Minister Dr. Bernd Buchholz has been visiting a fine selection of innovative companies in North Germany with national and international appeal as part of a tour organized in June by the Digital Economy of Schleswig-Holstein (DiWiSH).
Minister Buchholz was welcomed at ppi Media GmbH in Kiel by CEO Dr. Hauke Berndt and COO Manuel Scheyda. The companies on the minister’s tour were chosen as unsung heroes of the digital industry and beacons of the digital economy in Schleswig-Holstein. The organizers of the tour wanted to show the impressive innovations for the digital economy driven by companies in Schleswig-Holstein while raising awareness amongst policy-makers, businesses and society.
Minister Buchholz, who has in-depth knowledge of the publishing industry as the former CEO of Gruner + Jahr AG & Co KG, was impressed by the extensive range of solutions developed by ppi Media for the international publishing sector and praised the fact that the Kiel-based company is also using its expertise to offer digitization support to local companies outside the media industry, because the digital transformation is still a predominant issue for many branches of the economy.
The minister also pointed out that the printing industry was one of the first sectors of the economy to feel the full force of the digital transformation. “And I’ve now seen with my own eyes that the products developed by ppi Media are a key driving force for this global process – in both the planning and production of newspapers and other print products”, said Minister Buchholz.
Dr. Hauke Berndt and Manuel Scheyda welcomed the intensive exchange with Minister Buchholz and other guests: “We’re very pleased with the visit and the huge interest shown by the minister in our business processes and strategies. The tour organized by DiWiSH is a really good way to stimulate dialog between businesses and policy-makers in Schleswig-Holstein”.
In addition to ppi Media GmbH, some of the other stops on the minister’s tour included TRASER Software GmbH and UXMA GmbH & Co. KG in Kiel, MAC IT- Solutions GmbH in Flensburg and MACH AG in Lübeck. The companies on the tour are united by their appeal as innovative digitization experts: “Their products, services and corporate culture are not only important in their specialized industries, but the entire world of work and society in general. They’re internationally acclaimed, economically stable and constantly growing”, explains Dr. Johannes Ripken, who manages the DiWiSH cluster and helped organize the minister’s tour.