
Why German companies fail at digital innovation - imartin2k
https://global.handelsblatt.com/opinion/why-german-companies-fail-in-digital-innovation-901367
======
krylon
"Companies operating in Germany have to make sure that data is anonymized and
stored in accordance with the law. These data rules are a big reasons why
German companies have to stick with their old tools."

Pardon my German, but that is utter and complete Büffelscheiße on multiple
levels. Firstly, how does data protection and privacy law prevent you from
using those tools? Secondly, the German law in these matters is not a
hindrance to innovation, that is a lame excuse: If the only business model you
can come up with is grabbing as much data as you can and then sell it to
advertisers, that is not innovative at all.

I think the problem more has to do with a general resistance to change that is
very common in German companies and public institutions. "Was der Bauer nicht
kennt, frisst er nicht", as we say in Germany ("What the farmer doesn't know,
he won't eat"). Large institutions and bureaucracies develop a huge inertia as
they grow. The three rules why things do not change: 1. We have always done it
like this; 2. We have never done it like that; 3. Once we change this one
thing, where does it lead to?

~~~
raverbashing
Correct, also the fact that "companies don't use Slack because of this" is
laughable

Companies do use Slack and other similar services

~~~
weinzierl
Some companies do use Slack but I know several examples where the introduction
of Slack was prevented for compliance reasons. If these reasons are sound I
cannot tell, but dismissing this argument as laughable doesn’t hold either.

~~~
majewsky
I'm at SAP (and in Germany, too), and our team was migrated to Slack
Enterprise Grid just this week. We migrated to Slack (from internal IRC) a bit
over a year ago and because a lot of other teams did as well, corporate IT was
pushed into investigating company-wide Slack as an option, which now became
available in January.

Compared to other tech companies, it took us longer to adopt Slack on the
company scale, but mostly because Slack was lacking an on-premise solution
until recently.

------
ar0
I think the author misses a key ingredient when he talks about the “lack of
skills”: German companies are notoriously stingy (or frugal, however you want
to call it) when paying their engineers. Combined with a hesitation to greatly
differentiate pay between great and average staff (due to culture and also the
“Gesamtarbeitsverträge” between employers and unions), this means that really
great and innovative employees will be able to earn far more in nearby
Switzerland or far Silicon Valley. I’m always a bit sceptical when (allegedly
free-market loving) managers talk about a skill shortage: remember, economic
theory states that in a free market there will be no shortage, because prices
will rise to accommodate supply and demand.

~~~
adamhepner
As a freelancer in Germany, I can add to that: it's not only that companies
are stingy with employees. From what I had observed, a growing number of
software engineers found out how tax calculations work, and decide to go
freelance by the numbers. In my current team of less than 10 software
developers, 2 has just recently decided to take the plunge.

This comes however with increased risk, as the contracts are usually limited
to 6 months, and because of "Scheinselbstständigkeit" (appearing to be
employed, even though you are contracted out to your own company, or DBA)
companies are prohibitted from prolonging those contracts, unless they want to
pay horrendous penalties.

All is good and great, I understand why those laws were put into place (mostly
to protect unskilled workers, like drivers or manufacturing line workers from
being forced to sign more beneficial - to the company - contracts instead of
work agreements), but the software engineers, with the employment gap will in
most cases easily find a replacement job somewhere near, yet the companies
necessarily undergo a brain drain, and the know how gets leaked out.

Just imagine, you need a couple of weeks to be able to actually productively
add features to the product, then take a bit time off, some workshop, a ton of
meetings, and basically your 6 months are off, and unless your client is
willing to take the risk, your starting your offboarding - just mabye
transferring all that you had learned in the meantime to somebody else.

~~~
sbruny
I'm a freelancer, too. But, I don't think this leads to massive "brain-drain"
within a company, when working with lots of freelancers. Let's take a look at
our jobs and how we treat our clients. Mostly we'll be (somehow) integrated
into a team of developers. As a freelancer, I'm hired, because I'm an expert
in my field of profession. So while working with the team, I'll share my
knowlegde with them, so they can profit from my expertise in longer terms.

What I miss in germany, is developers of ability, sharing their experience in
public. Whenever I look for inspiration/learning/ressources, it's guys like
Robert C. Martin, Martin Fowler or Kent Beck with the best material.

I can't believe that our country doesn't have a few of such minds, too.

~~~
pluma
I was a freelancer and became a contractor for my own company a few years ago
(only German kids will get this).

