DG Nexolution
DG Nexolution is the competence centre for solutions, services and products for companies in the cooperative network. Volksbanks and Raiffeisenbanks play an important role in this network. Under the umbrella brand DG Nexolution, members and customers will find a very extensive range of services from various specialist disciplines. We spoke to Siegfried Schloz, Authorised Representative and Head of Organisation at DG Nexolution, and Michael Botte, Authorised Representative and Head of Office at DG Nexolution, about future-oriented web-to-print offers for customers and powerful IT solutions which make user-friendly and efficient applications possible.
SIEGFRIED SCHLOZ: DG Nexolution is the competence centre for solutions, services and products for companies in the cooperative network. The Volksbanks and Raiffeisenbanks to which you refer play an important role in this network. Our members and customers will find a very extensive range of services from various specialist disciplines under the umbrella brand DG Nexolution.
MICHAEL BOTTE: as the competence centre of the cooperative finance group for cards, our „Cards“ division equips cooperative banks with the products of the cooperative card family. We have also been successful for some years now as a solution partner for the implementation of innovative card projects based on the banking chip platform. For example, we have implemented employee ID projects and ticketing solutions. Our „Media“ division brings together traditional publishing products such as forms, specialist publications and customer information – in both printed and electronic form. The „Market Service“ division offers all of our company services and programmes that support the sales of the cooperative banks. These include marketing programmes for private and corporate customers, as well as additional services such as the TV solution for bank branches „Geno-InfoMonitor“ or the media library, to name just a few. The „Office“ division, for which I am responsible, combines the range of products from office supplies, office/banking technology, IT accessories, payment forms, equipment, promotional items and calendars. We are also specialists in solutions such as logistics services, mail order services, book media services, Page-Management® and concepts for future-oriented bank branches, for „GenoMax® – branch of the future“, and for various web-to-print offers.
SIEGFRIED SCHLOZ: DG VERLAG is the competence centre for solutions, services and products for companies in the cooperative network. The Volksbanks and Raiffeisenbanks to which you refer play an important role in this network. Our members and customers will find a very extensive range of services from various specialist disciplines under the umbrella brand DG VERLAG.
MICHAEL BOTTE: as the competence centre of the cooperative finance group for cards, our „Cards“ division equips cooperative banks with the products of the cooperative card family. We have also been successful for some years now as a solution partner for the implementation of innovative card projects based on the banking chip platform. For example, we have implemented employee ID projects and ticketing solutions. Our „Media“ division brings together traditional publishing products such as forms, specialist publications and customer information – in both printed and electronic form. The „Market Service“ division offers all of our company services and programmes that support the sales of the cooperative banks. These include marketing programmes for private and corporate customers, as well as additional services such as the TV solution for bank branches „Geno-InfoMonitor“ or the media library, to name just a few. The „Office“ division, for which I am responsible, combines the range of products from office supplies, office/banking technology, IT accessories, payment forms, equipment, promotional items and calendars. We are also specialists in solutions such as logistics services, mail order services, book media services, Page-Management® and concepts for future-oriented bank branches, for „GenoMax® – branch of the future“, and for various web-to-print offers.
M. B.: of course, we have been offering web-based solutions for several years now. To start with, our offer consisted mainly of print products, such as products from the „General Business Transactions“ environment. Then we wanted to offer our customers further added value with the familiar system environment of our „GenoBuy“ portal. The advantages – lean processes, greater flexibility and optimised cost-benefit aspects for the customer are obvious. And so we have gone on enlarging the WebPrint product family. In addition to letterheads, business cards and envelopes, other advertising materials such as stamps and pens can now be customised quickly and easily.
S. SCH.: above all, we were looking for a solution that would enable quick and easy integration of our online solutions and other applications such as company archives or image databases. The solution offered by apollon fits into our current technical „map“ very well: due to the problem-free integration, no additional interfaces had to be set up. This saved us a lot of time and money. The current solution offers our customers the advantage of always working in their usual „online world“. This means that they do not have to get used to a new application – a very important criterion for acceptance.
M. B.: of course, we have been offering web-based solutions for several years now. To start with, our offer consisted mainly of print products, such as products from the „General Business Transactions“ environment. Then we wanted to offer our customers further added value with the familiar system environment of our „GenoBuy“ portal. The advantages – lean processes, greater flexibility and optimised cost-benefit aspects for the customer are obvious. And so we have gone on enlarging the WebPrint product family. In addition to letterheads, business cards and envelopes, other advertising materials such as stamps and pens can now be customised quickly and easily.
