Full steam ahead: OTRS AG is 15 years old

What does 15 years mean? When a person becomes 15 years old, a child becomes an adult. When a couple is married for 15 years, they celebrate their glass anniversary. If an animal becomes 15 years old, it may be old. But, what if a company becomes 15 years old …? That is probably quite different to answer. At OTRS AG, it means celebrating a 15-year success story with lots of fun and exciting highlights.

Yesterday, the 100-person team came together on board the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to celebrate the company’s anniversary. Employees travelled from Brazil, Singapore, China, USA, Hungary and Mexico to celebrate the milestone together. With exciting presentations and conversations around OTRS and its company culture, the team floated down the Main into the night. After a delicious BBQ a party with DJ and festive atmosphere concluded the successful company anniversary.

During the celebration, the OTRS team looked back on their success: Starting in 2000 as a purely open-source project in Bad Homburg, the company is now listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and has grown to over 100 employees in six international branches. The customer portfolio crosses all industries and includes large companies such as IBM, Bayer and Siemens, as well as small, medium-sized companies and start-ups. Lufthansa was among the company’s first customers.

OTRS is now used worldwide for a wide variety of use cases. In addition to IT service management, the software also structures process and communication for customer service and IT security teams. More than 170,000 companies worldwide use the OTRS service management suite, including over 40 percent of the DAX 30 companies.

Customers appreciate, among other things, the flexibility and compatibility of OTRS

“We use OTRS because it offers us the necessary flexibility and much more. After evaluating a whole range of other systems, OTRS simply showed the best customization options to our highly complex environment,” explains Chris Bates, Information Systems & Infrastructure Manager at Cogetech.

“OTRS enjoys our full confidence to manage and control services with challenging workflows. Interfaces to other support systems, including SES systems, are an important success factor for us,” says Georges Amirza, Service Manager at SES Techcom Services.

Highlights from the past 15 years at OTRS AG / Newly-opened office in Hungary

Among the major milestones of the 15-year OTRS AG history are the IPO in the year 2009 and the adaptation of the business model to focus on the managed solution. Additionally, the consistently operated internationalization with office openings in USA and Mexico (2010); China and Brazil (2016); and Singapore (2017) characterize the face of OTRS.

The most recent success has been the opening of a new branch in Budapest, Hungary: the OTRS subsidiary OTRS Magyarország Kft. was founded at the end of June. Thanks to cooperation with a Hungarian sales partner, promising business potential was emerging, so the establishment of a separate office was a logical step. With three new professional employees at the Budapest location, OTRS is excited about the Hungarian business forecasts.

The recipe for Success

Responding to the question of what his recipe for success is, André Mindermann, CEO and co-founder of OTRS AG replied: “Employees are the most important asset. Therefore, work should help to develop the individual’s personality rather than subjugating it. If we succeed as a company, we have succeeded in doing just that and we benefit from the contribution that our employees can make through their personal development. We will build on that for the future and look forward to the next 15 years.”

The OTRS staff also shares this philosophy. Employees share their thoughts on the OTRS journey in their own voices:

“I’ve been working at OTRS AG for over four years and have had the freedom to take on different roles – from HR to marketing. I really appreciate this personal freedom to be able to try different things.”
Johanna Mandl, Senior Marketing Manager

“In my role as manager process & organization development, I can confirm that the development of the personality plays a very important role at OTRS. I pay attention to the fact that our processes run efficiently, without limiting the employee’s freedom too much. I understand processes to be guidelines and not as strict rules. ”
Norman Brix, Manager Process & Organization Development

“As a global HR manager, I know how much our employees all over the world appreciate being able to develop in person and at the same time help shape the company’s success.”
Kathrin Triebel, Senior Manager Global Human Resources

Outlook 2018

And the success story continues: one of the focal points for the second half of the year is the development of the OTRS software. In mid-November, the company will present the product release of OTRS 7. And, more than ever before, the entire OTRS interface will be getting a makeover. In version 7, customers will get their first glimpse of the modern and dynamic feel. The release will also make operations even easier. Another highlight will be a new security solution that will help companies structure their security-relevant processes for ISO 27001 certification.

Of course, this was just a small excerpt from the planned developments for the future. Continue to be excited-and look forward to the next 15 years with us.