I've been in situations like the one you describe, where I'm one of many
developers and share my knowledge. I've also been "the developer" in companies
that have no permanently employed developers or no interest in sharing
knowledge. I've also interviewed at companies that had effectively outsourced
their entire development to another company (with the team working on-site
full time but being employed by another company who would rent them out for
jobs like these).

These companies often relied on their code as a critical part of being able to
do business. Some of them were literally software companies. Yes, it's
shortsighted and obviously a bad idea but companies operate like this,
especially smaller companies that think they can reduce financial risks by
hiring freelancers even if they effectively overpay compared to what a
salaried developer would cost them.

~~~
sbruny
Yes, I share those experiences. Lots of business-decisions are counter-
productive to us software-people. Maybe it's because software is a kind of
craft, with art and engeneering qualities, that is hard to reason about
correctly, if you are not "into it".

Short term business decisions, like outsourcing, may indicate a need for
higher liquidity within an accute financial situation (which is common for
small companies). I think most managers know the longer term risks, but are
somehow forced to do so.

However, I see us "software people" in charge to change the situation, by
insiting on disciplines, like knowlegde-sharing, proper testing, etc. Maybe
germany needs a better IT-community...

------
alexandrerond
Some people here seems not to realize that German salaries come with 30 days
paid vacation, a year of parental leaves, first grade medical coverage in a
relatively cheap country to live in.

If your life goes wrong, due to illnesses, unforeseen circumstances or
unemployment, or if you plan to have a family, you're better off in Germany
than in silicon valley with 160k.

~~~
expertentipp
> If your life goes wrong, due to illnesses, unforeseen circumstances or
> unemployment, or if you plan to have a family, you're better off in Germany
> than in silicon valley with 160k.

Am I going to benefit from these as a foreigner not fluent in German language
and having trouble navigating the bureaucratic maze of public healthcare and
social support? My impression is that even the natives can get confused (see
number of homeless and mental people on the streets or occupying the transport
infrastructure).

~~~
lispm
Probably a good idea to speak German if you want to live and work in Germany.

Basically nobody here will be able to avoid the healthcare system.

~~~
thunfischbrot
It is a good idea. Not necessary though in order to access health care. If you
are in an environment with lots of expats or generally mixed backgrounds
you'll likely survive without speaking much more than a handful of German
words per week if you really want to (Heidelberg, Berlin, Bonn, Cologne, ...).
It does help you though, as finding doctors and especially employees in public
office who are able and willing to discuss with you in English is not a given.

~~~
lispm
It's possible, but it severely limits you if you don't speak German. I've been
working with large companies - either international branches or German
multinationals - and they don't like to speak English at work. They can, but
it is dumb to have ten German engineers to discuss a topic in slightly broken
or less than perfect English, just because there is one guy in the room not
able to speak German. Documents or code might be English, but the whole
conversation around it is preferred in German.

This means when you don't speak German, you are mostly limited to work in
projects where English is possible or the default - there are jobs like this,
but this is actually limited.

I've met persons who were ten years in Germany and were not able to do a
general conversation in a job interview in German. I would not hire them -
other than for specific projects/tasks where that would not be a problem.

------
sleavey
Isn't part of Germany's success in manufacturing their conservatism when it
comes to large changes in the way we do business? To take an example, there
are still companies that make pencils profitably in Germany (the two biggest,
Faber-Castell and Staedtler, are local rivals that have been recently arguing
in court over who is older [1]; both are at least 250 years old). Both
companies are examples of Mittelstand, small-medium sized German manufacturing
businesses that grow organically over decades instead of undergoing explosive
growth (and explosive failure). This is in part probably due to managers not
fearing missing out on The Next Big Thing and trusting in their capital,
intellectual property and people. Maybe they think the same about digital
innovation right now - let's wait and see where it goes, and when the time
comes, throw everything we have at it.

[1]
[http://www.bbc.com/news/business-13019777](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-13019777)

~~~
carlmr
>managers not fearing missing out on The Next Big Thing and trusting in their
capital

From an inside perspective I can assure you they're shitting their pants. But
they also don't know why they want digital innovation. It's pure buzzword
bingo.

------
lordnacho
One thing about having people who are trained is that the Germans are probably
a bit more strict than the Anglos about whom they consider trained in a given
field.

I've worked in the UK, where a history graduate can learn to be a derivatives
trader. An engineering grad can with little problem get a job coding software
(I did both of those jobs with a MEng).

Contrast that with my experience in the Germanic world, and I found the only
place that ever asked for my degree certificate. My German friends have degree
titles that are pretty much their job titles. I met people who were out of
work, and when asked what job they wanted, they responded with a pretty narrow
range of jobs fitting their degree.

