure business, our services, and solutions, we see this growing rapidly. We look forward to the opportunities that this brings with Bechtle. Thank you for that call out. We're super excited about it.
We are certainly talking about many of the things that you have mentioned now. AI is coming our way. Certainly, you know, we are talking about edge. I think you're very strong in edge solutions as well. Cloud and multi-cloud is a strong topic for us. We will touch upon many other things that drive your business and our business together. Ladies and gentlemen, like in each and every of our executive interviews here, our partner is not alone, just with me. We are always having a Bechtle leader accompanying our guests here. This time, I'm very happy and delighted to welcome again here on our stage our Chief Operating Officer at Bechtle, Mr. Konstantin Ebert. Konstantin, come to us as well, please.
Thank you. Thank you, Michael. Thanks, Matt. Thanks, Michael. Thanks for having us.
Thank you.
Wonderful being here.
Konstantin, you're not only the COO and, you know, having oversight about the partnership with Lenovo, you're also the co-host here to the C-Days again. Basically, this is your living room. Do you like it?
It's a beautiful living room. I really love it. I think it's a very valuable event where we really want to bring a lot of value to our customers, showing great solutions and building a lot of content around it. It's great to have you here as a very, very key part around that. Thanks, Matt.
It's wonderful to be here, Konstantin. Thank you for inviting me on stage. I'm looking forward to the discussion.
Absolutely. Let's kick in, gentlemen. You own this partnership. You run this partnership. You drive it forward. Let's jump right in and start with the one thing that is so exciting these days. Obviously, it's about AI. Matt, let me ask you first. We're talking so much and we are seeing so much about the rapid advancement of AI and how this is reshaping the strategies at our customers, at the workplace, in the data center. Now it's a good time to modernize here. What is your take on that from the Lenovo perspective?
Michael, you're right. The AI moment in front of us is unlike any other technology event that our customers have encountered since the days of going mobile. For us, it's an incredible opportunity, and there's a couple of reasons. First and foremost, for users, this is an opportunity to dramatically improve productivity and improve collaboration. It also isn't just about end-user devices. It's changing completely how employees work and how our infrastructure is designed. It's a unique opportunity to modernize the IT infrastructure for our customers completely from the cloud to the edge. We can't do this alone. This is an opportunity for us in partnership with Bechtle to leverage our mutual capabilities to make these opportunities real for our customers. Our customers are very focused on driving higher capability in compute performance.
They're interested in power consumption, specifically being able to deliver this compute performance without having these huge power draws. At the same time, they want the solutions to be scalable because with AI as a workload, it's not the same type of automation that they're used to. It's an automation that could be very bursty, and it's something that requires a lot of services and tuning to really see the value of it. The good news is our customers are now going from what was a POC stage to now really making it real and monetizing these AI use cases. It is a great time for all of us to work together, not just to capture the business opportunity, but also to work together to make new capabilities for our customers and new innovations that I know many of us are working on already today. The AI moment is real, and it's very exciting to be part of it together.
It's a way for many of our customers to achieve a certain level of uniqueness in their markets. What makes Lenovo unique in this space?
Yeah, so first off is the portfolio. We have a portfolio that starts from phones, goes to tablets, goes to PCs, goes to storage, goes to data center servers. That gives us a very unique opportunity with customers to be able to consult and offer solutions that meet all of their IT transformation and modernization needs. This is a very unique place to be. Second of all, we lead with innovation, whether it's liquid cooling technologies to be able to improve the infrastructure power performance, whether it's on-device security that we've invested in, or if it's our ability to build globally, but to produce locally to support our customers' need for sovereignty, security, and privacy in AI. This is something that Lenovo is very proud of.
Actually, here in EMEA, we have a factory in Hungary where we ship all of our EMEA data centers from, and we ship a large portion of our desktop business as well. For us, it's really about the portfolio. It's about leading with innovation. More importantly, it's about having the global scale to meet the needs of our customers, but to be able to do so in a local way that is really bespoke and catered to the needs of each individual market.
What you're saying is very impressive. To be honest, we have to step into the perspective of our customers. The landscape for our customers is changing so fast right now, faster than ever before. AI is only one of the driving forces behind that. You mentioned other forces that are also very powerful. If we look at things like global trades, trade taxes, and the growing needs of customers for transparency and sovereignty, you mentioned that. How do you fulfill the customer expectations in these fields?
That's a great question. It starts with agility and flexibility for our customers. Lenovo is celebrating 20 years as a global company after the acquisition of IBM's PC business. We've been able to leverage that global strength and build over 30 different R&D manufacturing sites around the world. What that does is it gives us the flexibility to weather the changes in the geopolitical landscape, whether they're based on tariffs or other rules, better than any other company. You can see this in our ability to execute when every single crisis in the world has happened. Lenovo has found a way to manage around it. We've been recognized for it. Most recently, we've been awarded the number 8 position in Gartner's supply chain survey. This is two spots of an increase from our previous year.
More importantly than just agility and having a strong supply chain, it's also our partnership with Bechtle because we pride ourselves in being a channel-first company. As much as our competition may be very much focused on their direct business, we believe that the best way to meet the needs of our customers is with partners like Bechtle that has the global scale and the ability to meet the needs of our customers in the most profound ways. To us, between our manufacturing investments, our ability to leverage our global footprint, and leveraging our partnership together, we can meet the needs of our customers unlike any other technology provider. It motivates me and excites me every single day.
Konstantin, you know, Matt mentioned the supply chain competencies that Lenovo brings. Your take on that?
Absolutely. We're basically fitting into that in a perfect way. We have our own European distributed logistics centers. We can do a lot around all the additional work around the workplace, asset tagging, whatever it takes, imaging, and so on. We can also stock and distribute to our customers whenever they need it on that last mile. The most important thing is we're so close connected that we are really working together on the right predictions, on the right assumptions to also help Lenovo fulfilling that great capacity and really work hand in hand there.
Yeah, you know, listening to you, my feeling is you are bringing a very consistent and strong joint message across here. That message is about why the time to invest is now in infrastructure modernization at the workplace, in the data center, and in between, and everywhere around. Why is this time now, despite all the turbulence?
AI is ultimately a process optimization exercise. Even for companies that maybe have financial challenges that can't make the investments that they need to to fully modernize their IT infrastructure, we have to recognize that the light or the goal at the end of the process is to disrupt and dramatically change their business outcomes. Whether it's reducing costs or improving productivity, this modernization will deliver better financial outcomes for our customers. Even if it's not the right time financially for them, that's where we fit in. We can find new ways to bring business to them, whether it's leveraging OpEx models with as a service that used to be CapEx models, or leveraging new services and supports to be able to bridge some of the needs that the customers might have individually. We have new ways to actually be able to drive some of these capabilities on demand.
We have a product offering called TruScale, which ultimately lets our customers purchase their compute needs as they need it, as opposed to making a big investment upfront and not knowing if they're going to need it or not. That, on top of the fact that we have modular solutions, so customers can add these capabilities as they go, really gives the agility and flexibility to all customers to leverage this moment now. You're absolutely right. The time is now because I think this disruption is going to dramatically change the landscape of which companies are successful today versus tomorrow. That's something that I think all of us should bring to our discussions with our customers together.
OK. Your take on that?
Yeah, I think the later you start, the more you miss. We are living in such a fast developing world around technology, and it's amazing how that is progressing. I think you need to start embarking on that journey. We have everything that it takes to support our customers and guide them through that and start somewhere. Waiting for the next best moment, you're missing a lot of great moments. In that way, we have a lot of portfolio, a lot of solutions, support from what you mentioned, financing, technology, consumption models, and so on. I think it's important to get started and then take it from there. I know that many customers have a lot of issues nowadays with energy costs and whatsoever. Markets are tough right now. There are a lot of technologies also where just refreshing technology saves you more energy than the investment cost sometimes.
There's a lot of opportunity, actually, around that fast development that we should altogether not miss.
That's a great point.
Absolutely. Gentlemen, we are even coming to an end here with our conversation. We started with the partnership, and we are certainly circling back to the partnership now. You know, having both of you here, it is a special moment because Lenovo is here on the stage for the first time. Konstantin, what is your personal and professional feeling about this partnership and meaning of that?
Matt is looking anxiously at me. I can only say the best. It's a great partnership. We're really partnering on eye level since many, many years. We have great relationships through all levels, super fast access on both sides when we need something, when we need to fix something. What I specifically love is we used the time today and we met earlier. When we're sitting together, we're actually talking not about our partnership, but we're talking about what are we hearing from the customers, what do they need, what are their issues, and what are our ideas to support them and enable them in getting better in their business every day. I love that about the partnership. It's great.
Thank you very much, Kons.
Thanks, Matt.
Thank you for those words. I feel the same way. Bechtle is one of our largest partners worldwide for Lenovo. For us, this is a strategic relationship. In any partnership, it's about value alignment. What really inspires me about our partnership is that we share the same values when it comes to customer centricity. You see that in the way that our sales team works together. They focus on the same customers together. They look at the same pipeline together. They're ultimately focused on making the customers successful. With that kind of alignment, you don't have the type of churn that a lot of other businesses do because you're going in there together and you're trying to make the customer's needs met as your first priority.
Outside of AI, there are also so many other opportunities that our teams are going to be working on across not only AI, but security, solutions, and services. These are all new opportunities to expand our business together. With a partnership like Bechtle, I continue to believe that our best years are in front of us. I really want to just thank you and the entire team for your openness, your partnership, your transparency. I believe that the partnership with Bechtle is one of the strongest ones we have across the world and definitely in EMEA. Thank you very much, Konstantin, for having us here. It's been a pleasure talking to you on stage.
Thanks a lot, Matt. Thank you for joining us. It was a pleasure having you here.
Thank you so much for the partnership.
Thank you. Great conversation. Thank you, Konstantin. We'll meet Konstantin later. Before you leave, Matt, we have one more thing to do with you here on stage. This is our born ready challenge. This challenge is quite easy. You know that. Here is the buzzer. Thank you very much. Here's the buzzer. Once I say, push it, you push it. The machine delivers a question, a surprise question to you that you will answer to all of us. We will learn something about you that eventually we don't know yet. Push a button.
I was worried we were going to fall through the floor or something.
There is no cold water coming from top or something like that. It's just a bit. Oh, it's not on LinkedIn. The question is not on LinkedIn. That means you have to tell us something about you that we can't find out about you on your LinkedIn profile.
OK. I consider myself a little bit of a tech nerd. I think to be in this business, to have passion about the technology that we sell every single day, you really have to be a nerd at heart. Although I'm not an engineer, I like to tell people I play one on TV because I consider myself pretty technical. I love doing pretty nerdy things. I'm a Python coder. I do a lot of build-your-own-PC work with our great devices and try to upgrade them. I just love the technology. As much as my LinkedIn might be very much focused on sales, marketing, finance, I really am an engineer at heart that loves this technology. It just makes me excited every day about the things we do. That's what's not on LinkedIn.
Great. Thank you very much for sharing that with us. Matt here on our stage. Thank you very much for taking the challenge. A great business leader and a tech nerd. Thank you very much. Matt Dobrodziej, thank you very much for being here.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Michael, for introducing me.
Wonderful. Thank you. C-Days, ladies and gentlemen, is as international as Bechtle is today. Fourteen countries, hundreds and thousands of global and international customers, a truly global network of partners, and that impresses me the most, 40% of Bechtle's business today is international business. It's always a great pleasure to welcome Konstantin Ebert here on stage. Konstantin leads us internationally. Welcome, Konstantin. Come to me, please.
Thank you, Michael. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm truly excited, especially as I learned we have later a customer with us from my beautiful hometown, Heidelberg. I'm very excited to be here.
This is wonderful. Yes, you're right. We'll have Heidelberg Materials later on in the session with us here. Before, I would like to talk with you for a short moment about the challenges that come with this very fast and very dynamic international growth of Bechtle. You're acquiring companies, integrating companies and teams and organizations. How do you do it? What is your guiding principle?
First of all, we've always been very international for many, many years at Bechtle. What we have accelerated over the last few years is that we're adding more companies to our portfolio. Also, in our own companies, we're developing more and more a service and system integration business to better serve our customers across our 14 markets and beyond. That is the big change. As mentioned, we do this also through acquisitions, which of course brings some challenges. The key thing is we're always acquiring companies that fit very well to our culture, that are very well-run companies with great leadership as well as employee teams. We are ensuring that whatever service portfolio they offer, we are connecting these dots across our 14 countries and beyond to make sure that we can very fast react to our customers' demands.
Wonderful. I can tell you that we'll have a significant number of these international companies also as part of our program here. Konstantin, for the moment, thank you. Wouldn't it make sense to dive a little deeper into how we do it?
Yes, that's a great idea, Michael. Let's go.
Let's go. Thank you. See you in a second. Here we go. Bechtle's global capability consists of fully owned organizations across Europe as well as global partnerships. I'm glad to meet now Diana Langer.
Thanks a lot, Michael, for having me. Pleasure being here on stage today with you.
It's wonderful to have you, Diana. To all of you, Diana is a true leader and driving force behind our global expansion. Diana, let us talk about a little bit how do you and your team really make happen what Konstantin outlined?
How do we make it happen? First, it's all about customer proximity. As you've already mentioned, we are present in 14 countries with more than 140 locations. Most likely, we are already super close to our customers. With that, we have in all the locations well-trained account managers and sales teams who know exactly what customer needs. Those sales teams do not stand alone. They are embedded in a huge community. We have communities around technology pillars such as security, modern workplace, as well as processes and everything an international customer needs. This is how we try to fulfill in the best manner what an international customer needs and also what brings our international entities further.
Thank you, Diana. Let me deep dive into one thing you've mentioned. My question to you is, how does Bechtle, together with all these partners, ensure truly consistent service quality and unified standards for customers across all these different markets, regions, and industries given the variety of conditions and environments they are all in?
That's a good question. First of all, it's all driven by the customer needs. We just turn it around. There are customers who just have the need, a Spanish customer, to have somebody in Spain who does exactly the same. We have a network in place to make sure that the customer creates exactly the same, let's say, feeling in Spain that it was in France. There are as well other customer situations. There is as well a customer demand for having completely centrally steered processes. For that, we have high professional central teams or centrally orchestrated to make it happen that there is for the customer a seamless experience all over Europe and even all over the world if needed.
Apart from our 14 countries we are in, we have a professional and a really good partner network to make sure that we can also deliver in more than 150 countries with more than 300 partners. Sometimes the solution can be also super easy, or it sounds at least super easy, that it's just an export, but maybe an export into a tricky country, in a very exotic country. For that, we also have a team in the background who knows the ins and outs of all those deliveries and what's needed and what kind of papers are in place to create the customer the feeling he needs to get the goods he needs at a certain time. This is how we fulfill everything the customer needs.
Sounds like a very comprehensive and smart approach, certainly. You do it every day with the team, so it obviously works. Ultimately, it is important that our customers themselves experience this as well-aligned and very collaborative. What are your experiences in this respect?
I have experience about it. Maybe let some facts and some customers speak. For that, I have my colleague Benedikt with me on stage who can present it in a much better way and with more facts than I have.