S. SCH.: above all, we were looking for a solution that would enable quick and easy integration of our online solutions and other applications such as company archives or image databases. The solution offered by apollon fits into our current technical „map“ very well: due to the problem-free integration, no additional interfaces had to be set up. This saved us a lot of time and money. The current solution offers our customers the advantage of always working in their usual „online world“. This means that they do not have to get used to a new application – a very important criterion for acceptance.
S. SCH.: the focus of our developments is always the question of how good the „last mile to the customer“ is. By that I mean how good or how wide the range of connections is from the customer to the desk. In my opinion, this is the decisive criterion today for the acceptance of a complete application. You can programme the application to be as performant as you like but if, ultimately, the connection to the desk is insufficient, the performance of the entire application suffers and the customer is dissatisfied. From a technical point of view, the first thing that counts in the online area today is speed, and the second thing is operability. If these are right, then the application „fits“. In my opinion, functionalities are only the third most important feature because they are only discussed when the first two criteria have been satisfactorily met.
M. B.: to make it clear: for our members and customers, the focus is on cost savings through simple processes, quick and uncomplicated order processing and a simplified invoice process. It is important to set standards that work reliably. We are also able to implement „tailor-made solutions“ using the chosen solution. Due to our very heterogeneous customer structure, this is of great importance to us, and is therefore a requirement that must be met. So that all of this can be implemented smoothly on a day-to-day basis, an important success factor is to provide comprehensive support to our customers. We are well placed to do this with our hotline to all web-based solutions.
S. SCH.: the focus of our developments is always the question of how good the „last mile to the customer“ is. By that I mean how good or how wide the range of connections is from the customer to the desk. In my opinion, this is the decisive criterion today for the acceptance of a complete application. You can programme the application to be as performant as you like but if, ultimately, the connection to the desk is insufficient, the performance of the entire application suffers and the customer is dissatisfied. From a technical point of view, the first thing that counts in the online area today is speed, and the second thing is operability. If these are right, then the application „fits“. In my opinion, functionalities are only the third most important feature because they are only discussed when the first two criteria have been satisfactorily met.
M. B.: to make it clear: for our members and customers, the focus is on cost savings through simple processes, quick and uncomplicated order processing and a simplified invoice process. It is important to set standards that work reliably. We are also able to implement „tailor-made solutions“ using the chosen solution. Due to our very heterogeneous customer structure, this is of great importance to us, and is therefore a requirement that must be met. So that all of this can be implemented smoothly on a day-to-day basis, an important success factor is to provide comprehensive support to our customers. We are well placed to do this with our hotline to all web-based solutions.
M. B.: „WebPrint“ has been a success story in our company from the very beginning. We want to continue to operate and expand our customer- and market-oriented selection of customisable product families in the future. In this way, we will be increasing our range of added value and keeping up with the megatrend of digitisation. Topics for continuous further development such as the implementation of QR code generators or digital solutions in the SEPA environment are now on the agenda. This in turn places particular demands on the technical platform that we use for our WebPrint.
S. SCH.: it is important to us from an IT perspective to have „standard software“, where we can benefit from further general developments. The modularity and maintainability of the software are crucial. Only if these criteria are met can we react quickly to new requirements. Technically, we want to put additional modules of apollon’s software into operation in order to further optimise our internal processes and to reduce the maintenance effort.
M. B.: „WebPrint“ has been a success story in our company from the very beginning. We want to continue to operate and expand our customer- and market-oriented selection of customisable product families in the future. In this way, we will be increasing our range of added value and keeping up with the megatrend of digitisation. Topics for continuous further development such as the implementation of QR code generators or digital solutions in the SEPA environment are now on the agenda. This in turn places particular demands on the technical platform that we use for our WebPrint.
S. SCH.: it is important to us from an IT perspective to have „standard software“, where we can benefit from further general developments. The modularity and maintainability of the software are crucial. Only if these criteria are met can we react quickly to new requirements. Technically, we want to put additional modules of apollon’s software into operation in order to further optimise our internal processes and to reduce the maintenance effort.