Recruiters also seemed to take buzzword bingo more seriously, whereas London
recruiters seem to be happy to put forward someone who says c# is like c++.
Not without its own issues, but if you have a skills shortage, maybe take
someone who is close enough?

~~~
carlmr
Yeah, I just applied for a job in Germany where I tick 90% of the boxes. Yet
the one box I didn't have they immediately excluded me on, even if it was
skills I could learn easily given my previous experience.

That job has been open for almost a year now, I wonder why.

~~~
majewsky
Not every employer is like that. When I started at my first developer job, I
only had a degree in physics. (I've since completed a part-time B.Sc. in CS.)
They hired me because of my open-source portfolio. Now I'm at SAP, which
according to a common joke is an abbreviation for "Sammelplatz arbeitsloser
Physiker" (assembly area for unemployed physicists), and one of my friends
from university (with a doctorate in laser physics) now also works as an SAP
consultant.

------
drinchev
IMHO Germany also lacks the culture of paying for talent. Employee options
doesn't really work here and nobody will give 100k for an employee.

They will gladly pay :

\- 10k for missed opportunities ( I've seen companies looking for devs for
more than half an year )

\- 10k for a recruiter

\- 80k for the employee

Not to mention I've seen consulting companies "renting" good freelancers to
conglomerates, for double the price of what they are paid.

~~~
lispm
I can tell you that I have seen people working in software for automotive
companies, who earn that much for very little work that I still wonder how
this is possible.

~~~
thunfischbrot
I have seen that as well. The automotive industry (in IT in the few companies
I've seen) though seems to move at glacial pace, yet in the right direction.
Contrasting that with experience in telecommunication providers I've worked
with, where the pay was similar, most worked under a lot more stress, but
effectively accomplished less as projects were much more based on the
manager's career goals than company goals.

------
mindjiver
As recent transplant to Germany from Sweden (moved here about 2 years ago) I
observe these things daily. Cable connection being 'state-of-art' for Internet
access and bad phone reception more or less everywhere. Not being able to
count on good speed LTE walking around in the second biggest city in the
country, is weird.

I would say large parts of this is cultural. Germans are not so quick to hop
onto new things and are suspicious what problems new technology brings,
especially with regards to privacy and 'Datenschutz' / data protection. Swedes
on the other hand love new things and with a national number given out by
birth privacy is not that big of a deal.

German companies also have a large accessible market of German speakers (~100
million) so the need to go global is not as acute as for companies from
smaller economies.

~~~
adrianN
I'm not sure how the speed of home internet connections relates to being
innovative. Are 50Mbit/s not enough to learn how to code or deploy your stuff
to the cloud?

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
My thoughts exactly. As if 1GBit everywhere would suddenly produces more
"digital natives".

~~~
avh02
no, but I was on a uni network for a year (basically gbit with good IX
connectivity in the UK) and being able to fling around data to the cloud like
it's your local network really cuts down on things you think/worry about -
making it easier to work and try new things.

Is it wasteful? sure, but who cares if it allows you to try random stuff you
would hesitate about otherwise?

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
I'm not saying its not _nice_ \- I'd like 1Gb! But the US has terrible
connectivity as well, see HN discussions about how evil Comcast is. Hasn't
prevented them from starting successful companies.

Its like "we need more car companies, lets build more roads". True to an
extend, but there are so many other factors.

------
blt
> Companies operating in Germany have to make sure that data is anonymized and
> stored in accordance with the law. These data rules are a big reasons why
> German companies have to stick with their old tools. But every day that we
> Germans obsess about data, thousands of businesses elsewhere merrily and
> creatively forge ahead without us.

As a citizen of the United States, I wish my country valued privacy 1/4 as
much as Germany.

~~~
VladTheImplier
In the wakes of Edward Snowden's revelations (where Merkel's phone was tapped,
they lied to the public that it was not and the next day it was confirmed that
it was indeed being tapped) it was shown, that the BKA and other parts of
German government gladly sent over all the data they have collected to our
"friends" over the pond. Whilst I and many truly appreciate the data
protection, there are other laws, that force you to save data over a certain
period of time, see the "Voratsdatenspeicherung" debate. There are so many
beyond retarded laws, that make an internet based startup in Germany a very
bad gamble. One of those retarded laws was "Störerhaft", which up until the
end of 2017 made offering free WiFi basically illegal. Now you are required to
identify and collect every real name within a Network. Now offering WiFi isn't
straight up a guarantee for trouble, but you are forced to use a login page,
which saves the name of the user.