OK, Diana, let the facts speak. I move on to meet Benedikt. We meet again later here. Thank you.
Awesome. Thanks a lot.
Hello, Benedikt. Wonderful. Great to meet you here.
Hey, Michael. Thanks for having me. It's a great pleasure for me to be here and to put some meat to the bone that Diana and Konstantin have outlined by talking through and via a concrete customer and the current customer situation we have.
Wonderful. Let's do exactly that. Benedikt, talk us through.
Wonderful. Thanks, Michael. What do we talk about? We talk about one of our global customers with typical requirements, 3,000 locations in more than 50 countries globally, 50,000 employees, and the revenue of EUR 24 billion in 2024. That's a real and a true global player. What are requirements of these kinds of customers? A typical requirement is a global solution, a pre-configured out-of-the-box solution that can be installed also in locations where there's no IT staff. Obviously, one of the drivers is always cost reduction. What does the Bechtle solution look like? There are four components. First component is a single point of contact, one point of contact for the customer to talk about anything that is happening and be the prime contact to solve it with the team.
Secondly, we have an integrated solution integrated into the customer procurement tools with a standardized hardware tool that is being defined and a standardized hardware configuration that can be ordered by authorized users. That also allows reporting. Thirdly, it's an end-to-end solution, starting with the order, installation, and deployment services, but also decommissioning at the end of the lifecycle. Last but not least, and even more important these days, it's about flexibility and a hybrid approach. Jointly with the customer, we talked about an approach to either export the goods and services centrally, to have a local-to-local approach, or to utilize one of our Bechtle countries. Given the current situations, for example, with changing tariffs, one of the core elements is also the flexibility to switch from a local-to-local solution into an export solution or vice versa.
This kind of flexibility is what we have provided for our customer, Heidelberg Materials. What is much more important and more powerful than a customer talking us through himself? For that reason, I'm very impressed and very happy that Christian Klaucke, who's the Vice President of Technology and Chief Technology Officer for IT from Heidelberg Materials, is now with us.
Hi, Christian. That is wonderful. Thank you very much. Welcome here to our stage at C-Days. Great to have you.
Thank you, Benedikt. Thank you, Michael. Thanks for having me here. Pleasure.
Thank you. Christian, tell us a little bit about Heidelberg Materials, your role, and the challenges you're facing as a leader to this truly global organization.
Yes, absolutely. We're one of the very few vertically integrated businesses. We have our own forests, right? The stones go into the cement plants, and we also have the ready-mix plants in the end. Being present in 60 countries is quite a unique constellation, also in countries where it's typically a bit harder to reach them, like in the African markets. Our journey is always a little bit complicated when we talk about the IT/OT conversions on the plants, bringing standardized equipment and hardware. This is where we found a very strong partner with Bechtle.
Wonderful. You mentioned it. May I ask you to elaborate a little bit more about the reasons why you have chosen Bechtle to do this business with you?
Yes. Kind of when you look into the world and the kind of increase of cyber attacks, right, we found ourselves in the situation where we needed to accelerate our journey to standardize the IT hardware on the different plants. We're talking about 150 cement plants and then eventually also 600 quarries and about 2,000 ready-mix locations. We are now starting with the cement plants to bring in standardized infrastructure that we then can also centrally operate instead of letting this kind of being done in a decentral fashion by the process engineers and automation engineers on the plant because their IT is only their hobby. Their job is kind of driving the plant. We want to have the people kind of in our central infrastructure locations to run those IT things.
We were looking for a partner who was able to bring standardized, well-packaged, well-provisioned, configured IT infrastructure packages into various also rural locations. We are now just not kind of in the beginning of the journey. We are somewhere mid-in. We deployed this to somewhere around 20 plants globally. You guys helped us significantly in bringing those packages through the customs, right? It's also not so easy, that process. Without Bechtle, I think we would not have kind of that internal capability. We have no clue how to kind of have that standardized infrastructure being deployed globally at that scale. We wanted to have one phase into your organization. We are kind of consulted very well, also your guys, anecdotally speaking. We were lacking a piece of hardware for the first deployment.
Then kind of your account executive kind of traveled with us to Anuga in Spain and had the equipment that we needed with him. We did the rack and stack and then kind of went according to plan live with the plant. I see a lot of passion when we work with you and a strong commitment. You're a true global vendor next to our side.
Thank you, Christian, for these words and for this explanation of the scope and your expectation and the scope of the service. Should we talk with Christian about the benefits for his organization?
Exactly. I think that's an excellent point, Michael. Christian, what's your view on the benefits? What are the key benefits for Heidelberg Materials in this journey? What do you expect for the future?
Yeah. To me, I'm getting a lot of speed out of the collaboration, right? You're spot on. You are extremely reliable, right? You hold your commitments. We are a very lean business as Heidelberg Materials. We are not gaining anything if we do something in just one kind of our locations. The main benefit is that I can do projects of different natures, be it hardware, be it data center migrations, be new co-locations. I get here a partner that can truly operate with us on a global scale in a very professional manner and can then also bring together kind of the horsepower onto the street, if you would say in German.
Yeah. Horsepower is a language, so to say, I think. It's understood globally as well. Thank you very much, Christian, for these very kind words about the collaboration. I'm sure, Benedikt, you and your team, you'll love to hear that.
Oh, absolutely. I mean, this opens up my heart. It's such an impressive story. Christian, thank you so much for sharing. It's really amazing to see how well our global services are being perceived from customers like Heidelberg Materials.
OK. What are your plans for the future?
I mean, Chris, I talked about it. We started with 20 plants. There are 3,000 locations globally. There are many more to come. It is really an expansion and adding more value for Heidelberg Materials at the end of the day.
Wonderful. Thank you very much. At that point, I would like to thank you, Christian, for taking the time to join the session here, for your kind words. I wish you all the best for your joint journey. I think you're on a great journey. You've started it. You kicked it off. Much more to come. We will stay tuned here at C- Days and learn more about it in the future. Thank you very much, Christian, for joining for the moment. Thank you.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. Pleasure being here. Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are coming to the end of the session now. I'm very delighted to welcome here on stage again Diana Langer and Konstantin Ebert.
Hello.
Hey. Wonderful. Great to see you again. Great session, by the way. Great session. Now it's time for you as a team to get one final message across to our international audience. Konstantin, what's your final message?
I hope we were able to demonstrate how capable we are in our international scope of our business and supporting our customers in their projects roll out in Europe and beyond, ultimately also demonstrated by our customer voice. I'm looking forward to you challenging us.
Diana?
It's about customer proximity. Act local, but think global.
Let me add to this. Put yourself into the shoes of the customer. Put the customer first. It's about customer centricity that really makes a relationship with the customer a success.
Wonderful. I love it. Customer first. No better way to finalize this session. Thank you very much to all of us. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next session brings together the main challenges that each company and organization seeks to master. How do you provide technology that is best for your users and at the same time easy to deploy, secure, and well manageable by your IT department? In this way, deliver outcomes that are best for your business. I'm delighted and a little proud to, for the first time here at C-Days, say hello to Apple. In the next minutes, we'll share some oversight as well as hear from our partners and customers in Germany, in Italy, in Spain how they do it together with experts from Bechtle companies across these markets. This is our virtual road trip about Apple at Work. To kick it off, here is Jason Langridge. Jason is Apple's Enterprise Director for Channels, C2C, and SMB here in the EMEIA region.
Jason, it's a particular pleasure to welcome partners here for the first time. Best for employees, best for IT, best for the outcomes for the business. That sounds good to me. What does it mean to customers and users alike? How does Apple at Work address this? Jason, over to you.
Thanks, Michael. Let's talk about Apple at Work. We see Apple products being used around the world by businesses of all sizes and across industries. iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch are being put to use by our customers in more ways than we ever imagined. These are just a few of them. What is it that makes Apple products such a great choice for business? It's because we're focused on making our products best for users so everyone is fully enabled to do great work. We've also made our products best for IT with features and tools that make them easy to deploy and manage at any scale. Together, this adds up to a complete end-to-end platform that's best for business. Let's start with users and take a look at how Apple devices are built for people.
Apple is always focused on creating products that enrich our users' lives, implementing technology in the right way, and taking into account what it can do for a user. This is especially important at work, where the device your employee uses is a critical part of their connection to colleagues and customers, as well as the business workflows they're a part of. Delivering the right experience makes all the difference. For many years, Apple products have been setting the bar on user experience. Today, employees want that same consumer-like experience at work that they have in their personal lives. We know that user experience really matters.
The impact that can have on a business is highlighted in this study from IDC, which found that 85% of IT and line of business leaders agreed that improving employee experience and engagement translates to a better customer experience, higher customer satisfaction, and higher revenue for their organization. We take a unique approach in creating the best user experience through deep integration of hardware, software, and services. To do this, our engineers work in lockstep throughout the design and development process to make sure the experience is engaging and enjoyable, with features and functions that are intuitive to use from the moment you pick up your device. Using Apple Pencil on iPad is a great example, with an experience that feels as natural and responsive as using a pencil on paper. That same approach means we can make products that are highly optimized.
By engineering right down to the silicon, we've been able to deliver high performance at the same time as outstanding power efficiency, up to 24 hours on MacBook Pro 14 in (M4) and up to 33 hours on iPhone 16 Pro Max, enough to power you through your working day and beyond. Another reason why iPhone, iPad, and Mac are great for users is that they share many of the same features, as well as a familiarity that means users can get going fast with the things they need to do. Apple devices work seamlessly together too. You can start an email on your iPhone and finish it on your Mac, or start a presentation on your Mac and continue it on your iPad. You can take your work with you anywhere.
iPhone, iPad, and Mac come with apps to help you be more productive, creative, and to keep in touch, all built in, fully functional, and without needing to purchase additional software. You can also get Microsoft 365 apps, giving you a great experience across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Microsoft releases new features for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote at the same time across all platforms. They work with all your existing Microsoft Office documents. Head to the App Store to discover apps for many of the enterprise systems you already use and hundreds of thousands more. Beyond the App Store is our developer environment, powerful tools and frameworks that let you tap into your imagination and create custom apps that are unique to your business, built using a single code base, and taking advantage of the native functionality of iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch.
Apple products and services are built to empower everyone. Vision, mobility, hearing, and cognitive features are built in. That gives everyone access to great tools because when everyone can innovate in the ways that work best for them, people and businesses are at their very best. We focus on the user in all these ways because we fundamentally believe that people do their best work when they have the best tools. The organizational benefits can really add up when employees have the best tools, resulting in employees who are more productive and innovative, a workforce that's motivated and engaged, and in an organization that can attract and retain the best talent in market. As well as focusing on end users, we know that it's equally important to make our products easy to deploy and manage in an enterprise at any scale.
For more than a decade, we've been building support for businesses into our products, adding hundreds of advanced features over that time. We have an ongoing investment and commitment to enterprise with every new software release. Apple devices have advanced security built in right from the silicon up. There are no add-ons and no additional purchases to make. Many of the features are already on by default. It's also done without any impact to the user experience. It never gets in the way of productivity. It's also commonplace now for employees to use their devices at home and at work. The features we've built into our products separate and protect both personal and corporate information on the same device, whilst respecting, of course, user privacy. Apple products also integrate seamlessly with key enterprise services and infrastructure, including wireless networks, directory services, and VPN solutions.
Much of this support is built in. IT teams need to configure only a few settings to add Apple devices. Employees are increasingly mobile and often working remotely. We've made deploying devices easy too. Whether it's 10 or 10,000, you can deploy Mac, iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, and Apple TV anywhere, direct from your partner to your employees. With zero-touch deployment, devices are automatically enrolled into your mobile device management system out of the box and are ready to use straight away. Settings are securely applied over the air to give access to corporate services. Apps can be loaded silently based on the user profile, all without any manual configuration. In addition to powerful tools and features for IT, we also bring a full set of services. Apple Professional Services help you integrate Apple products into your business.
Apple Financial Services lets you take advantage of the high residual value of Apple products to reduce your costs. Apple Care for Enterprise brings you enterprise-level support from the people who know Apple products best. Another important area of our focus is around developing skills and talents in the market with the Apple IT Professional Training and Certification Program. As well as the benefits for users and for IT, we've also taken care to ensure that our products are a smart investment for business. Apple products are built with high-quality materials and designed with the goal of making long-lasting products that you can rely on. They also benefit from regular, free system software updates. Together, that means that Apple devices hold onto their value for longer. You can benefit from the high trade-in values when you do come to upgrade.
Thanks to the durability of Apple products, it's common for them to be reused, extending the lifecycle even further. Here's an example of the high residual value of iPhone, which retains at least 40% more of its value compared to Android smartphones, measured across a variety of trading platforms. There can also be a cost advantage to Mac over its lifecycle, shown in this TEI study by Forrester Consulting, commissioned by Apple. The study found that Mac costs $547 less than PC on a per-device basis when considering hardware, software, support, and operational costs based on a four-year refresh cycle. An important part of any investment is sustainability. Here, Apple has made advancements that help reduce your overall energy use on Mac. All eligible Apple products continue to receive an Energy Star rating for superior energy efficiency. Since 2008, we've reduced average product energy use by more than 70%.
These energy savings quickly add up, with the potential to make a significant contribution to reducing your carbon footprint. Here you can see how MacBook Pro 14 with M4 stacks up against the competition today. We aim to make our products using only renewable sources or recycled materials. We prioritize, responsibly source, and recover materials. Today, we use 100% recycled aluminum in the enclosures and cases of all these Apple products. We also have an ambitious goal to make all our products carbon neutral by 2030 across our entire supply chain and the lifetime energy use of our customers' devices. As our first carbon neutral product, Apple Watch marks a milestone in this plan. For more information, as well as environmental scorecards for all our products, go to apple.com/2030.
In summary, Apple products are part of a complete end-to-end platform that's best for users, best for IT too, and in short, best for business. That's Apple- at- Work. Michael, back to you.
Thank you, Jason. That was inspiring. Let us now have a look at some real-world examples from our customers across Europe. These include a critical infrastructure company, organizations that have been recognized as outstanding employers year after year, a retailer, and a health care service provider. We start our road trip in the as magnificent, as busy city of Zaragoza in Spain. I'm delighted to introduce to you now, joining us from Zaragoza, Mr. Rafa Cayuelas from our Bechtle company and solution provider iDoo. Welcome, Rafa.
Hi, Michael. Thanks for having me on the stage. It's a big pleasure to be here.
It's great to have you, Rafa. Tell us about iDoo. What do you do in Spain?
iDoo is an Apple authorized enterprise reseller. We have a team with more than 25 years of experience in the Apple ecosystem. Since February 2024, we've been part of the Bechtle family and are responsible for developing Apple business in Spain. It has been a very positive surprise to see how Bechtle is placing the focus on Apple business. We are very happy to contribute with our expertise and our tools, always focused on integrating Apple devices into the enterprise environments.
Great, Rafa. It's good to have you on stage and certainly good to have you to the family. Rafa, the notion of IT being a true driver for employee satisfaction and productivity alike is a big promise. Can you share an example with us on this from your customer base?
