I joined Innosoft at the beginning of 2016. At that time, I was still employed as a working student and was allowed to pass through various departments at Innosoft. I am very grateful to Innosoft that they supported and accompanied me even during a serious illness and enabled me to re-enter the company. For me, Innosoft stands for a family-like working environment with the opportunity to develop and quickly take on responsibility and challenging tasks through flat hierarchies. I myself have been working in sales since 2019 and find it very exciting to present our newer software solution, Field Service Management, to our prospects and customers and to convince them of the benefits and innovative concepts.
Service for more than
Years
Months
Weeks
Days
Innosoft celebrates its 25th anniversary.
We say thank you!
Similar to the classic IT start-ups in California, Innosoft’s story also began on a small scale. But here it was not a garage, but a floor in a private residence in Dortmund-Hombruch that became the nucleus of a success story.
The first product developed by the initial staff of four was the resource planning, a digital planning board for service in mechanical and industrial engineering. Today, the programme is still one of the premium products in the portfolio of the software house Innosoft GmbH in Dortmund. The focus of the products then as now is on supporting efficient business processes in service and field assembly. It has been proven that many companies have been able to sustainably improve their business success with Innosoft products. Innosoft’s service solutions, which are available in eight languages, are now used with great success by over 300 customers worldwide.
25 years and two relocations later, the company occupies two floors of an office building in Dortmund’s Technology Park with more than fifteen times as many employees. And the product range is also much broader today with the complete Field Service Management System including numerous modules and functions. For example, the new SmartSearch module allows for an intelligent provision of information for technical service cases with which external data and document sources can be used in addition to existing data and documents within the INNOSOFT system. These information sources are very frequently relevant for the technical service to solve the service problems on site, such as technical documentation, spare parts catalogues, etc. and can be used in both the app and the laptop version.
Over the years, Innosoft products have not only been functionally expanded, but also continuously adapted to IT-technical developments. In recent years, there has been a transition from Windows-based systems to web-based systems as well as tablets and smartphones.
In order to remain viable for the future, the management team was expanded to include younger colleagues. This ensures that the company will continue to be well managed in the future and remain a reliable partner for its customers and employees. The employees, who have usually completed a degree or dual training, have remained loyal to the company for a very long time and thus guarantee the company’s quality standards.
Milestones
Learn a little more about the last 25 years at Innosoft. Little insights into the founding years and
other events that have shaped us as a company.
Foundation
Innosoft GmbH was founded in 1996 by the 4 founders Walter Siepe, Helga Siepe, Rainer Goos and Peter Ebbrecht. The idea behind the foundation of Innosoft GmbH was the development of a Windows-based software for resource planning and project management.
First employees
The first university student was hired on 01.04.1998 and wrote his diploma thesis with us
at the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences.
First relocation
In August 1999 we moved to larger premises for the first time. We found space in Semerteichstraße in Dortmund with our SAP partner TKIS with a staff of 7. The first additions to the product portfolio were the billing and mobile field service modules.
First apprentice
2 years after the first move, we hired our first apprentice as IT specialist and IT businessman in August.
Steady growth and further improvements
The first web module for customers was developed in this year. Just as the first PDA solution for worldwide use in the field was delivered – the predecessor of today’s smartphone APP.
Second relocation
In summer 2010, we moved again, to the Technology Park close to the university. In the meantime, the number of employees had increased to 40. In this year, we not only had more than 200 customers operating worldwide, but also completed the Innosoft service management system.
Release of the Field Service Management
Some time later and with a newly developed software, we started the year 2019.
We released the Field Service Management and set the course for the future with the web-based successor software of Innosoft Classic.
Plenty of new things
10 years after the completion of the Innosoft service management system, the first cloud installations were available exclusively as web-based software with connection to the smartphone APP for Android and iPhone. But not only that, in spring 2020 we said goodbye to our old website and started with a newer improved version. The logo was refreshed a bit and our appearance was summarised in a professional design manual.
Today
This year we celebrate our 25th anniversary. With 3 managing directors and over 60 employees, we are one of the we are one of the leading developers of project and service management systems for more than 300 customers operating worldwide. And despite a worldwide pandemic, we are looking forward to the future with excitement and positivity!