~~~
thunfischbrot
Was it really the BKA? I was under the impression that it had been the BND,
which should be scrapped as far as I'm concerned.

~~~
pluma
Yes, I'm fairly certain that the BKA being involved would have been a far
greater scandal. The BND is well known to act above the law because of a total
lack of accountability. The BKA is just the federal police.

To put it in terms foreigners might be able to relate to:

BND = CIA

BKA = FBI

BfV (Verfassungsschutz) = NSA

The BND is the German intelligence service and primarily tracks threats
outside Germany. The BKA mostly just coordinates investigations at the
national level (it's a lot more hands-off than the FBI). The Verfassungsschutz
monitors domestic threats.

The Verfassungsschutz also infamously completely missed the existence of the
far-right NSU terrorists who happily comitted a number of attacks and bombings
which went unnoticed because of victim-blaming ("A Turkish fast food joint was
bombed? Must have gotten involved with the Turkish mafia."). The
Verfassungsschutz also later interfered in an investigation against itself by
accidentally destroying evidence.

So if you still have difficulties telling them apart:

BND = unaccountable spies

BKA = federal police that doesn't really do much policing

Verfassungsschutz = really bad at hunting nazis

------
_Codemonkeyism
Working as a consultant on digitization with some of the largest German
companies, the main problem is their success in one field.

Everyone wants to innovate, I've got orders directly from the board on these
topics, everyone in top and middle management is on board, wants to innovate,
there is a lot of tailwind, but in the field they are squashed by the success
of their main products and by time constraints maintaining their cash cows.

Many expect ROI much too early. I tell them look at startups, VCs and exits,
these are the time frames to expect success (up to 10 years). But if a new
project doesn't make enough money in 2 years it is often killed or seen as a
career killer being on board.

~~~
oger
I can absolutely agree having seen this happening much too often. It’s like
someone took the bad stories from Clayton Christensen‘s „Innovators Dilemma“
and implemented them down to the word. Protecting revenue pools and managing
innovation by line managers are stereotypical examples here. However while not
being brilliant at true innovation many larger corporates are doung a decent
job in managing strategies to protect their business longer than you would
expect. This may not be as fancy as the startup world but nevertheless pays
their bills.

------
darklajid
(Had to open this in Chrome, because Fx Nightly says Error code:
MOZILLA_PKIX_ERROR_ADDITIONAL_POLICY_CONSTRAINT_FAILED)

I have to disagree with all points.

1) Maybe true - but lots of exceptions exist as far as I'm aware (based on
friends/social circle). Yes, there's some overhead, but not staggeringly so.

2) Oh my god.. Sure.. That would _certainly_ increase productivity. Give me
Mail over Something-Like-IRC-But-Worse any day. Yammer seems popular around
here right now and is shit, plain and simple. Slack has no value for me. If
these tools are missing I'd say that's something Germany does right?

3) Fiber optics are uncommon unless you're lucky (say, Cologne has decent
options). But broadband is very common. Falling at innovation seems a tad
exaggerated.

4) We have good CS programs. Schools tend to be worse (sometimes far so) as
far as I experienced and heard, but universities are quite okay. Otherwise ..
this is basically the general "big market, not enough people" problem that HN
confirms for more or less any country as soon as the "Working in $country"
comes up.

Seems .. not just an opinion piece, it seems wildly inaccurate to me. Or to
put it more politely: The author's and my ideas of digital innovation or
failure thereof don't quiiiite align.

~~~
larrykwg
Which I think is the major point the author missed, the german IT industry
itself is in denial for a long time now. Its not even the question why can't
Germany create any major internet company like Facebook or Slack, its: "Slack
has no value to me", I don't understand why people use Facebook/Whatsapp at
all... These are the majority in the industry and block any real innovation at
the earliest possible moment.

~~~
darklajid
Only if you buy into the idea that Slack (or Facebook) have any value in the
first place. You can say "You're wrong to disagree", but ..

I do believe that Germany has issues, mostly governmental (setting up a
company, taxes, bureaucracy) and there _is_ a certain lack of cultural support
for moving fast / start-up culture. Having lived in Germany for most of my
life, a year in Tel Aviv and being in Singapore now: Tel Aviv and Singapore
have a thriving scene of people that want to start their own company. The
places in Germany I've called home never felt that way.

But this article? It seems rather pointless to me. Just like Slack. Or
Facebook. :)

------
stewbrew
"Some of my clients haven’t even found a single applicant for positions in
..."