Yes, totally agree with you, Michael. As stated, Apple is best for IT, best for business, and of course, best for users. We have seen that Apple technology can improve productivity, creativity, and user satisfaction. Our mission is to help users to get the most out of this potential. First of all, we provide the support and services to get the most out of the Apple ecosystem. We provide training and familiarization. We have developed educational contents with special attention to switchers and developers. All of these educational materials are available in multiple languages, can be personalized with customers' branding, and can be available in all of our countries. By the way, we have a couple of examples to illustrate how we help users.
OK, Rafa, let's not waste time. Tell us about it, please.
On one hand, we work with Leroy Merlin in Spain. Leroy Merlin is a well-known French company. In Spain, they have launched a device employee choice program. We deploy Apple devices with customized content to improve the Mac adoption process with video courses and video pills like this one.
Let's see how we can customize the right-click on our Mac. For this, we need to go to the system settings. Once we are in system settings, we are going to scroll until we find an option called Trackpad or Mouse. In this case, we have Trackpad because I don't have a mouse connected to my Mac at the moment. If you have a mouse, you will also see the option Mouse. You only need to go to the same menu that I'm going now. We are going to choose the option called Secondary Click. Here, we have the different options that we can use in order to activate this right-click on our Mac. In my case, I have the click or tap with two fingers. This is how easy and simple it is to customize right-click on your Mac.
On the other hand, we have Sanitas, a company from the Bupa Group and the largest private health insurer in Spain. With more than 12,000 employees, they are offering a device employee choice program that we support through educational content, video courses, tips and tricks, and manuals. Let's take a look at one of these resources. This is a customized manual with an explanation of the features and a link to enjoy each of them in video format. These are only a couple of examples, but we have hundreds of contents in multiple languages that can be personalized with the company's branding. This is the way we help our sponsors, the leaders of the Mac adoptions. If any person in the audience, these contents are available for you.
Wonderful, Rafa. Thank you. Great examples. From your perspective, Rafa, what makes the employee choice approach generally so powerful?
If you look at the new generations that are now in the universities or entering the workforce, they really love Apple. This is something that companies see more and more. As they want to attract talent, they are giving the opportunity of choice to the employees. It's our belief that people do their best work when they love the tools they use. I encourage our clients to empower their employees with choice programs and to rely on us to provide the tools to transition smoothly to the Apple platform.
It was a pleasure spending just a few minutes with you and your team, Rafa, in wonderful Zaragoza. Thank you very much for having us today. We have to move on with our road trip. Our next stop on this road trip is Heilbronn in Germany. Here, I meet with Daniel Eiler. Daniel is a Senior Consultant at Bechtle Managed Services. He and his team regularly assist companies with the introduction of Apple solutions. In your opinion, Daniel, what role does Apple play today in the world of work?
Hi, Michael. Apple devices are becoming increasingly important in companies. Many employees now actively want them for their daily work, both for personal productivity and because of the positive user experience. We are seeing that modern working environments are becoming an increasingly important factor in employer attractiveness and employee satisfaction, particularly in tech-savvy and growing organizations. Apple scores highly in such scenarios thanks to its user-friendliness, security, powerful collaboration tools, and innovative features.
Daniel, how do companies typically get started in the Apple world?
It often starts with employees wanting to use company iPhones privately or with iPads being purchased for specific projects. However, the real impetus for more comprehensive Apple integration usually comes from modernization projects or exchange formats such as IT roundtables and network meetings, where the potential of a holistic Apple deployment comes clear.
Daniel, once started, what does a typical implementation process for Mac and Apple at Work look like?
We at Bechtle take a structured approach. Together with the customer, we first analyze the requirements and involve a wide range of departments, from IT security and compliance to end users, for example. We then conduct targeted workshops, for example, on the secure integration of Macs into existing infrastructures or on management solutions. We draw on our proof-of-work IT security standards and help to optimally integrate devices into networks, identity management, and single sign-on.
What advantages do you particularly emphasize?
Apple devices are very easy to set up without any IT staff interaction required. The keyword here is zero-touch deployment. Updates and security requirements can be provided efficiently and flexibly, ensuring that the highest security standards are maintained. Centralized management also works extremely well, even when it comes to remote work. Features such as Handoff and easy integration of communication services further increase satisfaction in everyday use.
OK. Complexity often grows with the number of devices and the size of an organization. What is the best way to roll out Apple devices in larger organizations?
In our experience, the pilot group approach has proven to be successful. We start with selected teams, gather feedback, and ensure that all processes run smoothly. The positive effect is often immediately noticeable. Many new users appreciate the simple setup and low support requirements. After successful pilots, Apple is then gradually introduced as the new standard for new employees. For support, some companies also use additional services such as the great AppleCare for Enterprise, which guarantees fast repair and personal contact persons.
OK. Daniel, as we need to come to an end of the conversation, what recommendations would you give to medium-sized companies that want to modernize their IT and become more attractive to their employees?
In my opinion, open communication with your own employees is crucial. Only those who knew their wishes and needs can successfully shape change. It is worth showing a willingness to innovate, enabling pilot projects, and incorporating concrete practical experience. A reliable IT partner ensures that technical and organizational measures go hand in hand. Investments in modern working environments ultimately pay off in the form of motivation, enhanced security, and better employee branding.
Thank you, Daniel. It was great speaking with you today here as part of our road trip and to learn from all the experience you collected from so many projects that you and your team are conducting with customers in the world of Apple. Thank you, Daniel, for being with us. We have one more step ahead of us. We kicked it off in Spain, and now we are moving to our final destination. This is the wonderful city of Milano in Italy. Here, we meet with Antonio Poloni, the Managing Director for MMN and Bechtle Direct Italy. Welcome to C- Days, Antonio.
Thank you, Michael. MMN was founded 36 years ago in the outskirts of Milan in Italy by a group of IT enthusiasts. That is one of the reasons why at our headquarters, we have an impressive heritage collection, including most of Apple devices, of course. It is open to visitors. Over the first decades, we grew organically in Northern Italy and earned all key Apple qualifications. In 2018, we were proud to be appointed as an Apple authorized enterprise reseller. During the last years, working closely with Apple, we tripled in size by supporting mid and large companies with Apple technology. Joining Bechtle in July 2024 has allowed us to scale internationally and bring our expertise to a broader audience. Today, we are excited to contribute to Bechtle's customer successes.
Wonderful, Antonio. I really think that you joining the Bechtle family really strengthens our muscle in the world of Apple technology massively. It's great to have you. Let's talk about one of your customers, Italgas. Italgas is one of Italy's most critical infrastructure companies. Can you tell us a little bit about them?
Oh, yes. Italgas is Italy's leading gas distributor, serving nearly 13 million clients across Italy and Greece, with significant investments in digital upgrades and energy transition. We became their Apple technology partner by deploying 2,500 iPads for their field workers. This led to a 100% rise in productivity and a 30% reduction in CO2 emissions, according to Italgas, of course. Later, they introduced iPhones, appreciating Apple's seamless device integration. Their CIO, Marco Barra Caracciolo, then explored deploying Macs for over 4,500 office employees.
This is a truly impressive story and development that you are describing, Antonio. How did the IT department at Italgas perceive this change?
Wow. The Mac at Italgas project was transformative for IT. We actually recommended involving other business units as well. They brought in marketing, business, and ESG teams. At one point, the CEO became an active sponsor, deciding everyone should switch to Mac. Considering the company's average employee age of 51, mostly Windows users before, this was a major shift. However, the transition was smooth. Support tickets dropped by 26% within a year. The IT department role shifted to being seen as innovation leaders.
Antonio, how does this fit into the bigger picture with Italgas, but also your other clients?
Apple's platform provides seamless experiences across devices, which we know is something that is relevant across Fortune 500 companies, large enterprises, and SMBs. Apple at Work empowers employees and IT teams, boosting productivity, attracting talent, enhancing security, and reducing costs. Independent Forrester research even shows Macs are more cost-efficient than PCs when considering the total economic impact. Apple devices are more sustainable too. If you are interested in learning how we can assist your company with assessments, proof of concept, delivery, and ongoing support, we invite you to contact your local Bechtle office and let's start the conversation.
Thank you very much, Antonio. What a ride for you, Antonio, and your team, together with Italgas and your other customers. What a ride for us at Bechtle, together with Apple, for so many customers across the continent. It is interesting to see how widespread our competencies are with Apple at Work across the continent. Thank you very much for joining us, to all the Bechtle teams who have contributed to this road trip. For you, ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to find out more, as Antonio said, please visit our digital C- Days platform. We have a lot more information ready here for you for download, so you can learn and explore more about these wonderful opportunities. Thank you very much for traveling with us through Europe. We are moving on with our program here at C- Days.
Trust has always been at the heart of progress. It's how ideas take flight, from test to trying. Trust also asks us to believe in one another. That's why trust has to be earned. It's earned by relentlessly working together to solve the most important challenges and drive results. As we advance into the AI future, trust has to lead the way. Yes, we've built a roadmap we deliver on on time. Yes, we build for the open ecosystem. Yes, we've built the broadest AI portfolio with CPUs, GPUs, and FPGAs. Of all the things we build, trust is the most important.
Wow, ladies and gentlemen. Let us go where the excitement is: breathtaking speed, disruptive advancement, new generations of microprocessors. Here, one can't really see where the boundaries may be. That is why I am so delighted to welcome Stephanie Dismore here at our C-Days stage. Stephanie leads AMD in Europe. We've had the distinct pleasure of talking to AMD executives on that stage in recent years, even including Dr. Lisa Su, AMD's CEO. It's a privilege to continue this conversation today with Stephanie Dismore. Welcome, Stephanie, here at our C-Days stage.
Michael, thank you so much. It's wonderful to be here. I am thrilled and humbled to share some time with all of the Bechtle team. It's a great opportunity. Thank you very much.
You're welcome. Stephanie, let's kick it off with a view on our partnership. The AMD and Bechtle partnership has been growing and winning deals over so many years now. For the last 10 years, AMD has seen massive growth. Can you walk us through some of the key milestones, strategies that contributed to this success?
Absolutely. You are correct. The AMD journey has been just incredible. It has only been possible thanks to our outstanding partnerships with our OEM partners, our channel partners, and alliance partners. First, a sincere thank you to the entire Bechtle team. We deeply value the collaboration and success we've shared over the years. The AMD journey has just been phenomenal. To give you an idea, about 10 years ago, our market capitalization was anywhere between $2 billion or $3 billion. Today, we are running at a $220 billion company. It all started when we introduced Ryzen in 2016 for our notebooks and desktops. From there, we launched EPYC for servers in 2018. We immediately achieved 2% market share worldwide. Today, we are the market leaders in data center servers. We have roughly 35% share, which is roughly a third of the servers worldwide. It does not stop there.
AMD now powers the world's fastest supercomputers. We power five of the top 10. In fact, El Capitan is number one worldwide. Lumi is number one in EMEA. It is an exciting place to be. We have the widest breadth of products, ranging from networking, adaptive computing, FPGAs, GPUs, CPUs, all running at high-performance compute solutions. It is an exciting journey. The pace of change has never been this fast. I'm excited to share a little bit about what we're doing together during this session.
Wonderful. AMD has certainly been busy, Stephanie. Bechtle also values the AMD partnership, and together, we have won some significant opportunities. What's the key to this success?
That's a really good question. It's difficult to highlight just one specific point because it takes the entire partnership between Bechtle and AMD and our OEM partners, all focusing on our customer and really focusing on what solutions and what products we can put together to solve our customers' challenges and our problems. Together, we have done this. We have provided some of the world's leading brands through disruptive computing solutions that have given our competitors a pause as we give competitive advantage. We've won customers together like BMW, Volkswagen, Lufthansa are great examples. We've also had some great success together with local organizations like Dataport and Deutsche Bahn. Together, we have done a lot, and we can do a whole lot more. It's a changing market, and we can absolutely win together.
Wonderful examples, Stephanie. Change, you mentioned it, is obviously a great word. The speed of change we are seeing is surprising. AI certainly dominates many conversations right now. Last year, during C-Days here, we heard about AMD's focus was to be seen as a technology that enables AI. Is it going as you planned in this respect?
That is a great question. I believe AI is the most important technology trend in my career. In fact, in the last 50 years, the advancements over the past 12 months have truly been remarkable, with absolutely new progress every week. We're seeing improvements at all levels: hardware, systems, applications, models. The industry is learning rapidly. Despite significant progress, we're actually still in the early stages of AI adoption. During 2025, we launched our MI350. This is part of our Instinct family of products, which are optimized for AI and HPC. In just one year, we grew our total GPU business from pretty much nothing to over $1 billion. Our GPU and our 350 series is actually one of our fastest ranking products in our history. We continue to move forward. This year, we've announced the MI400.
It will double the compute and memory power, making it ideal for large-scale AI training and inference. We've come a long way. Yet, we still have a long way to go. It is an exciting path for sure.
Stephanie, what is your take on how are AMD's latest AI chips? You mentioned some of the impressive agenda of innovation here. How are AMD's latest AI chips and processes transforming what's possible for our joint customers in AI and in their data centers?
Yeah, you know, I would answer that from a landscape of four different areas. Our latest AI chips and data center processors are truly transforming what's possible for our joint customers. We're looking at unlocking new levels of performance, efficiency, and scalability for AI and high-performance compute workloads. In these four areas, I would like you to think of it as number one, performance, breakthrough performance for AI and HPC. I already mentioned the MI300 series. This delivered significant advancement in data center accelerators. These chips are purpose-built for large-scale AI training, inference, and HPC applications, enabling customers to run massive AI models entirely in memory, reducing latency and improving throughput dramatically. The second area would be the efficient, scalable compute with EPYC. Our EPYC processors deliver leadership performance per watt, allowing data centers to scale sustainability while handling demanding workloads.
With support for PCIe Gen 5 and DDR5, customers benefit from high bandwidth and low latency, which is essential for real-time AI data analytics. The third area, an idea of an open ecosystem and AI software enablement. We firmly believe and are committed to open platforms. This gives developers and enterprises freedom to innovate, to optimize, and deploy AI at scale without vendor lock-ins. Finally, AI everywhere. I mentioned that we have the widest breadth of product. You need to think of it from core to edge, whether it's training foundational models in a hyperscale data center or deploying AI inference at the edge with Ryzen AI-powered PCs. AMD is enabling a full spectrum of AI use cases for our customers.
Thank you, Stephanie, for outlining the four pillars: performance, efficiency, open platforms. May I add one more perspective to that? This is the perspective of digital sovereignty and compliance. These things have become so meaningful for us and our joint customers here in Europe. What is AMD's take on this?
Yes, we absolutely see that digital sovereignty and compliance are absolutely critical topics for AMD. I run EMEA, as I said. You can probably tell from my accent that I am an American. Living in London and talking to different countries all over EMEA, digital sovereignty is real. It is critical in Europe, where data protection, transparency, and regulatory alignment are top priorities for both public and private sector organizations. At AMD, we recognize that our customers and partners are increasingly focused on ensuring that their data resides in trusted environments, is processed in accordance with regional laws, and that the technology partners are aligned with digital sovereignty objectives. Ultimately, AMD's role is to empower our customers with trusted, secure, and high-performance technologies delivered through partnerships that understand and support Europe's unique regulatory landscape. It is a critical part of what we're doing and a critical part of our future in AMD and specifically in EMEA.
