The Data Logisticians
Quibiq builds virtual data highways
Quibiq is taking care that all users in a company have quick access to the data they need - regardless of whether these are stored in conventional databases, or in the cloud. Founded at the turn of the millennium in Stuttgart, the IT company is currently expanding and building up branches in several German cities. They chose Adlershof for their Berlin branch.
Berlin feels like home to Leo Martens. After a few years in Stuttgart, he returned to this city in May 2016 to build up a local branch of his company Quibiq. “On the one hand, we want to be closer to our customers,” explains the CEO of Quibiq Berlin GmbH, “on the other hand, we want to make sure our employees do not have to move or commute anymore.”
For this purpose, the Stuttgart-based IT company is building up more branches in Hamburg, Rostock and Zurich. All of these are university towns that train computer scientists. Quibiq wants to be where they are. They chose Adlershof for their Berlin branch. “An expanding site for science and technology with university institutes in the immediate vicinity and a lively start-up scene. Really that’s all you need,” says Martens. Getting to Adlershof is also easy, especially once the new airport has opened.
In many ways, Martens thinks like a logistician. Short distances and high availability are as important for data processes as they are for highly-skilled workers, customers and business trips. After all, Quibiq is focused on data logistics. Their customers include corporations and large medium-sized companies with increasingly complex IT structures. As certified partners of Microsoft, the “logisticians” make sure that their customer’s staff have access to the data they need anywhere, anytime. Even in real time, if required.
This is no easy feat because the data are sometimes stored locally on servers, in central databases, in enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management-systems (CRM), and, more than ever, in the cloud. The increasing digitisation of manufacturing (Industry 4.0) is producing more diversity: connected manufacturing facilities, mobile machines and tablet computers from service technicians collect and transmit data. Companies and their employees expect these data to be synchronised and up-to-date company-wide. And they expect smooth data transfer with all the connected systems.
A solution is offered by the “Enterprise Service Bus”. A data bus solution for companies that Quibiq specialists integrate into the cloud. Experts call this approach hybrid integration architecture. They are flexible enough to integrate time-honoured business processes into the IT architecture as well as new, meticulously planned processes. This can also be done across companies: in some industries, where manufacturers work very closely together with suppliers, there is a fluent transition between IT systems and processes.
“We build virtual data highways inside and between companies and, thanks to our partnership with Microsoft, we are able to offer very cost-effective solutions,” says Martens. Microsoft’s standardised products decrease entry costs. The actual cost effects, however, come to light during application: “Especially customers who invested in cloud processes early on are seeing incredible savings,” he says. One way of achieving those are slim order processes, which use as little as 10% of the original resources. Now that cloud computing is available in Germany in cooperation with Telekom, more companies are trusting hybrid architecture. Martens and his team are specialised on translating their customer’s business processes into IT. Like traditional supply chains, everything relies on interfaces. Diagnosis devices in clinics, hydraulic excavators or smart factories: the collected data must be fed into the systems efficiently and distributed smoothly across all interfaces. 98 percent of solutions are based on software. “Which leads us back to the highly-skilled workers. We are looking for creative software developers and IT architects,” says Martens. His new office in Albert-Einstein-Strasse 16 is built with the prospective growth in mind. One thing is very clear: in the age of digital revolution, there is more in store for Quibiq.
by Peter Trechow
Link: www.quibiq.de/en/