I wonder if this doesn't have to do with pay. I often get the impression they
want Mr/Mrs Houdini know-it-all of ML but offer entry level pay.

~~~
adamhepner
As a comparison - a "senior test automation engineer" in Poland has usually
3-5 years experience in automation in the rob ad. I've never really seen
anything more than 5.

In Germany, I recently got "junior test automation engineer" job offer, that
required at least 3 years of automation experience. Upon my joking remark to
the recruited, he just smirked and said "that's how the customer sees it".

~~~
maddening
Well, recently I saw this: [http://praca.antyweb.pl/job/junior-java-
developer](http://praca.antyweb.pl/job/junior-java-developer)

Most relevant parts for English speakers:

* junior Java developer

* min. 2 years of experience

* knowledge about Java 8, Spring 4+, Spring Boot, microservices

Salary typical for advanced mid/senior. I don't even ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

------
Herbert2
As a foreigner in Germany, I'd add to that list bureaucracy & the German
language, a duet that does little to bolster the willingness of non-native
speakers founding companies here.

------
shapiro92
So I am an expat in Germany for the past 3 years, worked in 3 companies
startup, corporate and other big company who started outside of Germany. These
are my 2 cents.

The digital innovation is being killed by 1) the people who hold the money.
Venture capital in Germany and in Europe (excluding London) is totally
different that in the US. In Germany for your seed round they want you to show
them MRR, churn, thousands of users, forget it if you are 1 founder etc. The
barrier is way higher than in US. Furthermore, only recently (2-3 years) have
we seen been seed rounds in Germany but these being lead by non-german funds
or by global funds that base in Germany. The limit of funds also limits how
much companies can pay. 2) the obsession with titles PhD, MD, Lead etc. 3) do
things that dont scale, is literally translated into, keep getting interns
till the university doesnt have any more students to copy data from excel1 to
excel2. 4) the still monolithic approach of hierarchies. (The MD (CEO) of one
of the companies I worked for literally said that you should listen to X
person because he has been in the company longer, even though that was for 2
months.

Sorry but there is no shortage of talent. really big names in their field have
grown and live in Germany but there is no way that Deutsche telekom would hire
them, as their contracts are low paying, have restrictions in terms of
employment and most people know that when you go in there its kind of the
public sector, you wont get out.

There is a little bit of truth around the "tools" part but this is not due to
law. Noone cares about the law when you are 5 man team with 10 users. The
problem is that they insist on using shitty tools just because they are from
another Germany company. Personio is one of them.

I hope everything I said is clear enough and doesnt cause any missconceptions.

~~~
thunfischbrot
I agree on many points. Wanted to add that in my view using "shitty tools" is
not "just" because they are from another German company. In my experience in
two DAX companies as well as startups, European and often times German
providers especially of SaaS are picked due to not wanting to send customer,
employee and company secret data off to jurisdictions which have been shown to
be weak on data privacy, as well as the general feeling that there are fewer
data leaks especially from U.S.-American companies.

One can certainly debate whether that feeling is based on solid ground, given
the larger amount of SaaS companies in the US, and the fact that larger
companies may attract more attention.

~~~
shapiro92
I guess I should clarify, by no means did I want to offend german software
engineering. Ofcourse there are great products made from german software
company or any companies (cars duh.)

Further that, I understand your point but I do not believe it is an issue in
new companies. Yes Deutsche telekom might have such issue, but if you dont use
Slack you can use HipChat you can use Microsoft Teams, you can use Google
hangouts chat. All with different policies, data centers etc. Hell you can
even roll your own with open source projects. There is always a way out and
hiding behind the law for not adapting is bad for them.

BTW I believe DAX companies are more sensitive in terms of data than most
companies, lets say soundcloud.

------
xstartup
I think Germany's problem is that it is a lot more bureaucratic and it offers
little to no incentive.

a) It has not offered any tax advantage unlike the Netherlands, where many
foreigners own IP, holding companies etc...

b) Low-cost labor like Poland, so you'll have a hard time setting up an
offshore office.

d) I felt people are bit rigid there. Neither, you can push them around like
in many outsourcing hubs, nor you can use the money to drain talent away from
competitors. The employees are not particularly noob, unlike many other other
outsourcing hubs. If you are planning to do something unethical, most you can
expect from your employees is <inaction>. They won't leave, they won't help.

~~~
expertentipp
b) and d) are the reasons why many specialists emigrate PL --> DE. Getting
payed more and not being pushed around? Sign me in. The middle management in
Poland -- timid towards management abroad and despotic towards locals -- is
just soul-sucking. Many thrive in such chicken-farm environment though.

------
deltron3030
I think that it's a religious problem, originating within the
protestant/prussian work ethic, and the holiness of work.

Full employment is the ideal for the politicians in Germany, and they get
there also with the help of the church and the social system, "prettifying"
unemployment statistics by funneling unemployed people into often nonsensical
bureaucratic jobs.

But technology and innovation really means less work for humans, and the fight
against technology and innovation then becomes just the natural outcome
prioritizing full employment and work, it's the natural enemy of a system like
that.