Thank you for mentioning the commitment you at AMD are having to these important topics, digital sovereignty here on our continent. Let's stay on Europe for a moment. Stephanie, your company, AMD, invested significantly in a European key player in the field of AI, a company called Silo AI, now AMD Silo AI. Why did you do that? How is it going with this investment?
Yes, great question. AMD did invest in Silo AI, one of Europe's largest private AI labs, as part of our commitment to supporting AI innovation within Europe and growing a truly global AI ecosystem. Europe has world-class AI talent and is having a growing demand for sovereign AI solutions. By acquiring Silo AI, we're helping scale a local player that understands European data policies, compliance, and customer needs. It's really a technical collaboration to optimize AI workloads for AMD Instinct GPUs and EPYC processors, accelerating training and inference for their large language models and vertical applications. For AMD, it's really a great example of how we're investing not just in hardware, but in the innovation and partnerships that bring AI to life for customers in a way that's regionally relevant and globally competitive.
As Europeans, we are certainly very delighted to see this and to hear this. Thank you very much for explaining your strategy in this field as well. Stephanie, we have to come to an end. I want to thank you for taking the time again, being with us today, continuing the wonderful series of conversations we are having here at C-Days together with AMD, yourself, and your colleagues on the leadership team. It's wonderful. Thank you very much for the partnership and for being with us today.
Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Bechtle team. I look forward to working with all of you in the future.
I would like to invite you to participate in our famous born ready challenge here at C-Days. Are you open?
I'm in. OK.
Oh, you're in. Wonderful. OK, born ready. Wonderful. Let's go. Please give me the buzzer. Here is the buzzer. Wonderful. Thank you. Stephanie, you count three to one. I push the button on behalf of you. We are all excited to see what the outcome will be.
OK. Go.
OK. Wonderful. We have an interesting question, and I'm really excited to hear your answer on that. The question is, what is your almost impossible dream? Stephanie Dismore, what is your almost impossible dream?
Oh, my goodness. What a fun game this is. My almost impossible dream. I could answer it seriously and say my dream is to impact the people around me on a daily basis to make a difference. In reality, what I would really love t o be able to do, and this was my goal 15 years ago. Now with AI, I realize that it's almost, it is truly almost impossible, which is I would love to have a memory and ability to read everything and remember every piece of data like that and be able to have recall like no other. Now with AI, as we see what AI can do, I think I want to be just like AI. I think it might be impossible, but now I have a little help in my pocket, so to speak. That would be my almost impossible dream.
Wonderful. Thank you very much for sharing this with us, Stephanie, here on stage. It's such a pleasure to learn from you about the partnership and your dream. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. It's a lot of fun. Thank you for having me.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
[Foreign language].
Since we talk about dreams at C-Days, I think let's stay here. Above all, if we get such a charming introduction, as we just heard it with Stephanie Dismore, the head of Europe in AMD, about her almost impossible dream. As a facilitator at the C-Days, I have dreams as well. Sometimes they come true. If everything runs smoothly, they will come true three times, and we're well on track to make sure that this triple dream comes true. Let me explain what I mean. Dream number one. A top panel with the best panelists for the most relevant topics. If you allow for a possible comment, our CEO, Dr. Thomas Olemotz, is also one of the panelists. This is my personal dream come true.
The second dream, looking ahead, is that we in Europe and as Europeans really get going and reach real digital sovereignty, that we not only embark on this route, but that we reach the goal. Dream number three, that's a link to the situation I'm in right now. The link to Berlin. I hope that this works in technical terms. It looks great. We switch to Berlin. I can see the picture. Our panel is waiting for us. I'm looking forward to this at the Bitkom Quantum AI and Data Summit. I'm going to meet Martin Kaloudis on stage here. He is in EVP at Bechtle and facilitator. Hello, Martin.
[Foreign language].
Greetings from Berlin. Thank you for the link. Greetings to everyone and greetings to wherever you sit and follow the Bechtle Competence Days. Welcome to our panel, Digital Sovereignty team. From your point of view, I'm very happy to welcome this top panel here, outstanding panelists, to address this hot topic, digital sovereignty.
Due to the pictures we've seen from the East and West, it becomes clear how relevant this topic truly is. Today we want to discuss how hot is this topic really? Is it as hot and new as we perceive it right now? Or is it somewhat older? I'd like to recall the EU presidency five years ago. Ms. von der Leyen focused on this topic. Within our bubble, we've been discussing this topic for 10 years at least. I wonder, what is different today compared to 10 or 15 years ago? What can be done better than in the past? We have great guests here. I'd like to welcome all of them. I've mentioned it. I'm really somewhat proud that you are here on the stage.
To your left, I'd like to welcome Nicole Dreyer-Langlet, Member of the Management Board of Airbus Operations, responsible for Digital Workplace, and VP for Digital Germany. Nicole says, for the economy sovereignty is essential, with a view to independence.
[Foreign language].
This is essential, so thank you and welcome.
[Foreign language].
Next to him, Ammar Alkassar. He's Managing Director of GovTech Campus. You change between industry and politics, backwards and forwards.
I'm glad that this expertise ensures that in the GovTech Campus, together with science and industry, you can formulate the requirements regarding the public sector. Welcome. Your quote here is, Europe's digital future must not be lost in endless loops of definition. In your opinion, it takes strategic bets, smart interdependence, and realistic risk assessment.
[Foreign language].
Great to have you.
[Foreign language].
To my left, your right. I don't know if you have to introduce him. Briefly, Dr. Ralf Wintergerst, President of Bitkom. Ralf, you say digital sovereignty is not a nice-to-have, but a must-have, crucial for competitiveness, security, and prosperity. Welcome.
Last but not least, Dr. Thomas Olemotz, CEO of Bechtle AG, a kind of host here of the Bechtle Competence Days. His quote: digital sovereignty does not come about through isolation, but through IT architectures that enable freedom of choice and resilience. Today, with European and global partners. Welcome to you. Let's start. Maybe you've seen it from the quotes. There is a kind of repetition, so maybe some positions are heading in the same direction. I'm not really surprised by that because we've met several times here. First question. Realism and ambition. The question is, why have we not yet achieved digital sovereignty completely, even though we've been discussing it for such a long time? Nicole, the first question goes to you.
[Foreign language].
In a geopolis market, so to speak. How do you deal with this, with these global dependencies?
Yes, we're a global company. For decades, we've been used to handle these global dependencies, uncertainties, independent of the digitalization as such. Right from the beginning, we had to position ourselves in a way that we've been able to handle different scenarios and still remain independent. Over the decades, we've relied on experience based on risk management. That's essential, of course, and also to handle bottlenecks, but also transparency and trust. We rely on global players, global supply chains. For instance, we can't proceed without those, but still we have to manage these supply chains and the risks. We have to respond quickly. Independence is essential. We transfer this, because you asked about digital sovereignty, we transfer this also to the digital field. We talk about hybrid models.
We have to ensure business continuity and at the same time, data sovereignty to become independent and remain independent. We have multi-cloud strategies, for instance. That's the be-all and end-all.
No matter whether it's production processes or supply chains or digital products, it's always a matter of risk assessment and business continuity. You manage interdependencies as core processes.
Absolutely.
[Foreign language].
Managing interdependencies, you've mentioned this as well, Ammar. You talk about intelligent interdependence instead of the illusion of self-sufficiency. What does that actually mean?
[Foreign language].
I think the big challenge, and you said we've been talking about this for 10 years, actually, it's been 20 years. I think this is the challenge we have. We're just discussing it while others do things. I was in India with a Foreign Minister a little while ago, and for them, digital sovereignty is important. They don't want to be dependent on China, and they don't want to be dependent on the U.S., or they find that difficult at least. The question is, how do we become the best? How can we use new technologies? How can we use the opportunity if there are technology leaps or breaks to get to the top? This is a discussion they're having. The second discussion is, of course, we can never say we want to do without modern technology because, as it happens, we haven't developed it yet.
That cannot be the solution. If Airbus builds an aircraft, they want to make the best aircraft and use the best components for it. Still, you have to make sure that you're not dependent, even if you want to build the best. Something that in Germany we have declared that we want to do, at least publicly, is to have standards and to have requirements to avoid lock-in as customers and as users. We always want to have the option to select alternatives. This means that today, an AI technology from a very good competitor that might be in the U.S. can be used, but if a political situation changes and we're no longer able to use it, then we can change over. It's important to have that option.
You talk about technological independence, and you've mentioned lock-in. You have to manage this interdependence. What about digital sovereignty? That's the second big aspect.
With data sovereignty, I think we're not doing so badly. The understanding has evolved in the past 10 years. Also, by the way, as a result of the good work of Bitkom that has advocated this in society and in the industry. If I look at Bosch, Daimler, ZF, or other industry companies, they are aware of the importance of the data question and data sovereignty. With the technology that we see today, also cloud technology, encryption technology, with what we have in the market, we can achieve data sovereignty. That's not a problem, I don't think.
Okay. In a nutshell, it's possible today. Managing technological independence is possible in data sovereignty too, even if you're not self-sufficient.
That's right. Instead of always looking at the big problem and losing yourself in complexity, do what's possible. Do it on a small scale, but do it.
That's great, Ralf. You say digital sovereignty is a must-have. Who is doing it? Is it industry? It's us, politics? Do we do it together?
[Foreign language].
In the final analysis, it always requires collaboration. First of all, you need the right environment. You need the community going along. You need the population supporting you. I think politics has very much focused on regulation, especially European digital regulation, which today is more an obstacle than an opportunity. I think businesses haven't always been as proactive in selecting choices because proactive means that you can decide on your own who you want to team up with. You don't have to do it all on your own. I think this is where we could become significantly more and more active ourselves. Back to the question of when did this begin? I recently read a Bitkom definition on digital sovereignty of 2015 because I wanted to see whether it has changed, and it hasn't. It's still the same.
We've got to be able to decide on our own which technologies we want to use. I think you wouldn't be able to run your business if we didn't have a good combination of globally available technologies, which we combined with the good architecture that we have got here in Germany. I think it's a huge opportunity because we've got everything it takes at hand. I agree with you. If we don't get started and if we don't invest massively, then we're not making progress. We've got the money. We've got the bucks.
I agree. To lose this innovative power, that's not an option at all in Europe. Thomas Olemotz.
Bechtle is the biggest IT system house in Germany, successful for more than 40 years, with exactly what Mr. Wintergerst just said, selling multinational and international technology. How does Bechtle fare when we talk about technological independence and also avoiding vendor lock-in?
In a sovereign way, you could say. The ball has been kicked into my field with a question, who does it? Of course, it's the industry at the end of the day. It's public administration. It's also companies such as Bechtle. Unfortunately, not just Bechtle, but it's companies like Bechtle, who, in our case, have more than 300 vendor partners they work together with, and this in a vendor-agnostic way. The solutions that we offer to our customers are always directed to benefit the customer. Sovereignty has always been part of our business model. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to fulfill our role as an IT company serving private and public organizations. We wouldn't have been able to fulfill that role. As we heard, we've been discussing this topic for more than just two or three years.
We've seen that in addition to the usual decision-making criteria that lead to a buying decision on the part of the customer, technical performance, price, and additionally, criteria also to do with digital sovereignty come in. How resilient is what I'm going to use in the future? How robust is it? Do I get a technological lock-in with a vendor? Making that transparent as a first step and showing solutions is exactly what we do. This is exactly our role if we want to supply future-oriented solutions, IT solutions to our customers. We mustn't forget, at the end of the day, the IT has to be robust, resilient, and has to work without interruption. This is something we mustn't forget, discussing that sovereignty and also shifting workloads from one technological solution to the next and the vendor lock-in question.
Linking up to what Nicole said, is that a question of risk management?
Yes, it is indeed a question of risk management. If I have a future image of digital sovereignty, which I haven't achieved yet, and I'm on the way there, risk management must be a process that accompanies this, be it risk management, as we know from the commercial area, or also in different ways. This depends on the company. It has to be an essential part of risk management.
Okay, there are two variants here when we talk about risk management. Either you have risk that emerged over the past years and decades, you have to mitigate them for the future. A risk-appropriate design of new technologies might be another version here. Looking ahead, thinking ahead, and take measures. Whatever will come in will come in the next 40 years can be addressed. That's a bridge maybe to Quantum and AI Summit that takes place in parallel. Quantum is a newer technology than artificial intelligence. I mean, we've been dealing with that for decades. If we look at key technologies for the future, if we try to become more sovereign as we are right now in terms of cloud technologies, that type of technology is being scaled for decades. The question is, will AI and Quantum, or let's stick to AI, will that make Germany or Europe more sovereign?
It's an opportunity, or it's a risk to become more or less dependent. Ralf, the first question goes to you. You emphasize that powerful data centers are the backbone of a sovereign infrastructure. I have the data center on site. I own it, and I seal it off and make it initially efficient. The provocative question is, is that enough to make AI sovereign in the future?
Of course not. It's just one element. Now, as an economy, I think we need a good digital infrastructure. That's our kind of a nervous system. You need the right nodes. That is the data centers with sufficient computing capacity. You need also cost-efficient energy rates because that is one of the key cost items of a data center. You also need the right connections to businesses. You need companies using them. Gigafactories will not benefit us in Europe if nobody can use them. You need the right connecting points, like on a highway. That's one thing. Let me take one step back. We did a Bitkom survey amongst our member companies, but also in the German business community as a whole. Sovereignty or not? The fear is about a huge dependency on the U.S. and China. That's a fear. This brings me back to the question you asked.
If that's the case, then there is only one option we have, namely seizing the initiative ourselves. The political environment and the subsidy programs must be set up in such a manner that they can be used. Currently, they're too complicated. Companies have to invest more in technology. Furthermore, training and education in the public and society has to be promoted massively because we used to be the country of poets and thinkers. While we still have that great potential, if we mobilize the funds, the money, then we'll have a good combination of the technologies that we purchase with those that we develop on our own. That, of course, is based upon data centers and investments.
It's both, really, in-house and external. That's sovereign.
Yes. That's sovereignty. Sovereignty is not self-sufficient in doing everything on your own.
That also applies to AI and all future technologies.
Monday press conference, AI in German industry by Bitkom. 80% of the companies there said that AI is a key technology for the future. Now, if not to invest now, when else?
Yes, that brings me to Ammar. Ammar, you just said endless definitions will take us nowhere. We can talk as dead, so to speak. You ask for strategic bets. Is AI in such a strategic bet? If so, what exactly do we have to do in addition to what Ralf has said to really get going?
You said something that I would like to respond to quickly because it makes the narrative clear. Technologies are changing, quantum, AI, etc. Is this the opportunity to regain sovereignty? I think that's the wrong question. Technology breaks give us very great opportunities to get to the top. Not if in the past we didn't achieve a leading position in chip manufacturing. Now with the AI revolutions, this is going to reshuffle the field of players. This gives us the opportunity to actually get to the top because the core problem we have, if we talk about sovereignty, is that the companies we'd like to have are not in Europe. They are in the U.S. or maybe in China. The motive must be the worldwide top companies that move the world with the new technologies. How can we make them? How can we give our companies that role?