We say thank you!
Years of service
Years of development
Years of growth
Years of innovation
What our managers and employees say
Immediately after graduating from high school in 2016, I started a dual study program at Innosoft. I settled in very well and was quickly integrated by my colleagues. The company always provided me with suggestions and help regarding any technical papers I had to write during my studies. In addition, I was able to apply the knowledge I had gained at university directly to my day-to-day work. Through a wide range of diverse tasks, such as working at the database level, programming or server administration, the IT knowledge is generally promoted. In 2018, I was then taken on permanently. From year to year, my area of responsibility in the company has grown steadily, which shows how much trust the company also puts in young employees in particular and promotes them. Due to the proximity to the customer, the work as a project manager also promotes skills such as foreign languages, as well as dealing with business customers in general. If you are looking for a challenge to further your education, Innosoft is the right place for you.
Through their direct customer contact, the service technicians have the most up-to-date information about the machine status and possibly the customers’ purchase intentions. In my time as service manager, this information was only available in the technicians’ heads or on handwritten reports. When the company was founded in 1996, my intention was to develop a guided service report for the technicians to evaluate this information and make it available to service management, sales or engineering as a decision support tool. Another goal when founding the company in 1996 was not only to sell software for service but also to provide excellent service, which according to our customers we have succeeded in doing.
Since I started as a dual student at INNOSOFT in 2015, I have been able to deepen some of the theories I acquired during my studies in my everyday work. During my studies, the company regularly suggested internal projects to me as topic choices for technical papers such as the bachelor thesis. I was also given time for technical and written implementation, which was a great relief for me. To this day, I feel very well looked after and the positive working atmosphere, in which I am not afraid to ask questions, has enabled me to develop steadily both professionally and personally. Today I work as a project developer and manager on various assignments, partly independently or together with an experienced colleague. My tasks include customer support as well as the technical implementation of specific development requests.
After working in an IT company, I moved to Innosoft in 2011. Initially, I took over tasks in administration, order processing and billing. This was followed by a break for parental leave and even after that I was very well received again and since then I have been working part-time in technical documentation. Thanks to the possibility of working in a home office, I am able to combine work and family life. I would like to emphasize the cooperation in the team and with our trainees, which I really enjoy.
Before joining Innosoft in 2013, I worked for a small company in the field of mechanical engineering. It quickly became clear that the change to a larger company was a good idea. Here at Innosoft it is very familiar and I was supported during my further education to become a business economist. Our office team is jointly responsible for administration, order processing and invoicing. Here we work hand in hand and can also rely on product questions being explained to us by our colleagues with patience and expertise. Contact with each other is as good as ever, especially now that almost everyone works from their home office at Corona times.
I started working for Innosoft as a student in 1996 and successfully completed my computer science studies during this time. The diploma thesis on the topic “Digitalization of planning tasks” was accompanied by Innosoft in an advisory capacity. Already during my studies and increasingly after my permanent employment I worked on software development, especially on classical resource planning. Since 2000, I have been advising and supporting our customers in southern Germany and Switzerland as a project manager from my home office in Alsace. Our customers come from the most diverse areas of mechanical and plant engineering, so the tasks and the solutions created are correspondingly diverse. Not only the customer requirements, but also the use of new techniques within the framework of the current software versions are constant challenges.
Now Innosoft has been with me for almost half my life. It has never been boring, the constant new challenges have made sure of that. The initial venture, which only had to support the four founders, has grown into a mature company. Something like this only works with a strong team. We participated in two research projects with the Fraunhofer Institute IPK and were nominated by the city of Dortmund for the Dortmund Business Award in 2020. Even though we were not among the award winners, it shows that we are being noticed.
In 2013 I started my apprenticeship as an IT specialist for application development at Innosoft. After successful completion, I took over the management of the training in the company and still am today, working with the trainees is still an exciting and varied job. In addition to this position, I also take on other important tasks in project management. At Innosoft I feel very well integrated and supported. My career is a good example of how you can go from being a trainee to a key employee of a company. I look forward to the future positively because I have a company behind me that has confidence in my abilities.