~~~
tobilg
As a German, I highly doubt that nowadays "protestant/prussian work ethic, and
the holiness of work" still play a role. While there might be "prettifying" in
the unemployment stats, the churches play very little to no role in that IMO
(I'd be interested in references otherwise).

I rather think that trade unions, as well as crude structures like the "IHKs"
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_Chambers...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_Chambers_of_Industry_and_Commerce))
play a much bigger role in keeping things as they are, and general risk-
avoiding tendencies in higher management levels.

------
symphom
The reason is simple. If you were a top developer, would you like to make 80k€
at a German software company, paying 33% income tax, or 160k$ at a US company
paying 9.3%. And in the German company, the non-technical management is
traditionally payed a high salary than the engineer. Of course things are
changing, but German developers will have to learn to ask for more. And until
that happens, the trend to leave for greener fields will stay.

Edit: 9.3% was off a google search. see below for more knowledgeable numbers.

~~~
Slartie
> If you were a top developer, would you like to make 80k€ at a German
> software company, paying 33% income tax, or 160k$ at a US company paying
> 9.3%.

Well, that depends. If I have to put more than half of that 160k$ (which is
obviously a Silicon Valley example) into the measly place that I live in
because rents and house prices are through the roof (like in...Silicon
Valley!), the seemingly high salary can easily become very misleading.

> Of course things are changing, but German developers will have to learn to
> ask for more.

That is true, but I can also see this happening right now due to the relative
shortage of personnel. It just takes a while, because the management people
can't easily justify sudden salary raises in the upper double-digit percentage
area. People need time to build a higher general level of salaries in the
area, but it is definitely something that's going on right now.

~~~
argonaut
Silicon Valley is not even close to that expensive.

A 2 bedroom apartment in Pacific Heights, San Francisco's _most expensive_
neighborhood, can be had for 6k in rent per month, which is $72k per year,
which is _still_ less than 80k.

------
PeOe
"Modern tools are the foundation of ideation and innovation. How can you
expect your employees to be nimble with their ideas, when their infrastructure
is clunky? If employees aren’t allowed to use any top-notch digital products
at work, how on earth should they know how to create them?" This is absolutely
true and applies completely to the German work culture. Not up-to-date tools
and data silos are a huge topic in Germany and in fact all over the world.
Companies use tools because they fullfil a certain, necessary task like CRM,
ERP and others, but they don't care about the integration of the different
systems at all. And so it turns out, that different employees in different
departments use different tools - although working in the same company. We at
[https://zenkit.com](https://zenkit.com) are planning to change this, by
integrating many different tools in one. With seemless switching and
collaboration features, to enable employees to work together productively.

~~~
schuellerpa
I think German companies are a lot more conservative when it comes to taking
risk. That also goes for customers. Customers look at long evaluation periods
before adopting a technology. This causes most tech companies to over engineer
a solution before bringing it to market.

------
nnq
Meh. When you're in a country where most things "just work" (eg. France,
Germany etc.), and you see so many broken systems around you, of course you
want to focus on _keeping your existing special advantages._ When most of the
solutions you have work _quite well_ , randomly picking new stuff from the
space of possible solutions results _on average_ in _worse_ things than what
you already have. "Undirected innovation" doesn't make things better for you,
and "directed innovation" is something nobody has figure out how to do yet
(and I'd be that nobody ever will!).

 _So most innovation will tend to come from somewhat-broken economies and
somewhat-broken societies!_ For them sampling even randomly from the space of
new solutions makes sense.

The _magic_ though is how to "stabilize" an economy or society in the "half-
broken" state, how to prevent it from going downhill from here to actually-
failed-state and actually-failed-economy and then even further to (civil-)war.
Only the U.S.A. seems to have managed to nourish this "always half-broken
society and economy" that truly accelerates innovation. Even the "Trump thing"
seems like a good example of getting this right, fertilizing society with some
fresh stinky yummy chaos, even if nobody puts it in words.

 _Europe_ could imho get the same "magic sauce" by keeping afloat and
integrated, and occasionally half-fixing, its "peripheral" zones (think
Greece, Romania, Croatia, Bulgaria etc.) and allowing free migration of money
and people. From the half-broken places innovation will come. Or instability
will propagate to the more mature/efficient societies and make these more
innovative too. The trick is just to not let them get fully-broken or let them
drag the rest downhill. (Or not do other exceedingly stupid shit like Brexit,
bad deals with Russia etc.) Outside the tech-bubble Germany seems to have had
a good idea with the "take in all refugees to stir some blood and agitate
people a bit" move... I'm sure it will grow their economy long-term, though
not sure if it would be relevant to innovation in tech.