How can we help them to acquire that role? It's, of course, a risk assessment. The core question should really be, how can we have more exciting companies? If I look at AI, what I've seen in the past three to four years, startups that are new, that are now unicorns, I think we're on a good path. This should be in the focus of our discussion. As Ralf Wintergerst said, in society, people must be interested in asking, how can I use AI to become better in industry one, two, three, four? How can I, as an industrial company, use AI or also use the power of quantum computing to really get to the very top of the world? Once this is something we have absorbed, I think the talents we have could bring us right on the right course.
You're saying we have to identify how AI can take us to the top of the world, and we should not focus on a technological discussion alone. What does that mean for Airbus, Nicole? If you take AI and what we're discussing right now, where are our data, somewhere in an unexplainable AI? These are sensitive data, as above all, in your market. How do you handle this?
For Airbus, the be-all and end-all is that we control who accesses our digital access, infrastructure, software, and data. That's the framework that's given. We're aware of the responsibility because we deal with highly sensitive data and businesses, sometimes even classified data. We have to make sure that we participate in the AI revolution. I mean, not only participating, we want to take the lead, but at the same time, we have to ensure data integrity for us and our providers.
That's the be-all and end-all. That's the driving force why we run digital sovereignty. That covers organizational and technological aspects. They are firmly established. That's data management. How can I distinguish sensitive from non-sensitive data? How can I do identity access management to make sure that the appropriate person can access the data limited to their field of action and prevent any data leaks? That's really essential when we talk about AI-based applications. There mustn't ever be a data leak because we are actively in the security relevant field. Another topic on this AI Summit, people, is essential. We have to train the people. We have to train our employees. All the organizational and technological measures make sense indeed, but they only work if every single staff member knows how to handle AI responsibly. What are the rules? These are the pillars we rely on.
Governance, people, culture. Data, data, data. Architecture. That brings me to Thomas Olemotz. You say that digital sovereignty, managing architecture, is really essential. It's a matter of architecture. What about AI? Does that imply to the demands of most customers of Bechtle?
I believe that the basic idea behind digital sovereignty, namely the fundamental technological freedom of choice, that is the possibility to choose yourself, I think that this can also be transferred to AI. Here, we also need open, transparent, and standardized processes to have access to various LLMs via APIs and also having thus open access to data sources. What we're discussing under the headline of digital sovereignty basically can be transferred to the topic of AI, I believe. There's one thing I'd like to add, which very often is somewhat neglected in discussion, which, however, as we have heard, is very relevant for many customers because many CIOs and many CTOs have to take that decision about that development, which shows that with the increasing use of AI, data processing, and data storage.
In the past, you would have said it has to be done on-premise due to the massive increase of data volumes and the increasing latency. Here, you cannot do it in a pure cloud approach anymore. We rather need more intelligence, to put it this way, on the edge, as it is put today, which, of course, has dramatic repercussions on the design of the AI architecture. Not only the AI architecture on the edge, but also in terms of the network.
Step by step, we get back from the cloud down to earth. We mix different sovereign approaches. We get back the data and also the technology. One quick question to all of you. AI, in terms of digital sovereignty, is that rather an opportunity or a risk? Don't answer just with yes or no, but explain it.
I think any new technology is an opportunity also for digital sovereignty, but also to get to the top again.
An opportunity, absolutely, for Europe, for the European digital sovereignty. The core point is, and we've been discussing this for years, is speed. Infrastructures need to be built up now.
It's an opportunity, and it's an opportunity if we manage to develop the skills in the models of our AI ourselves. Not only purchase it externally, but also build up our own know-how. It's an opportunity because we need it in terms of demographic development and zero economic growth. There's only a few technologies which can help us get onto the rise again, increasing productivity, and overcoming that loss of labor due to retirement.
What can I say now? Of course, it's an opportunity as a key and base technology. AI gives us digital spaces to act, and it is therefore essential for accelerating the digital transformation, which we all deem necessary. To be fair, in Europe, we have to do it in an intelligent way. I'm saying this deliberately in Europe because implicitly, there's always a tendency to overregulate. Yes, we have to regulate.
We have to define rules, but we shouldn't overregulate because that will kill any kind of technological innovation or make it very difficult. In that way, we won't be able to get those innovative companies to stay in Europe.
That will be the opportunity, really, to maintain our wealth here and decide about the future here. Now, the final round. A couple of sentences is up to you, or just one word. Your piece of advice to business and the public sector today, what is decisive today to act with sovereignty and resilience?
Building up skills, training, promoting, keeping European AI talents at the be-all and end-all. For everyone, really. Also in terms of government.
I think I'd like to use the slogan, like playing to win. Not just going for a tie, but rather doing it, investing, building up skills, moving forward. That's a matter of the mindset. If we got this right, this would be my best advice for the political system and for the population and businesses.
I think this is missing in so many places in Germany. I can just underline that. My first statement is we should stop talking about it, just talking about it. The first thing is also to demand less from others, but rather from ourselves. There are things that industry can do. It has to do it. We don't want to discuss why certain things are impossible in a federal structure. We've created alternative structures that will be successful. If everyone says, "Up to this point, I can do it," please do it.
The last word goes to Thomas Olemotz.
I think let me put it in a somewhat provocative manner. We've got to overcome that endless discussion about position papers. I think I can also state it with a certain degree of credibility because we as Bechtle, as a company and many others, we're not making any money on this. We've written such papers for a long time. Now, really, we now have to start implementing things. We're doing this in a typical pragmatic Bechtle manner. You know, we have developed the Sovereignty Index, which is what we call the Index of Sovereignty, which we are gathering together with our customers. That's a kind of a structured IT assessment, if you want to put it this way. In the first step, we try to obtain the status quo. What is the customer status in terms of sovereignty on a certain scale?
Then, based upon the target state, namely, how much sovereignty do customers want in the future for which application in which areas? Once we've done so, we define the way how to get there. That's a pragmatic approach based on specific projects, which means that customers very quickly can see the progress very quickly. That's a typical Swabian pragmatic approach we're taking.
Thank you. Thank you for all your valuable contributions here in this high-level panel discussion. I'd like to sum it up. We've seen that digital sovereignty is not linked to position papers and discussions, or not necessarily, maybe to some extent, but not necessarily and exclusively. It's not a distant vision. Digital sovereignty can be shaped today. That will take some effort, but it is feasible. It's not a matter of whether technology is developed in Germany, Europe, or outside of Europe. That's the common statement here. Digital sovereignty is both. We want to be sovereign. You can measure it and take a Swabian approach here. We have to keep building it on national and European digital sovereignty and technologies to become more sovereign. We need proper investment, a proper ecosystem to really take the lead and to think in entrepreneurial team terms. Thank you to all of you.
Thank you to you here in the audience and everyone following us online. Thank you for your attention and all the best for the rest of the day.
Thank you to Berlin. It's always a great idea to visit Berlin. Some new ideas, some impact here, we've just heard. I'd like to focus on one central motive that will drive us here on our digital C-Days stage. That is this play to win. I like this a lot. I don't know about you, but I think that's the proper mindset. We discussed it this morning too. It's not about fulfilling regulations or defining digital sovereignty as an end in itself. We have to have the best product, full stop. Then, of course, they are born from a kind of digital sovereignty, and they are digital sovereign and take a leading role. That's the objective. Thank you to Berlin.
Thank you for having us there. And Bitkom, and now we move on. In the next few minutes here at the C-Days, we want to take another look at some of the key developments surrounding digital infrastructures for the public sector and business in Europe. Of course, the question that is on my mind and probably also on yours, how much scope is there for shaping the future? Where is the scope and how can we expand it? In so doing, how can we observe the imperative of data and information security and sovereignty? I look forward to discussing this topic with two outstanding guests here at the C-Dayss. Our next executive interview begins with Achim Weiss, Chief Executive Officer of IONOS, and Steven Handgrätinger, Executive Vice President and Head of Bechtle's Public Sector Business in Europe. Welcome to both of you. It's great to have you.
Achim, my first question goes to you.
What I'm really interested in, of course, is whether you at IONOS are already seeing a qualitative and quantitative change in customer demand in light of the increased awareness among customers in the private and public sector of the issue of digital sovereignty in Europe.
Yes. First of all, welcome to all of you, and thank you very much for the invitation. This time, I'm here only virtually. I hope I'll be there in person next time. To answer your question, yes, of course, we're seeing a great deal of interest in sovereign solutions in Europe and Germany. That spans the entire bandwidth from small and mid-sized businesses to the public sector. I think people have become aware of two things. One is that America is no longer the reliable trading partner or technology supplier that we had in the past. I think that has become clear to everyone since the new administration took office, that this reliability is no longer there. We have to face the fact that this is here to stay. Even if Mr. Trump is no longer in office in three and a half years, who knows who his successor will be? The second thing is that I think we have internalized something that's called sovereign washing.
This is a new term I became aware of recently. It's that hyperscalers are now trying to appear sovereign. That is a company they set up, a German company they set up as an intermediary between AWS or Azure and the customer. At the end of the day, this is not a real solution because once you no longer receive updates from the U.S., then after a short term, the German company will be unable to act. Even if there's a copy of the source code containing hundreds of millions of code lines in a Swiss bank vault, it's not going to be useful in an emergency.
This is why sovereign washing has now become more widely known or understood. This is why the demand for a truly sovereign solution is now very strong, as we can see from our inquiries.
Thank you, Achim. Here at the C-Days, we try to map the entire spectrum of the cloud world, and we will come back to the term sovereign washing, which I've just learned. I'm sure we will talk about it in the next few minutes. Steve, my first question to you, and once again, a warm welcome to you. Like every year, we are very pleased to welcome you here at the C-Days. At Bechtle, we have a clear positioning, and we place the topic of multi-cloud very much at the center of our strategy recommendations to our customers. When putting together our cloud portfolio, what developments do you see in the context of growing customer requirements in terms of sovereignty? More specifically, here in our discussion, what role does our partnership with IONOS play in this context?
Hi, Achim. I'm particularly pleased to be back on stage together with you again. Also, a cordial welcome to our audience. Now, back to your question. The multi-cloud strategy has definitely arrived. It took a little longer in B2B, especially in the public sector, compared to B2C. Of course, there's also another development that is driving this entire matter, which is the geopolitical situation in which we currently find ourselves, and the question of resilience and sovereignty. The search for European and German alternatives is ongoing, and I believe this is what we are at right now. The topic of AI will also continue to drive this topic further and make it even more urgent because obviously, it involves huge volumes of data that need to be protected. IONOS is our top partner. There's a little anecdote from the past I'd like to share with you.
It all started during the COVID pandemic when we worked with an IT service provider called DataPort and IONOS to migrate the HPI School Cloud to the IONOS Cloud without any problems. It's still running today, and it continues to be very stable and robust. That's a great story, I think.
Thanks, Steve. That's a really important moment for the partnership between IONOS and Bechtle, and I'm super excited that we can talk about it here today. We'll get into more details about the partnership itself. First, I would like to zoom out a little and look at the range of European cloud providers. Their numbers have expanded considerably. We've already heard from some of the other players here on the C-Days stage, and we'll continue to do so to find out how they position themselves. That brings me to my question for you, Achim. Where does IONOS stand?
At IONOS, we describe ourselves as a super scaler. We are the oldest cloud provider in Germany and probably one of the oldest in Europe. Even the precursor to web hosting, which we've been doing for 30 years, is basically the predecessor of the cloud. Database as a service has always existed. Web space as a service, or even data space as a service, has existed too. It was just called something different back then and had fewer APIs and didn't offer billing by the minute. It's a precursor to today's cloud. That's why we don't have a specific focus right now. We're represented in all segments from the mid-small to mid-sized business in the public sector, and we feel comfortable there.
Broadly positioning, thank you very much, Achim. Does all of this also apply to customers in all these different segments who are not based in or focused on Germany?
Yes, absolutely. IONOS is a European cloud hosting company. More than half of our sales are generated in Europe, and that is abroad in other companies in Germany. We've been doing it so many years. We have our data centers in Spain and the U.K., and we also operate the cloud in many locations there.
If I may add to that, Achim, there's, of course, also the success story of OCRE, the Cloud Service for Research and Development, Education, and Innovation, where we have won a master agreement in 13 countries and are now launching consumption and services. I think that underscores your statement about being a player in the European landscape.
OCRE, as you just said, is, of course, a very strong example of real international capability here in the partnership between IONOS and Bechtle. Let's take a step back. In discussions, I've noticed a recurring question, especially recently, about whether, and if so, to what extent it is or will be possible for European institutions and companies to become fully, truly independent of U.S. cloud providers. Sovereignty, that's the question we're coming back to. My question to both of you is, is this even the right discussion? Is it appropriate? Do we need to have it? If so, what is your answer to this question?
I think the answer is yes. At the end of the day, of course, European sovereignty exists, of course. This is exactly what our company is doing with IONOS. We have a European sovereign solution. We don't have the same range of features as Amazon or Azure have. As always in life, the 80/20 rule applies. I think we can handle 80% of the workloads with 20% of the features. We have more, but that shows that sovereign cloud solutions exist, not just at our company, but also at various competitors. Yes, Europe can become digitally sovereign in many areas.
This does not mean technological or technical isolation, but rather an understanding of how to develop alternative strategies and thereby achieving sovereignty, and to do so in a sovereign environment.
From that point of view, the potential influence of third parties and so on are all parameters that strengthen your reasoning.
For both of you, a clear statement, yes, this is a relevant discussion and it should be had. It can indeed be solved, i.e., a high degree of independence can be achieved. Thank you for the clear statement. Let's take it up a notch, circle back and talk about cloudification in general terms. It's pretty clear that both in science and in practice, the degree of cloudification is now an important indicator, among other factors, of the degree of digital maturity of companies and institutions. In an international comparison, if you look at the e-Government Development Index, for example, which examines a total of 193 countries around the world in terms of their level of digitization, Germany ranks 12th, which may have come as a bit of a surprise to many, including myself, to be honest. It's neck and neck with the U.S., which ranks 11th.
Do we have a distorted perception when we're always so critical of the degree of digitization in our country? Perhaps it's much better than we think. What about the status quo of the ambitious goals that we should set ourselves as a society, as a community, and as the public sector?
That's this question of ranking. I would say it's a matter of perception versus reality. I think the key parameter is how satisfied customers are with the digital services provided by the public sector or a company, for example. In the industrial environment, to a certain extent, customers already base their decisions on the quality of services. In the public sector, it is equally the customer, the citizens who select the services offered. They use it, and they use it more and more. As a result, they demand more and more. It starts with schools and goes all the way up to the federal government. I also believe that many companies have brought their services together to launch a joint offering.
In the industrial environment, for example, in the automotive supplier industry, as well as in the public sector, where there is a one-for-all approach, this means that one player develops and then scales via a platform. I believe that this development that has been initiated in recent years is now being accelerated. It has to be accelerated. As our new Minister of Digital Affairs said, it's time to take action now. We'll see relatively quickly what the outcome will be.
I can only support that. I think rank 12 sounds great. If you compare a half-baked solution with another half-baked solution, the result is still a half-baked solution. 12th place in relative terms does not tell you how good it is in absolute terms. I think we're now in the first quarter of the new millennium, 2025, right?
