Time flies when you dedicate yourself to a task with a lot of fun, passion, and commitment. In this sense, we can hardly believe that we are now celebrating the fifth birthday of the digatus Group. It’s a good opportunity to look back on the past years, because since our modest beginnings as a startup, a lot has happened and we have achieved much together.

How It All Began

In the founding year 2015, my founding partner Felix Kirschner and I first had to find a common ‘mechanism’ between us and develop the basic concept for the digatus Group. In the first small office in Augsburg’s Moltkestrasse and the 35m² room in Munich, we laid the foundations for our strategic orientation, our goals, and our central values according to which we wanted to lead the digatus Group. It was important to us to create modern workplaces and always meet our employees at eye level. To achieve this, we relied from the beginning on flexible working models, transparent handling of company information, high personal responsibility for employees, and fun as a central motivational factor.

Through targeted investments of time and money in building our structure, our network, and in thorough market analysis, we were able to promptly establish the first GmbH. Together with Marc von Jaduczynski and Ralf Hildebrand, digatus it consulting GmbH was created, and by the summer of 2015, we were able to acquire our first customers. Over the course of the year, we welcomed the first approximately 10 colleagues as well as some freelancers to digatus and appointed the supervisory board. With high commitment and many sacrifices, we managed to continuously drive the company’s development forward and thereby reach the break-even point in the founding year.

Milestones in the Development of the digatus Group

This was followed by a very successful year for us in 2016, in which we managed to make the leap into the desired growth strategy. As a result, we were able to win new customers almost weekly, from small to large, which also led to our first good project references. With the founding of digatus it services GmbH and digatus software GmbH, we expanded our portfolio and further professionally built up the corporate structure. In the course of this, we created the digatus Partner Council and established cross-company shared services in the areas of HR, administration, accounting, marketing, and sales. By the end of the year, we had managed to increase the number of employees to 35 and inspire more managing directors to join us. To accommodate this significant growth, we moved to a larger office at Elsenheimerstrasse 59 in Munich.

On to New Shores

Through further portfolio focus in all business units, we succeeded in continuing the strong customer acquisition from the previous year in 2017. An absolute highlight was the successful implementation of our first large carve-out project for Siemens Turbomachinery Equipment GmbH in complete self-responsibility.

To further sharpen our external image, we revised the digatus CI, optimized the website appearance, and increased our presence at events and trade fairs such as the Pyramid company contact fair in Augsburg. We also successfully established our own event series for regional networking with the digatus it breakfast and opened a location in South Africa. By the end of the year, we already counted over 50 active customers, from corporations to SMEs, which enabled us to even double the revenue from 2016. Through targeted focus on personnel recruitment, we were able to build up an additional 35 employees.

“From day one, we were damn fast and have been able to maintain our ‘body tension’ to this day!”

Stephan Bals – Chairman of the Board

To accommodate this rapid and continuous growth, 2018 began for us with a move to a new, larger, and very modern office at Elsenheimerstraße 61 in Munich. Throughout the year, we managed to set important strategic accents, for example through our first company acquisition and the expansion of the supervisory board to include Dr. Albrecht Schleich. By participating in numerous larger tenders, we were also able to gain new customers.

As a young company with an actively lived startup character, we maintain close contact with universities to identify and develop potential talents early on. In this spirit, we initiated a partnership with the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg and supervised a practical project for 100 students at the Chair of Business Management.

In the past year, we were particularly pleased about the opening of our two new locations in Franconia and Rosenheim, as well as the establishment of digatus digital GmbH. Meanwhile, digatus already counts more than 80 employees and the number is steadily growing.

What We Are Proud Of

From day one, we have operated along our operative cash flow and always aligned investments very closely with our available capital, ensuring we never lived beyond our means. From the beginning, we chose an entrepreneurial approach across several companies and pursued a very integrative organizational concept, from CI, through responsibilities, to shared services. This clear strategic orientation forms the basis for our remarkable growth.

We have also always made sure that work is enjoyable and that new employees fit in with us and our team structure. To strengthen the cohesion among colleagues, we regularly organize company events and participate in sports events together. This has allowed us to create a positive, innovative, and dynamic work environment that we are particularly proud of.

We Celebrate Five Years of digatus

It all started at 5:30 PM in bright sunshine on the terrace of KnödelAlm. There we welcomed our guests with hot mulled wine and original Bavarian snacks, which quickly got everyone talking.
In the rustic and beautifully decorated hut, our board members and founders Stephan Bals and Felix Kirschner once again welcomed all guests before leading them through a brief nostalgic review of five eventful years.

The emotional highlight of the evening was provided by the video specially made for the celebration, featuring heartfelt and confetti-rich birthday greetings from the digatus family.
While KnödelAlm once again served us an excellent Bavarian 3-course menu, interesting conversations arose and numerous anecdotes from five years of digatus were exchanged.

Between the main course and dessert, another highlight awaited us, especially for the children and the young at heart among us. Blindfolded, Felix’s task was to get to the candies in the colorful piñata. With a single powerful blow, he skillfully dismantled it, scattering sweets throughout the room.
Of course, a proper birthday party must not lack a birthday cake. Felix and Stephan again took charge of cutting it.
In a relaxed atmosphere and with high spirits, toasts were made to the successes of the still young company history well into the night, and numerous anecdotes from recent years were exchanged.

We would like to sincerely thank everyone who has accompanied us on this exciting and eventful journey and are already looking forward to the next five years of digatus!