~~~
adventured
That's blatantly incorrect. Innovation historically overwhelmingly tends to
come from the least broken societies/countries. If you were right, countries
near the median on income and corruption, would be vast producers of
innovation (they are not).

Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Switzerland are routinely ranked as among the
most innovative countries. If they're somewhat broken, who are the non-broken
countries?

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-22/south-
kor...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-22/south-korea-tops-
global-innovation-ranking-again-as-u-s-falls)

~~~
nnq
Innovation doesn't "happen" where you actually measure it, where a company
gets founded, or where a patent gets registered...

It happens inside the head of a random Russian dude that studies in Germany
and then moves to Zurich. Or in the head of a second generation Syrian
immigrant to the U.S. People are like blood, they need to be pumped, squished,
occasionally crushed etc.

Sure, the company that eventually makes profit from an innovative idea ends up
being registered in a developed country, the article describing an innovative
technique ends up being published while someone works for a prestigious
western university etc. Switzerland is like the "fake news" of every socio-
economical statistic since it's a weird "magnet country" for money and ideas
from anywhere else.

> Sweden, Finland, Denmark

Agree, they do _something_ right, though not sure what. There's genuine
innovation coming from there, but I'm really not familiar with these
countries. And I'd bet they're also good at extracting valiue, registering,
patenting etc. Or maybe they've managed to get the same benefits of a half-
broken society (basically "tons of unemployed/unsatisfactory-employed smart
people" kept "motivated enough" but not beyond their "breaking points")
without the "broken" part by managing to simply not "overwork the
innovativeness out of smart people"? It would be _awesome_ to know this
strategy works...

------
oger
Just to add two unrelated points to this interesting discussion: (1) the
biggest lobbying groups in Germany are telcos and manufacturing. No wonder
poltliticians dont‘t get the ‚digital‘ (btw. I hate that word) message. Just
look at the amounts FB and Google are spending to ‚explain‘ their business in
the US. Especially telcos are not really helpful here as their natural agenda
is not improving innovation but keeping costs low due to limited
(oligopolistic) competition. (2) let’s add China to this discussion. Against
public perception they are innovating at an enormous rate. The days where they
succeeded due to inferior quality and blatant IP theft are long gone.

------
sbruny
Following this thread now for I while, I need to give my few cents:

1\. Management - I've worked in lots of german companies from all sizes. I'd
say the bigger the company is, the more hierarchical is the structure. I think
this is a natural thing to happen. But, saying "most German organizations are
shaped like a pyramid" is not completely correct. Every company has it's
individual shape. And I can tell, I've worked in rather large companies
following fairly modern approaches (sattelite-structures, flat-democratic
structures, etc.). The claim of "the pyramid" sounds like a biased conception
to me, but I'd be interested in studies about german company structures
(anyone?).

2\. missing tools - this is just untrue. Of course email is still important,
but we're using Git/Slack/Jira/Whatever-is-cool-right-now, in germany, too.
Also, there is nothing wrong with Excel or MS Project.

3\. outdated infrastructure - TRUE! We have a big problem with infrastructure,
especially in rural areas (where rent is cheap and overall life quality quiet
good). The goverment decided to invest in fibre-technology, though. Maybe a
bit late. LTE/Mobile is still lacking and more expensive than in other
european countries. If we don't improve this, it will be a big risk for our
economy in the future.

4\. lack of talent - now this is very interesting. Personally, I think talent
is passion compared with experience over time. Our educational system is (not
great, but...) good enough. However, I've never seen a great programmer
popping out of college/univeristy. The most "talented" folks, I met, often are
in their late 30s, 40s and above. They mostly understand business, programming
and people-work better than younger collegues. Yet, german companies are
suffering from age-discrimination like in other nations, too. For this point,
I'd like to refer to Robert C. Martin, by saying we need more discipline in
our craft. Instead of hiring 10 graduates, better hire 3 veterans. Because the
mess, unexperienced programmers leave behind, will make companies want to hire
even more of them, producing even worse software, so managent gets an
impression of having not enough people. (get my point)?

------
MrBuddyCasino
Its slowly starting to change, the Silicon Valley scare crow works to some
extend. But the reason is always either

a) they are being out-competed by US companies and need to step up their game

b) their core business is eroding and they _have_ to change

Source: this is our daily business.

------
tapia
I came 4 years ago to Germany to do my PhD at a University and even here I can
feel the rigidity in the integration of new technologies. You might expect
that at least in universities they would be more flexible about which tools
you use, but it took me 3 years to get Linux installed in my computer! Who
could tell how many hours I lost because I had to use windows?! (an OS I just
cannot work as efficiently as in Linux.) They love to give excuses about
security concerns, but they don't even try!