We still haven't managed to make it possible for me, for instance, to renew my driving license online or register my car. Things that have been possible for 20 years in terms of IT development. That shows us what the state of digitalization is in Germany, rank 12 or something else. I believe the citizens can expect more, must expect more, and we must deliver faster and more. The public sector is included. We providers need to provide solutions that enable that. Of course, I agree with Steve. We're on the path that is now accelerating. The interest is there. The motivation exists. We're seeing more and more discussions and more and more issues being tackled. I also hope that the new digital ministry will bring about further acceleration and more so rank 12 can be seen in different ways.
Incidentally, thank you for your answers. This ranking shows that it is possible in Europe to rank well above number 12, with the Scandinavian countries and also the Netherlands occupying top spots here. Of course, that shows us, as the largest economy in Europe, that it can be done in Europe. You've already given us some examples of joint projects between IONOS and Bechtle. Can you flesh this out a little? Can you share another example of how our collaboration is really helping to advance digital maturity?
Let me give it a start, Achim. Coming back to the topic of OCRE, we've had this master agreement for over four years now. Initially, it was infrastructure as a service. In the meantime, we both produced services to make it more attractive for researchers, as one example from the development area. I think we've already made huge strides in this area, significantly expanding our portfolio and essentially making this architectural option available to everyone, on-premise as in the cloud. We are both convinced that we still have a long way to go there.
Absolutely. The example you mentioned at the beginning is still a prime example for me. The school cloud or education cloud that was developed relatively quickly. We ran thousands of video sessions simultaneously, tens of thousands even, to ease the burden during the COVID pandemic. That was a great project.
It's still running today and in many federal states now. This is a great example of how the collaboration between Bechtle and us is working and how we bring digitalization to Germany.
Great examples. Let's use the last few minutes of our conversation to talk about the partnership again. We should take this opportunity to look specifically at the partnership between IONOS and Bechtle and reflect on it a little. Steve mentioned magical moments during the coronavirus pandemic when the collaboration between the two organizations really took off. Where are we today? What's the roadmap? What can our customers expect from your plans, Achim and Steve?
For me, there are four key topics. On the one hand, there is the provision of secure and sustainable cloud solutions, of course, architectural matters. Then, on the other hand, there are FinOps, which also means transparency about what I consume, how I consume it, why I consume it, and how I can potentially optimize it. As reflected in OCRE, I have to train my employees. I have to train them on the opportunities of these new architectural options. Finally, there is the issue of sustainable operations. This means operational concepts such as those that we have developed with IONOS and NextCloud, for example, to determine how we can launch such an offering. I believe these four modules stabilize this top partnership with IONOS.
Yes, great. You've said it all, Steve, haven't you? Thank you very much. I couldn't agree more.
Ultimately, what we contribute is that we continue to develop the cloud. We add more locations, more features, make it easier to shift workloads, to create new workloads with us. We're training more and more consultants who are familiar with our cloud and architectures and so on. This is how things are going to evolve.
Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Achim. We've indeed come to the end of our conversation. I personally have learned at least one or two cool new terms: the European super scaler, which is at work here in this great partnership with Bechtle , and of course, beware of sovereign washing. That is another interesting topic that will certainly accompany us throughout the C-Days. Thank you very much for your clear words and the clear ambitions for the partnership and what can be achieved with the European cloud for both the public and private sectors here on our continent. Thank you for that. We'll continue now with the next exciting session.
[Foreign language].
First times are always great fun, especially on a stage like this. We have another premiere right here at the C-Days. We'll be showing you the first episode of the CTO on a brand new format featuring our Chief Technology Officer at Bechtle, Dirk Müller-Niessner. In this series, Dirk will dive into hot topics in tech, but always with a personal touch. The debut episode takes us straight to the core of our Bechtle's cloud strategy and consulting, multi-cloud. How can you combine top quality standards with success in multi-cloud planning and operations? Here it is, the CTO on quality at multi-cloud featuring Dirk Müller-Niessner.
Multi-cloud architectures are like a complex clockwork. Every technology, every partner must be precisely coordinated. Only then can the machinery of enterprise IT run reliably and accurately. This is a big challenge and the big opportunity for companies pursuing multi-cloud strategies.
Quality isn't just a nice-to-have; it's a critical success factor. When you rely on multiple cloud providers and diverse technologies to boost sovereignty or technical capabilities, you need clear standards to ensure ongoing reliability, security, and performance. Why is this so crucial? In a multi-cloud environment, many components come together from infrastructure to applications to services. One single weak link, like insufficient security standards or poor availability, can jeopardize the entire system. This applies to all companies, especially those with high compliance requirements or sensitive data to manage. At Bechtle, we therefore place the highest value on quality, not just in technology, but in partnership. We see multi-cloud not merely as a tech issue, but as a holistic challenge. Planning, implementation, and operations all must align. The needs of everyone involved, from business units, IT, finance, to compliance, to security, have to be factored in.
This includes clear parameters like availability and performance monitoring, security assessments, and automated compliance and FinOps processes, the latter being essential for cost control. For example, our own private cloud here in Germany is certified according to the C5 standard, one of the toughest security and quality benchmarks for cloud services. This certification demonstrates how we don't just meet the highest quality demands sporadically, but actively embed them into our customers' daily operations. In short, anyone running multi-cloud environments must embrace quality, transparency, and security as guiding principles. This not only safeguards technical functions, but builds trust with customers, partners, and employees. This is exactly where we see Bechtle's role, where your partners for quality deliver not just technology, but sustainable, secure solutions that benefit your business.
Let's work together to bring your multi-cloud clockwork to the highest level of quality because quality, transparency, and security are the pacemakers for your success.
Time to switch gears in the next few minutes here on the C-Days stage. Now we talk about sustainability that links up nicely to one of the very strong topics that we've addressed during the past C-Days events. IT that is sustainable in the way it's planned, procured, and run. IT that contributes to the business processes becoming more sustainable within a company. Also, the question, how does all this contribute to the competitiveness of companies? Because today that is essential so that sustainability gets the attention that it requires to make sure that whatever we do is future-proof. In the next three sessions, first of all, I'd like to welcome Antje Leminsky, our Board Member in Bechtle. Part of her area of responsibility is sustainability.
In her keynote, she's going to focus on circular IT, a very important topic for a large scope of action within our company and for you too. I don't want to eat too much in the next presentations, but we have an AI application case that lives up to the claim AI with a purpose. I'm not giving away anymore, a great use case from our colleagues at Bechtle. Together with MI 4 People, a not-for-profit organization providing leading edge technology combined with excellent use for sustainability. Once we all discussed AI and sovereign clouds and modern IT infrastructure, we know that all this requires a lot of energy, more and more so. That is why energy efficiency is so relevant. In the third session, we will hear more about energy efficiency in the data center. Together with our partner, Lenovo.
We had Matt Dobrodziej from Lenovo, and we'll do a deep dive later on looking at energy efficiency solutions for your data centers. Sustainability, big topic at the C-Days. I'm looking forward, and here we go.
Did you know that at least 50 million tons of electronic scrap are generated every year, and only a fraction of this is recycled properly? Did you know that IT hardware consists of many rare raw materials such as cobalt, lithium, and tantalum? Or that 80% of a laptop's emissions are generated right at the start during production? These are just three of the many reasons why we at Bechtle have been focusing on circular IT for many, many years. [Foreign language].
What does that mean in concrete terms?
In our traditional hardware logistics, for which I am responsible at Bechtle, we have already achieved a fairly high level of maturity, many of you are aware of this. We have built this up over decades with a great deal of expertise and consistency, and we have continued to develop it further. I can say that our service levels are really good. We offer quality, precision, and efficiency in our logistics.
These are not just buzzwords for us. They are standards that our teams live by every single day. We apply these standards to the topic of circular IT as well. It is not enough to be convincing in the procurement and implementation of IT. More than ever, we want to show that with circular IT, we can work together with you, our customers, to meet the ecological, economic, and social challenges of the digital world much more effectively.
We can tailor this as much as possible to individual needs. In the future, however, we want to make the whole thing much, much more scalable. That is why we have invested heavily in our remarketing in recent months, i.e., in our infrastructure, in systems, processes, and above all, in the qualifications of our employees. The result is our new, specialized circular IT hub in Hamburg. You can see it here. It's now fully operational and capable of processing a high five-digit number of devices per month.
[Foreign language].
How does that work? After the goods are received, a comprehensive evaluation of the devices is usually carried out within a few days. We then professionally prepare them for remarketing and, depending on their conditions or market demand or customer requirements, we complete the entire process. The offering is then supplemented by additional services, including, for example, certified data deletion in compliance with data protection regulations, which is a decisive added value for all companies that place the highest demand on IT security. It goes without saying that this offering is a perfect fit for Bechtle . As one of the largest suppliers of new IT equipment in Europe, we have broad access to the infrastructures of a large number of companies throughout Europe. We know exactly which devices are in use where, how long they are used, and when it will make sense to replace these devices.
Interestingly, we now discuss this with a great many customers, even at the time they place their order and also calculate residual value at the time of replacement, for example. Others, on the other hand, opt for a portion of used IT in their portfolio right from the start, while others again decide in favor of alternative manufacturer office offerings, for example, based on defined emission criteria. Whatever is important for you, I believe we've already demonstrated in the past and are demonstrating even more so now that we can make IT investment not only sustainable but also economical, or conversely economical and sustainable.
We have had the knowledge for years, as well as the expertise and the experience. You should also know that our circular IT offering is expressly aimed at all customers. That means regardless of size, industry, or location in Europe. We're there for all our customers in Europe because we are convinced that the future of IT will be boundlessly sustainable. We want to play a responsible role in shaping the digital transformation with our presence throughout Europe. There is another point that is very close to my heart, personally speaking. We recently started a new chapter at our Hamburg hub by launching our first really large-scale inclusion project at Bechtle.
In collaboration with Elbe Werkstätten, we employ a large number of people with disabilities in our refurbishment department. For us, this collaboration is much, much more than just any kind of social commitment. I believe it represents a deep understanding of responsibility and our desire to make a real difference beyond economic success. Our colleagues not only bring a high level of expertise and care to the table, but also impressive motivation and, above all, the human factor. We can already feel now how they enrich our team and how good they are for us.
This project is just the beginning for us. It is a visible sign that we live and breathe inclusion at Bechtle and want to continue expanding it in the future. Because for us, true strength is not only reflected in hard numbers, but also in the way we live together, how we work together, and how we stand up for one another. Thank you very much for your support.
Don't you agree that we should spend much more time at sea or on the beach? Don't you agree? I really like it there. I admit business casual is maybe not the right kind of clothing for a day at the beach. If you turn up the volume a little bit, you'll hear the sound of the ocean in the background. Beautiful, but let's be honest, it's not really that beautiful, that pure at the seaside. It's time to talk about a couple of problems that we need to address and solve with regard to oceans. Let me share a few figures. Today there are about 200 million tons of plastic waste in our oceans. Every year, another 10 million tons are added. To put that into perspective, that's roughly the amount of weight collected by a refuse collection truck every minute. A staggering figure.
Just as dramatic, by 2050, if we don't change our course, that is, the total weight of all the plastic in the sea will be greater than the weight of all the fish swimming around in it. These are truly dramatic dimensions and an AI use case that we want to take a closer look at. An AI use case that I would like to discuss here on the stage with two outstanding experts whom I would like to join me now. It's Denis Dalić from the nonprofit organization MI4People, that was founded in Munich and is now operating worldwide. He's accompanied by Jannick Link, a colleague of mine from our system house in Bremen. Welcome to both of you. Hello, Denis. Hello, Jannick. It's great to have you here.
Thanks, Michael. Thanks for the invitation. This means a lot to me. Thanks.
Yes. You're passionate about this.
It's a great project too. Denis, my first question to you, I introduced the topic a little bit and mentioned some figures. Can you tell us the use case? What is the use case for AI here? What do you use AI for?
The beach doesn't always have to look beautiful. That's not the point. The point is that all the waste ends up in the oceans and is destroying marine ecosystems. It's killing life, not just underwater, but also in the air and on land. A recent study just found that microplastic material rises up into the clouds. You find it in rain. It's changing our climate. It's everywhere. It's a problem we need to solve. This is why we need to use AI to build a global solution.
Just think on the map, if you can see areas four to five times as large as Germany, completely filled with waste. It's not just plastic waste, all kinds of waste, which breaks down into microplastic particles, ends up in the soil, or, as I said, in the air. Animals eat it and die. We want to tackle the problem by analyzing satellite data.
Thanks for this initial overview. That's an ambitious goal you have there. Jannick, how does the use of AI in this context create added value for society?
Never before has technology been able to have such an impact as we've seen over the past two years. We talk about seeing AI, predictive AI, conversational AI, speaking AI. This is why we have worked with our partner to develop a solution that is having an impact. Technology making a difference.
From infrastructure to complex models that map out the entire workaround, we have developed a partnership that helps us to use technology to make the world a better place.
Exactly. Especially when you want to scale, when you don't just want to look at your own backyard, but the whole world, you need resources that make it possible. A little while ago, that wouldn't have been conceivable. This is why the cooperation is so valuable.
Let's talk about the technological aspect in a bit more depth. For this to work, you need powerful IT infrastructure and powerful AI tools. What do you have there?
Besides plastic waste, it is one of the biggest challenges, ensuring that the right performance is made available to every AI model at the right time.
Together with Dell Technologies, we've developed an infrastructure stack that allows many of our colleagues to both test AI use cases live and to provide the MI4People use case with the necessary performance whenever needed. In short, we have built a highly orchestrated cluster that utilizes multiple models and can make them available on demand at any point in time.
Thank you very much, Jannick. That was a brief overview of the technology. It's important to have an understanding of it. Now, Denis, if you're implementing this as an NPO, as a nonprofit organization, that's a huge undertaking for you. What challenges are you currently facing?
At MI4People, we try to offer a structure that lets volunteers with IT skills use them meaningfully in their free time, for example. It's very important to us that we can provide the resources. Developers need to work on this problem.
As a nonprofit, it's a big challenge to build partnerships and to find out who we can work with. What you can see here is our first MVP, our minimum viable product. The red markers show waste identified by the model, already labeled. You can go there and see exactly where it is. This is a classic example. The waste there is there because of a natural disaster, a flood. It's not always man-made. Now, speaking from a nonprofit perspective, we can look at both the hardware and software sides and see how we can solve the problem so other organizations can structure and implement action plans to remove it. We can even try to find out where the waste came from and where it's drifting. Of course, at the same point, action is needed.
For that, we need partners, obviously, not just on the hardware side, but also in the real world.
Okay, Denis, yes, you've highlighted the importance of cooperation and collaboration. This really brings together very different areas of expertise. Jannick, going back to you, how do the strengths of MI4People, Dell Technologies, and you from the Bremen System House at Bechtle bring to the table to complement one another? How does it come together?
We're just engaged with artificial intelligence through MI4People. We've also established a network, a partnership of research institutions and universities who are supporting us on our AI journey. What does it mean in practical terms? We, with MI4People, want to ensure that not only the model and the architecture are developed, but also we want to identify new potential use cases.
