From department to independent company

At the beginning of 1997, the time had come. Softcon CIS Gesellschaft für Einkaufscontrolling Systeme GmbH was spun off from Softcon GmbH and entered in the commercial register. We were no longer part of another company; we were now solely responsible for ourselves.

A handful of enthusiasts set out to offer purchasing departments the software support they had always demanded due to their immense influence on the company’s bottom line. There was a lack of transparency, information at the touch of a button, meaningful key figures, ways of measuring the impact on the P&L, and much more. What today would be accompanied by a lot of start-up hype and loud investor fanfare began for us rather quietly, with a strong focus on the market opportunities that had already become apparent during the previous 15 months of warm-up as part of Softcon GmbH.

CIS/EK as Windows client software

We were a good mix of purchasers, purchasing controllers, and IT experts. Much of what is state-of-the-art in software development today was still a long way off. E-mail was just becoming known, database systems were of limited use, and graphical user interfaces were already causing amazement. Our first installations were on local PCs with local databases that were replicated cyclically with the server database. A fast client-server network architecture was still several years away. The first ray of hope came with remote desktop capabilities in Windows, which made local client installations unnecessary. The first software solutions, CIS/EK, CIS/FI, and CIS/PL, were developed gradually and were appreciated by our customers because they greatly improved transparency and control in many areas of purchasing.

Three important development steps toward cloud software

With the advent of the Internet in the office world, development frameworks and database technologies improved, enabling us to take the first steps toward browser-enabled software about 12 years ago. The challenge was to bring our more than 100 customers around the world along with us on this new development step, both in terms of content and technology.

We were always aware that the quality of the information in our software depended on the quality of the data in the ERP systems. In addition to careful data entry by the purchasing and materials management departments themselves, we needed data extraction and structuring of such high quality that there would be no room for discussion. We wanted to have the latter in our own hands in order to be as independent as possible from the supply of interface data. As a result, we developed expertise in working with different ERP systems that is valued by all our customers. Our SAP expertise enables smooth and virtually automated connections to the SAP world.

Very early on, we received customer requests to offer complete hosting for front-end and back-end. So we built up a data center step by step with a complete service for user management, customizing, data updates, and second-level support that could meet these requirements while maintaining information security in accordance with ISO 27001.

Further developments of the client software based on Silverlight plug-ins enabled the software to be used with all common browsers. We quickly realized that this was only a transitional solution on the way to pure cloud software, and so the next stage of development began.

WebCIS 4.0 as SaaS software in our own ISO-certified data center

With the initial conversion of the applications hosted in our data center to pure browser technology, we were able to significantly expand the software offering for our customers with WebCIS 4.0. Risk analysis, supplier analysis, and measure controlling complemented the module range of classic purchasing controlling.

WebCIS 4.0 also made it possible to offer our own development platform for dashboards. This allows our customers to develop their own automated reporting system based on their individual favorites from the standard cubes. Based on the quality of the content, data, and key figures, which is highly valued by all our users, the integration of their own logos, wording, and individual designs contributes to rapid acceptance.

Each release is expanded with dashboard ideas tailored to purchasing controlling. With our training courses, further education, and support for WebCIS 4.0, we accompany the transition of purchasing to modern digitalization tools.

Is there a secret to success?

We have gone through many development processes in the last 25 years. Even though some times were very challenging, especially during our major transitions, there are two stabilizing factors:

From the very beginning, our goal was not to develop customized software, but rather a best-of-breed solution that could be tailored to our customers through customization. This standard framework allows us to bundle ideas and experience from hundreds of projects and drive ongoing development.

The second and most important factor is the people at SoftconCIS. They have always been the stabilizing factor over the past 25 years. Many of those who took the first steps—in IT and customer support—are still on board today with the same enthusiasm. All new colleagues who joined us gradually became pillars of the company, and without their collective commitment and striving for daily improvements in many areas, these 25 years would not have been possible. We do not experience the kind of significant staff turnover that is common in many software companies.

Where are we headed?

Keep going. Being alert to what will advance strategic purchasing and critically examining what is ultimately just hot air.

Robo-advisors, digital assistance, machine learning, AI (artificial intelligence), push news, integration of suppliers into measure tracking, early warning systems, scenario analyses, document management, etc. are topics that are already integrated into WEBCIS 4.0. We will continue to develop them to make them even more powerful.

But all this technology will be useless if we don’t get the people in purchasing on board. Our task is therefore to offer more appropriate support and training to promote greater understanding and more effective use of our dynamically evolving software in a more complex working environment.

We are ready.