~~~
lnsru
You must be very patient. I bought own 600€ computer an der Uni and installed
the tools I needed to get things done. Many did the same. Zero hours lost,
100% productivity at home on weekends. Your PhD is definitely not Germany’s
problem.

------
franzjoy
As a german, I see a problem within our culture. We are a people of envy and
jellousy. Great people often get discriminated...a brilliant developer?...no
he's an arrogant academic...a smart manager?...just a renegade not playing by
the rules.

This is the typical german mindset. You better be avarage, following the
german mediocrity.

~~~
jernfrost
Such thinking is all over Europe. Sweden and the Netherlands as well, yet both
do much better in the digital economy.

I think as the article points out the problem is more of the rigid and
hierarchical business culture of Germany.

Also Germans are much less international. The dutch and nordics are much much
more tuned into the anglo-saxon world were the majority of software innovation
happens.

That is a function of being small countries who always had to look outwards
and learn other languages and cultures. Germans seem far more insular to me.

~~~
lispm
Less international? I live in north germany. A few kilometers away we have
Airbus (which makes it the third largest aircraft manufacturing plant in the
world), one of the largest ports in the world, ... there are even weekly cargo
trains going to China. Just recently a 1 billion research laser has begun
operation - only possible to build with international cooperation.

If you look at the German Mittelstand, you can find 1000+ small and medium
enterprises who have world wide business from rural areas.

------
amriksohata
I find the management and politician problem true in the UK too, however there
is a younger breed that takes tech more seriously. I see a lot of 40+ non
technical people that see technology as a nuisance and don't really respect
developers. I think in another twenty years dthe geek will truly inherit the
earth.

------
adventured
I wonder if the German federal government could play a larger role as an
innovation facilitator, that then hands breakthroughs off to the private
sector for commercialization. It produced a $44 billion budget surplus last
year. Does Germany have an equivalent of DARPA?

~~~
endymi0n
Give me just one example where that ever worked to create a viable company.
Whoops, there aren‘t any. Separating research and development never really
worked for anything. What do you expect, if you have a two class employment
hierarchy: First, people who have all the freedom, but no responsibility or
constraints, giving semi-good solutions to people who aren’t motivated to let
other peoples ideas succeed with all the responsibility to make them
successful but no freedom to pivot or iterate. Even if you separate them
inside the same company, very rarely does something usable come out of it.
Proof in case: Some of the worst, most uninnovative companies in Germany (SAP,
T-Mobile, etc.) have some of the most stellar research results, papers and
sought-after positions, yet they never result in successful products in
practice.

~~~
icebraining
DARPA funded the seed for the Internet, GPS, self-driving cars, plus all the
work that went into The Mother of All Demos.

Bell Labs: its researchers are credited with the development of radio
astronomy, the transistor, the laser, the charge-coupled device (CCD),
information theory, the operating systems Unix, Plan 9, and Inferno, and the
programming languages C, C++, and S.

Plenty of viable companies have been created from these research results.

------
eafkuor
From the comments here, Germany looks like Italy way more than I thought.
Weirdly enough, I had to emigrate to Poland to find more "flexibility" in
salary negotiations and meritocracy

------
FuckOffNeemo
I found an appalling number of comparisons with the Australian Public Service
in this article.

Email. MS Project. The number of hoops we jumped through to get a white
board...

------
singularity2001
How relevant is the factor of German companies systematically being spied upon
and suppressed by American Monopolies and government?

------
julienfr112
SAP is german, is it not ?

------
Lapsa
oh the germans... got outsourced to them some time ago. wasn't pleasant
experience whatsoever. sadly I have built bad stereotypes over time :(