We want to help solve not just the plastic waste problem, but also other major challenges facing our future.
That's very exciting, and it's a perfect segue. Back to the topic of vision at MI4People. Denis, during your earlier conversation, you mentioned that you're working on other exciting projects beyond this already impressive application with the aim of creating social value and positive impact through AI. Would you share your vision with us once more? What do you see? Where are things heading?
Sure. At MI4People, we use AI for good. It's important to us that we can scale, not just act locally, but expand our impact. For that, it's important to have resources because we can't do it alone. This is why cooperation is essential, and we're not just active in climate and environment issues. We're also trying to contribute in education, inclusion, and health.
In many regions, people don't have access to these things, but with simple technology, you can already create real value. It matters to us very much that we bring together the available forces to make society and the world just a little better.
Great. Thank you both, Denis and Jannick, for having joined us and for sharing a glimpse of what you've already done, what you're doing today to tackle the issue of plastic waste in our oceans. I believe there's more to come, not just in this project, but in others as well. Let me say here, I warmly invite you back to one of the upcoming C-Days sessions to share even more exciting projects because this is what we expect and hope for and need from AI: positive impacts and inspiring stories that truly benefit our societies. Thank you for sharing with us and for being here today.
Thanks, Michael.
Thank you. Our program continues right away.
Here at C-Days, we tend to talk about the bigger picture, from time to time even about moonshot goals and visions. Sometimes, in reality, the small changes can make the big difference. Let me give you a powerful example for that. What does an economy flight, let's say from Munich to Berlin here in Germany, have in common with a PC motherboard? The answer to this can be given to you by our next guest here on the C-Days stage. A very warm welcome to Thomas Möllerbernd from Dell Technologies. Hello, Thomas.
Hello, Michael. Thanks for the nice introduction. I will show you what this big difference and the small change has to do with each other.
Wonderful. Thomas, can you also tell us what your take is on this weird comparison?
Yeah, the flight comparison really sounds weird at the beginning, but I promise I will get some light on it in the next few minutes. The carbon footprint of both is quite similar. The production and life cycle of a regular PC motherboard, as it sits in each of the approximately 300 million globally newly sold laptops each year, is as big as the footprint of a short-distance economy flight in Europe. Munich, Berlin, as you just said. We are talking here about approximately 40- 80+ kg of CO2. This becomes relevant as millions of these laptops undergo a typical repair during their life cycles. Many of you will know what I'm talking about, and I'm not talking about the motherboard breaking or the display HDMI, RJ45 or whatever port. I'm talking about the USB-C port.
As you know, this USB-C port is very, very small, and there's a lot of pressure on it. It's not only plugging in and unplugging the cable of the power supply, of the monitor, of the docking station, some peripherals, but even lifting the laptop and getting more pressure on the cable. If it breaks, you have to replace the whole motherboard. In total, the carbon footprint of all these new replaced motherboards being produced, shipped, and the old ones being wasted sums up to the total carbon footprint of a medium-sized city with around 70,000 inhabitants. Let's say the city of Verona in Italy. Dell Technologies has invented a fascinating solution to this problem. We not only shrink down the motherboard to make it smaller, but we moved out the ports, every port, to so-called modular I/O boards. This is how a modular I/O board looks like.
Very small, you have the ports here. If one port breaks, just replace this I/O board. We did not stop here. As I already said, the main port that is breaking is the USB-C port. On this modular I/O board, we have this small USB-C port. It's no longer soldered to this board or to the motherboard, but it's just put on and screwed with two, or if it is a double port, with three screws. Extremely easy to change, extremely sustainable, and of course, much, much cheaper than changing it. This modular USB-C port offers a four-time better twist resistance and a 33 times better impact resistance than a standard USB-C port. There are two additional effects from this innovation. First, time. Whenever a damaged USB-C port becomes subject to repair, these laptops go offline for quite a while.
It's longer than just the process of dismantling the laptop, changing the motherboard. Normally, the laptop must go through additional processes, such as imaging, etc. It's not only about the motherboard. It's also about productivity, employee satisfaction, and valuable time. Now, with our new modular USB-C port, the laptop is back on track much faster. While the repair process itself may be quite as long as before, the additional time-consuming steps like the imaging can be skipped. There's one more thing to mention. It's money. It's obvious. Both the repair cost itself, as well as the extra process costs, are much lower when only the port needs to be changed instead of the full motherboard. As promised in the beginning, it's a small change with a big impact. Less CO2, better productivity, happier users, and cost-saver. It's now available in our new Dell Pro laptops.
Thanks a lot for taking your time to learn about that great innovation. See you next time, hopefully. Bye.
I am delighted to spend the next few minutes on our stage with our next guest. A warm welcome to Andreas Thomasch. Hello, Andreas.
Thank you for inviting me.
Great to have you, especially because, well, you are three guests in one for me today. First of all, I noticed right away you are the man with the tie. Is that your trademark?
It is indeed my trademark. Thank you very much. Yes, I like wearing a tie because I think that in today's fast-paced world of technology, a little bit of anachronism, whether it's ties or watches or something else, is definitely appropriate.
Interesting. By the way, I checked my tie collection and found a few left. Do you believe in a renaissance of the tie?
Absolutely. I think they're coming back. There are even startups in the tie sector. Hard to believe.
Yes, and I also wear one of my favorite startups, but we're not here to advertise, are we? They were actually founded in Berlin and are now based in Florence, Italy.
Well, Andreas, a little advertising is allowed. Let's just advertise the company you actually work for, apart from being a tie ambassador. You are the CTO, Chief Technology Officer at Lenovo here in our region in Germany and Austria. That naturally brings the technological expertise you need for your third role here on our stage, namely, you are also the man for water cooling in data centers today. Water cooling in data centers is an exciting topic, and we want to talk about it right now. I've prepared six questions, which I hope are suitable to cover the topic and presenting it, and which are also a little critical. Ready to start? Let's go.
Water cooling is considered as a key to energy efficiency, but how high are the energy savings really compared to additional air cooling systems when you factor in all operating costs?
Good questions, and there are various figures out there. Some customers talk about 20%- 30%, and we have our own figures where we talk about 40%, and both are correct because it depends on how you detail, how you calculate it, and it depends on the data center's environment. In short, fans themselves account for up to 20% of the energy consumption of a server. Depending on whether you include this, you have the first 20% difference. If you then look at the difference between air-cooled and water-cooled data centers with a PUE between 1.1 and 1.3 or 1.4, that brings the next 30% difference. Both together, as you can see, they account for 40% at least, perhaps even more.
Okay, second question. At Lenovo, the topic of water cooling is mostly linked with Neptune technology. You say it's a game changer for AI and high-performance computing workloads. Is water cooling absolutely necessary there, or is optimized air cooling sufficient for many applications in that environment?
I think it's always good to take a critical look at the issue because then you end up with better decisions. On the one hand, I don't think it makes sense to start with water cooling for a single GPU server. If you want to deploy a rack with GPU servers, then I think it makes a lot of sense. That's why both solutions are on the market today.
Others, such as NVIDIA, have also clearly stated that I only have access to the latest technology if I use water cooling. That's why I believe that you should look at both. With a system which is identical for air-cooled and water-cooled per se, only the water-cooled server from Lenovo is more densely packed and more energy efficient compared to the air-cooled server from Lenovo. The customer has the option of starting with an air-cooled system and switching to water later on.
It's not a one-way street. There are always openers. You can sort of switch horses if required. We're not just talking about operating costs. We're also talking about initial investment and the expertise that is required. Is it actually worthwhile for mid-sized companies, or is this a technology that remains the privilege of hyperscalers or big research institutions?
I would start with the topic of cost because if we place a rack like this side by side, especially with GPU servers, but also with purely CPU-based systems side by side, a water-cooled rack and an air-cooled rack are now almost comparable in terms of acquisition costs, simply because these high-performance fans in the air-cooled solutions are so expensive today. That's one point. Number two, we deliberately address mid-sized customers in our design philosophy, i.e. the way we develop servers. This means we develop chassis that can be partly equipped, where I can buy just one chassis. I don't have to buy a complete rack in order to start small, but still have the option to scale up so that the same technology can be used by a mid-sized company or a smaller university, just as a hyperscaler.
Okay. Cost, investment, sustainability, my next question. What about the sustainability of water cooling when you look at the entire life cycle, from production to water consumption to disposal?
It's important to understand that about 80% of the carbon footprint is generated during the lifetime, i.e. the active operation of the server. Nevertheless, we also look at the remaining 20% that's generated beforehand during the manufacturing process. We have a manufacturing system in Europe with solar energy in our factory, and then, of course, logistics from Hungary, who have a much lower carbon footprint for transport alone. The second important difference when we look at the topic of water and water consumption, I would just like to clarify matters a little bit. Good water cooling does not consume water because it's a closed loop. It's important to cool with warm water.
We do this with water at 45 degrees Celsius because then I can use free cooling, and I don't need air conditioning units or compressors, which in turn require energy to produce cold water. Instead, I seem to have the energy advantage at this point. I can cool the water either on the roof or by using it for waste heat.
Either way, Andreas, waste heat is generated. You also advertise with the offer, with the concept of reusing this waste heat and feeding it into a cycle. How often is this option actually used in practical terms? How big is the potential, or is it more a theoretical dimension?
It's a very important question, especially when we look at the issue of sustainability, but also in terms of costs. We've been doing this for more than 13 years.
We have many customers in Germany who use it: Technical University of Darmstadt, Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research, the LRZ, and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and so on. There are plenty of customers who are doing this today. Interestingly, customers from the public sector are leading the way in exploiting this potential today. It's happening. The question of greater potential, when we look at something like AI factories with 100,000 GPUs, we are talking about at least 10 MW of data center energy requirements, which corresponds approximately to the waste heat requirements and potential for 3,500 households in Germany. You can see how big the potential is to get this into the cycle. We're talking about this exciting topic because, of course, there is a kind of hype around the topic.
The question of are being discussed everywhere. Thank you for your answer so far. We come to the last question, which relates precisely to the long-term nature of this concept. Is it a concept that you see as a long-term issue and are pursuing it that's scalable, easy to maintain, and also future-proof?
First of all, I'd like to counter the term hype a little bit because, as I mentioned earlier, we've been working in this field for over 13 years now, not only in research and development, but in practical terms with customers. It's not a hype. It's something that's entering the mainstream. That's what we observe right now, driven by technology on the AI side, but also energy efficiency regulations, energy efficiency laws, or simply sustainability projects that companies are implementing to reduce their energy consumption. I definitely see that it has reached the mainstream. Then, of course, the question arises operation costs and risks.
I would simply add that thanks to our expertise, we deliver the whole package with a service to install and maintain it during operations so that customers have predictable costs on the one hand, but also our 13 years of experience when they take the step towards water cooling. If you still have any concerns, I recommend simply visiting one of our customers and talking directly to them. I've already listed many of them in order to learn from practical experience and bring your facility people and IT to learn together what's needed for implementation.
Thank you, Andreas. We promise to take a brief, concise, and succinct look at the topic and to get the heart of the matter. Thank you for joining us and for giving us such clear answers.
In casual terms, I want water cooling, and if you want water cooling too, here's the man with a tie, Lenovo CTO for Germany and Austria, and the man for water cooling.
Thank you, Michael.
[Foreign language].
No days here at C-Days without one of our favorite topics: IT security and information security. No days at the C-Days with our partners. In the next sessions, we'll meet two who have been with us for many, many years, and I'm very much looking forward to welcoming colleagues from Cisco on our stage. It's always great to have partners who are new on our stage. That's Apple. A great partner setup in the next minutes. No days at the C-Days without AI. We start right away and see something about AI security. Cisco, we talked about the AI-ready data center with Cisco. Then we'll talk about Apple security, an exciting topic. We'll have guests from the BSI, the Federal Office on Information Security, and we'll learn more about what you can do with Apple and how secure operations are if they run on Apple technology and Apple devices.
First of all, we have my honored colleague, Merlin Stottmeister, and the bugger.
It's time for a hack here at the C-Days. This contribution, this bunch of keys, will play an important role. My colleague Merlin Stottmeister ordered it on eBay for EUR 12 or EUR 13, and we're going to switch over to learn what you can do, what exciting things you can do with this key ring, and what it has to do with the idea of security. Here we go. Hello, Michael. In a German video production, one thing is essential: the classic excavator bed.
I'm Merlin Stottmeister from near Düsseldorf, and there's a bed that Merlin Stottmeister can start any machine. Let's start with the excavator here in the corner over there. We have prepared it a little bit, I must admit. We have the right key for it here. Let's try it. There we go. Let's get into the cab. Right. First, you have to pre-glow.
The radio is already playing. That shouldn't bother us. It's actually working. The question is, why does it work? Why can I start it? It's because manufacturers had a simple idea that if you're on a construction site and you're a worker and there are 10 of these excavators sitting around, you don't want to search for the keys that the colleagues stalled somewhere and you don't know where. For each manufacturer, there's usually one master key that can be used for all the excavators or all the construction machines the company has built. This is, of course, not exactly very secure. Some companies install GPS trackers or fence in their territory, or they have alarm systems installed. It's a little bit like our online accounts because, at times, they are quite unprotected.
The manufacturer usually specifies that you need a username and a password, and that's all a criminal needs to access our data. We've learned in the past few decades that sometimes employees are a bit relaxed about passwords. They use the same passwords for multiple services or just make slight changes to them with an exclamation mark or so. There's a relatively secure method available that the manufacturers offer, and that is two-factor authentication as one option. With two-factor authentication, in addition to username and password, we need a second factor to prove that it is indeed us who is trying to log on. This allows us to lock out criminals and have more protection than such a construction machine can offer. Back to you, Michael.
Thanks, Merlin.
That's super exciting to see what you can do with a bunch of keys like that and a very impressive plea for two-factor authentication. Merlin, see you at the next hack, and we'll continue with the rest of the program.
It is always with particular pleasure to welcome the best speakers and experts on our C-Day stage here again. With this, I'm delighted to introduce to you Mr. Lothar Renner. Hello, Lothar.
Hello, and thank you for having me again. I'm very, very happy to be here.
Wonderful. We shared that stage a year ago, and now it's time for an update. We are proud at Bechtle to partner with Cisco again for C-Days 2025. This gives us the opportunity to learn from Lothar, who leads security at Cisco in the EMEA region, to learn from Lothar about what's going on in this exciting field. Cyber, resilience, IT security, certainly AI. So many interesting and exciting things are going on here. Lothar, it's your stage for the next, let's say, seven, eight minutes to give us an update. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much. I'm really happy and pleased to be here back again at the C-Days. It's my pleasure to really give an update on Cisco and Cisco Security, where we are and where we are going and what's in for you. Before we start, let me reemphasize how important the partnership between Cisco and Bechtle is and what it means for you as our joint customers. We believe together we have the right technology, the right knowledge, and competence and service to help you in the areas of cybersecurity, automation, and AI. We do that within our sovereignty requirements when you need it. Let's look back at what our latest Cybersecurity Awareness Index has shown us that was released earlier this year in 2025.
There are three callouts I wanted to highlight with you, but there's much more for you if you want to go to Cisco and download it. Number one, AI is everywhere. You, as users, are using maybe AI every day to improve emails you're writing, to maybe do meeting notes, to improve those. The problem is you might expose your company's data. If you are a CISO, you might be concerned of what to do and how to protect. Second, we see the race of AI-driven incidents. Almost 85% of all customers across the EMEA region confirmed in the last 12 months that they had AI-driven incidents. That is a big challenge. Why? Most of you have more than 10 independent products in place that don't work together and leave the challenge on your side how to fix it. We believe we need to change.
We need to change the game for you, for our customers. How we do that is in three ways. We believe fusing security into the network is the only way to make the maximum protection for you. Second, we have to make security simpler. There are so many different vendors. It's on us to integrate and automate for you. We do that as we use AI to innovate in all areas. When we thought about our portfolio, we realized there's normally three key things you care about. Number one is your employees. How do you protect them? Second, how do you protect your infrastructure? Thirdly, how to make sure that you are safe by having the best SOC experience. Here are the three elements that we really invested heavily. We brought key innovations to the market. I will talk about those in a minute.
Here are really the things I want you to take away when you remember Cisco and security. We talk about hybrid mesh firewall and the innovation there. We speak about universal set TNA. We talk about how to protect and secure AI and your AI models with AI defense. For Meraki customers, we have unique integrations where you bring XDR into the Meraki world. Last but not least, with Splunk. For today's session, I will focus on the first three. Let's start off with our consolidated management platform called Security Cloud Control. What it does is it brings together a unique experience for not only the entire Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall, but we extend it to AI defense and what is brand new to our competitors. We believe we have to work together to make it easier for you.
These are the first three we have integrated, and there's more to come. The benefit for you is you have a unique and unified policy management, whether it's Cisco or third- party. We do it for you and make sure it works. On Hybrid Mesh, Hybrid Mesh Firewall is not only just a firewall, physical, on-premise, cloud, virtual, but we extend it over the entire portfolio where firewalling is a part of what you need. Whether it's physical firewalls, workload protection, Kubernetes environments, ACI, the routers, and last but not least, our third party. This is a unique offering that we, together with Bechtle, can bring to you and secure your environment much better and more effectively than today. The second piece I see is on how you protect your employees while they're accessing companies' infrastructure from remote.
In the past, we spoke about universal, about a secure service edge, and SASE was a big term. What we brought to market is a unified SASE experience. Whether you are a Meraki customer, whether you are a firewall-driven customer, or a Cisco Catalyst customer, we bring a unified experience. Not only by that, but we also extend it with identity. Whenever you, as an employee, are using our technology, you will feel a unified experience on the client and a unified management on the backend. We make it the most efficient, most secure, most modern set TNA application that is available today. The other element I need to talk about is AI. Every one of you has used AI. Every one of you maybe has used it without thinking about if you are exposing potentially personal data or company data.
Everything that you put into a prompt on ChatGPT or Perplexity or DeepSeek stays and helps to train the model. It's our joint responsibility to protect your company's data. By doing so, we introduced Cisco AI Defense. It supports over 1,200 AI applications, protecting companies' intellectual property against public exposure. Second, we think about if you have your own AI models and your own AI applications that you have built to serve internal or external customers. Those data and models need to be protected. We have brought key innovations to the market that will help you uniquely to secure and protect your models. Cisco is the only one that can do that for you. To sum it up, we believe AI is changing the world. We believe Cisco is the only company in the market that can help you on your evolution on the AI world.
Along with Bechtle, we are the ones that make you more safe, more secure, keep you innovative, and be protected. Thank you.
Lothar, thank you very much. Great presentation. Very interesting and perfectly on time. You're a pro.
Thank you.
As promised, Lothar, do you have one more minute for us?
I guess I cannot say no.
You can't say no.
Okay, right.
It's just made for you. It's our born rReady cChallenge. Ladies and gentlemen, Lothar, are you ready to take the challenge?
Yes.
Yes.
I have to say yes.
Right. It will be great, I can guarantee that. It's quite easy. Bring in the buzzer, please. Bring in the buzzer.
All right.
Here we are preparing.
Okay.
Lothar, it's quite easy. You push the buzzer, and then this.
Maybe I give it to you.
Okay, wonderful. You know, the slot machine will deliver a surprise question to you, and we're always very curious to learn what your answer may be.
All right, me too. Anytime I can push.
You can push right now if you want. Here we go. The slot machine is running, and we're having a result. The result is, oh, wonderful.
Okay.
Wonderful.
Okay.
The perfect question for you, Lothar. What was your last gut decision? Do you remember?
Oh, I think it can be personal or it must be business.
It can be personal. It can be from the business, as you like.
All right. Yes, it was a long, not a long decision. A long thinking, but at the end, it was a gut decision to get a dog.
Oh, wonderful.
Yes, you know, by traveling, we all travel a lot, so it was really not easy, but at the end, we made it happen.
You made it.
We made it happen.
You were happy. The family is happy?
Not yet, because the dog is going to come. It's going to be born in the next three weeks.
Okay.
We had to blindly order. We only knew what kind of type it would be.
Wonderful.
In December.
Can you tell us what kind of dog it is?
Australian Cobberd og.
An Australian Cobberd og. Do you have a picture or so?
Yes, let me see on my phone.
An Australian Cobberd og. Ladies and gentlemen, here comes the future Australian Cobberd og.
Just open.
Lothar Renner and his lovely family. I assume it will be a super nice new member.
Okay, here it is. I don't know if you can see it, but I'll take it.
Can we show it? Can we show it? Can we connect with the device and show it?
Okay.
Wonderful.
That would be the entry site when it's grown up.
Okay. I hope it's not when he's that small, yeah.
Right. Ask me next year if it was a good decision.
You bring him with you.
Okay.
You bring him with you.
Okay.
Okay, wonderful.
Okay.
Thank you, Lothar.
Thanks for having me.
All the best.
Appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, we've cleaned up here the stage quickly after the firework with Lothar. We're continuing right away with another outstanding expert from our partner, Cisco, to C-Days 2025. Welcome. With me here on stage, Mr. Uwe Mueller. Uwe. Thank you for being here.
Wonderful. Great to have you. Ladies and gentlemen, Uwe leads Cloud and AI at Cisco here in Germany. The topic he'll speak about in the next few minutes here on stage is the AI-ready data center. Uwe, before you start, I can tell you we are talking a lot about the data center on this stage this year. It seems to be really top of mind for many organizations right now to get that more modern, to get that ready for AI. I'm really curious to learn from you what one can and needs to do in this respect. Uwe, this stage is yours.
Thank you very much, Michael.
The introduction could not have been better. Everyone is talking about data center, and everyone is talking about AI readiness of data center. Why it needs to make data center today secure. AI we have since the last century, since the '50s. Since two and a half years, we have the LLMs. Everyone, due to the similar user interface, is using now AI. Now we are talking about agentic AI. In the future, we are having AI on more or less every physical device when we want. That means we have models wherever we want. We can use AI wherever we want, and we have the possibility and the necessity to secure every point where we are using AI. This gives us new requirements for data center, how big they are, how small they are. The five requirements we see for the data center in the future are the following.
We need to power all the workloads, the AI workloads, as well as the non-AI workloads. We need to build structures which give us the possibility to grow. We don't know how far is our data center in the future, how big is our data center in the future, but we need to have a reference architecture to be able to grow. If our system is even more complex, we need to have an instrument to manage complexity. That means we need a unified management. When we have some more threats, for example, in five years from now, about physical devices, they are all incubating small models, and they are acting themselves like agentic. We have a huge interest. The animals, from the angry guys to attack. We have to defend. We have not to defend only a data center. We have to defend the whole system.
That means we have to think about how to prevent us from the attack and how to guarantee that the results from the models are the right ones. Of course, when we are depending, then the system has to be resilient. All these things, it gives us a capability, new five capabilities to make data center AI ready. Cisco created a reference model, a reference model which answers the question, in which way do I want to manage this and how I want to consume the pieces that are part of the AI-ready data center. Of course, we announced some really new devices, for example, AI server, for example, edge server, for example, hyper fabric for AI, for example, a G200 switch, which gives us a guarantee to load the whole fabric and to guarantee us a huge performance. Not only this, we have not just boxes, we have pods.
We have the possibility that customers and partners like Bechtle, they can create a stack giving them for usage, which is pre-validated. There are customers out there, they want to consume just the stack and they want to consume the management layer that we have as well. That means we have a lot of devices, but we have different interpretations to be part of the reference model. When I talk about the reference model, then you have seen possibly the importance that security is along the stack. We have to secure the stack. You have heard from my colleague what it means. Two things are really new when it comes to AI-ready data center. Really new is to manage the huge amount of threats to a greater amount of points. Attackers can do bad things.
Here we have Hypershield, which resides on a kernel to prevent the usage, the misleading usage of a kernel in a broad scale. We have AI Defense. AI Defense is a Talos-based product which has in mind what is getting normal when it comes to usage, the result of a model, or what is getting unnormal. That means that is a service which gives us the possibility to differentiate in between good and/or bad results. That means it gives us the freedom for use of multiple models on a broad scale. These two things are very, very, very important when it comes to AI-ready data center and security. How we are getting this, everyone is talking about an AI journey. Together with Bechtle, we are going the four steps. We can do with our partners, MINT partners, we can do a use case discovery.
We can help customers to define what kind of business cases are interesting, what kind of result is interesting, what kind of benefit is interesting. That we can do. The second is we can determine which kind of data we use and how we can bring these data alive. We can test it, of course, pilot, and we can bring it to production. These four steps we can do together with Bechtle and, of course, with our partner. To sum it up, Cisco AI Factory is a reference model, which is the answer for different needs, whether you want to do everything your own, or you want to manage a predefined stack, or you want to consume a management layer which manages a predefined stack. Cisco uniquely integrates four things. We integrate, of course, networking, data center networking. It has to be fast. It has to be resilient.
It integrates compute. It integrates security. Of course, it gives us the possibility to manage much more and more complex things. That means we are integrating observability with our partner Bechtle, with MINT service. If it needs to have a consortial function with Cisco CX, we help you to master the AI journey. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Uwe. Wonderful. Great presentation.
My pleasure.
Very impressive. Thank you. You know, I feel much better now about getting my data center up to the future. The only problem is I don't have one.
I can help you.
You can help me. I'm sure you can. Uwe, before you go, we have one more thing. Ladies and gentlemen, you know this. Everything that happens in IT, twice or more, can be officially recognized as a tradition. With this, I can ask you, Uwe, are you ready to take our traditional born ready challenge here at C-Days?
I'd love to.
You'd love to? Oh, that's wonderful. Okay, here we go. It's an easy one. I can tell you it's an easy one, or at least you think it's an easy one. This is a buzzer. Once you push the button, the slot machine will deliver us one question, one surprise question to you. We are very curious to learn what your answer to this question is.
It's about data center, or?
Sorry?
It's about data center?
It's about data center, maybe or not. Up to you. Push the button.
Should I?
You can. The slot machine's running, ladies and gentlemen, and let's see what the outcome will be. Oh, this is an interesting one. This is the one question. You know, you're in a job interview. You're interviewing a candidate, and you only have one question to ask. What would that question be?
That's difficult. For me, it's difficult. Normally, 60 minutes, but when you're asking me, I would ask, when you would apply for this job and you would be in my position, what would you do? That would be my question. Are you interested in the intention or?
Yeah, that brings it all down to the very point, isn't it? Okay. Tell me about the intention of that one question.
The intention is, did you or did the applicant have a visit on the customer? Did he know what he is applying for? Is he constructive? What is his mentality? Is he able to communicate because he does not know how I behave after his answer?
Very smart one question. Ladies and gentlemen, to all of you, if you apply in Uwe's team, which is obviously always a great idea to do, then you know now how you should prepare. Wonderful. Thank you very much, Uwe, for taking the challenge.
Thank you.
Have a great day.
Thank you.
Time flies here on our C-Days stage. Before you all apply for a job at Uwe Mueller, because you know what the question he's going to ask in the job interview, just listen closely to what I have to say for the next minutes here. We have here on our first day of our Competence Days 2025 at Bechtle . I'm almost sad because I really feel at ease now here on the stage. Why do I feel at ease here? First of all, that's due to the great speakers, the guests we've had, the interviewees, panelists. Great, thank you for making all this possible. It's due to our partners. You've met many of our partners here, more to come tomorrow. Without the partners, as often, a lot of things would not be possible. It's also due to you, the guests who are here today.
To spend so much time with us, thank you very much indeed for being with us. As promised, I would like to share the results of our survey, which we started this morning on how secure do you feel with the IT and cloud structure in your companies? Here you see the results on the platform from the German-speaking stream. The results from the international stream are slightly different, but one thing is the same. It's a tremendous need for action that's been identified in the German result as well. In the international results, we see that there's a vast majority who have participated, and they say, I don't feel that much at ease. It's not that suffering what we're doing. In this field, it has become clear that uncertainty is something we can't accept. That's a topic for all of us.
That's reflected in the discussions we had, and it's also reflected in this survey. Thank you for participating. Before we say goodbye, I'd like to briefly look to the agenda tomorrow. Very strong setup in terms of content. We'll meet keynote partners, Ralph Haupter, President of Microsoft, talking with Michael Guschlbauer. Gordon Thomson from Cisco will be with us. The new Head of Europe at Cisco, he will talk with our Chief Technology Officer, Dirk Müller-Niessner. A very relevant topic, Marc Elsberg, at the end of our presentation tomorrow, our day tomorrow. Many of you read Blackout. When the book was published, and that helped making him famous, Blackout didn't occur in real life. We talked about a distant future. By now, however, because in the spring of this year, we've experienced Blackout. Spain, Portugal, national infrastructures without power supply.
In Germany, more than 50,000 households in Berlin last week were without electricity for one and a half days. We will see and feel this scenario. We see the risks of total network failure and the vulnerability due to these critical infrastructures. It is very important, Mark Elsberg, listen to what he has to say. He is going to focus on this phenomenon. He is an expert in this field. I am looking forward to the keynote with Mark Elsberg tomorrow. In addition, AI use cases, security, how to become more resilient, sustainability, and how to fight sustainability fatigue, the shop floor, and how to equip it and digitize it with AI and link IT and OT.
These are just some of the big topics we are addressing tomorrow on the second day here at C-Days 2025 with great partners, customers, Microsoft, Cisco, the Federal Police, Voith Group, Audi, DriveWorks, IONOS, Vorwerk , Mercator Foundation, ebm-papst , IPAI from Heilbronn, Sophos, Gapfruit, Vivaldi, [Troveo], and a little bit of Bechtle is also involved. For those of you who followed us by LinkedIn, I'd like to invite you to join us via the C-Days Hub tomorrow. If you have access, the today's access data are valid tomorrow. You can still register or distribute to your colleagues and register for tomorrow. The last request from me, please give us feedback. We have a survey for participants we want to improve. Our p erformance, we read every feedback and it helps us getting better. Have a nice afternoon.
[Foreign language].
I guess you have some emails to read up. We meet again. I'm looking forward to meeting you tomorrow. Thank you for being with us on the first day, and I'm looking forward to day two. Enjoy the rest of the day.