Christian Holzschuh

Cybersecurity

PXM maturity assessment of your company: Are you adopter or champion?

How is the product experience management (PXM) maturity level of your company? Are you well positioned technologically, organizationally and process-wise? Answers in a quick test.

AOE press releases

Attitude matters: AOE erhält „Goldene Lilie 2020“ für außerordentliches gesellschaftliches Engagement

AOE erhält „Goldene Lilie 2020“ für außerordentliches gesellschaftliches Engagement

Agility & Organisation

Suddenly Remote: how AOE became a remote company in two days

COO Joern Bock, expert in New Work and Self-Organization, tells us how AOE has mastered the transition to Remote Work, both technically and on a human level.

Agility & Organisation

„A Bag full of Trust“: Warum Vertrauen so wertvoll für (agile) Unternehmen ist

Warum ist Vertrauen so wertvoll, insbesondere für agile Unternehmen? Wie fördert man Vertrauen in der Praxis? Agile Coach Christof Braun beleuchtet die essentiellen Vorteile von Vertrauen anhand des "Wheel of Trust" Modells und gibt Beispiele aus der agilen Unternehmenskultur bei AOE.

Airline

How Omnichannel Commerce is reinventing the Travel Retail Customer Experience

How do you create digital business cases that open up new business opportunities for companies? How do you create smart digital customer experiences that provide a value to customers? Kian Gould offers insights into the development of the Omnichannel Commerce solution OM³ and the lessons learned.

Aviation

ACI Tel Aviv Panel: "Are airport stores shops? Or just showrooms for brands?"

The ACI Airport Commercial & Retail Conference in Tel Aviv is a major event in the aviation industry, bringing together airports, travel retail operators and brands. The ACI created a high-profile panel that focused on whether airport retail outlets are shops or showrooms for the brands: “Are you being used? Are airport stores shops? Or just showrooms for brands?”

Aviation

This is what has to change for Travel Retail to survive

Talk video from the Hamburg Aviation Conference. Manuel Heidler gives insights into changed customer behavior in travel retail incl. solution approaches.

Aviation

How airport data can be used for personalized travel retail offers - fireside chat (5/5)

What does the future airport look like? Kian Gould and Peter Mohn discuss how can airports create an integrated online and E-Commerce customer experience. The airport industry is one of the industries with the largest amount of data, especially when airports and airlines collaborate and connect their data and loyalty programs. With E-Commerce and data automation, airports have a unique opportunity to create personalized offers for each customer. Having this passenger footprint is a major advantage compared to big players like Amazon and Alibaba. Airports have another big advantage: for airports, the two main cost drivers in E-Commerce, traffic acquisition and product returns, can be neglected. For airports, online traffic comes for free, and returns and return shipping costs can be almost zero, as passengers get their delivery at the airport. With those two cost drivers at nearly zero, digitalization and E-Commerce represent a major opportunity for airports and travel retail.

Aviation

How BI & travel data can be used for compelling customer experience in travel retail - fireside chat (4/5)

When and where are the high-spending groups coming to the airports? What kinds of products do they want? Customer understanding and forecasting is a big issue for travel retailers, explains Peter Mohn, CEO and owner of m1ndset, and Kian Gould, CEO and founder of AOE. The m1ndset business intelligence service (B1S) data measures attitudes and behaviors of travellers at airports around the world. This data can help airports and travel retailers a great deal in finding out the needs and interests of passengers and what is missing in retailers’ portfolios to meet the needs of different target audiences. Combined with travel data, retailers can precisely meet these needs and interests – and travelers love it, as they see it as a positive customer experience. For a complete Omnichannel experience, this data should be used for both online and offline campaigns in the same measure.

Aviation

How airports & travel retail can enable digital transformation - fireside chat (3/5) with Peter Mohn & Kian Gould

Why are airports and travel retailers so reluctant when it comes to digital transformation? How to increase sales in travel retail? Peter Mohn, owner and CEO of m1ndset, and Kian Gould, founder and CEO of AOE, express chances of digitalization in travel retail, such as multiplication effects, up-selling and cross-selling with high conversion rates. Airports plan in very long investment cycles and have a multitude of partners. So, how to begin the digital transformation process? Building a digital strategy, creating a unique, compelling experience and integrating many different partners is time-consuming and expensive. However, airports have one big advantage: They have a guaranteed growth in the next years, which gives them the opportunity to invest into digitalization. Major airports such as Frankfurt, London Heathrow or Changi, but also smaller airports such as Auckland, are thinking and experimenting with digital solutions. Different ways to digitalization can be e.g. in one big 5-year digitalization investment plan, or building digital solutions in small iterations.

Aviation

Airport shopping trends - how travel retail can benefit from digitalization - fireside chat (2/5)

How to create customer engagement and how to master digitalization? During their fireside chat, Peter Mohn, owner and CEO of m1ndset, and Kian Gould, founder and CEO of AOE, discuss why many airports and (travel) retailers struggle with digitalization. Approaches such as click & collect only show products and prices with little benefits to the customers. Digitalization is often seen as a way to drive more traffic to stores. But E-Commerce is a completely different channel with different target groups, fulfillment, etc. Hence, due to non-compelling offers, typical conversion rates are less than one percent of travelers, which leads to an extremely limited ROI. So, how to create customer engagement? Amazon can be the best teacher for travel retail and the digital airport. People are expecting a seamless, easy-to-use journey that gives them unique advantages. Online shopping is very much about convenience. Airports and retailers need to create a compelling Omnichannel customer experience with convenient benefits for everyone. Convenience could include pre-completed personal data forms, online shopping and payment, delivery to gate, lounge or home, or offers for re-purchases and related products and connection to airport services such as loyalty programs, fast-track and lounge access.

Aviation

How consumer behavior changes in travel retail - fireside chat (1/5) with Peter Mohn & Kian Gould

Travel retail has changed significantly in the past years and is undergoing serious disruption. For example, 70% impulse buying five years ago has turned into 79% planned buying in recent years. Duty-free shopping is not considered cheap any more, but is regarded as a convenience. Digitalization has a big impact on how travellers buy products on their journey, which also affects airports and airlines. Peter Mohn, owner and CEO of m1ndset, and Kian Gould, founder and CEO of AOE, talk about changes in consumer behavior and how travel retail must react to survive digital transformation in the aviation industry. They also describe how the industry can profit from opportunities that digitalization brings.

Inside AOE

Frontier Awards: AOE named Technology Innovator of the Year 2017

AOE was named "Technology Innovator of the Year" at TFWA Conference 2017 in Cannes. The technology provider was awarded by the Frontiere Magazine for its development of the OM³ Suite, which connects airport retail, E-Commerce and airport services in one innovative solution. OM³ contributes an essential part to airport digitalization and increase of non-aviation revenue streams.

Inside AOE

AOE Conference 2017: Talks, Topics, Livestreams

The AOE Conference 2017 will take place on Thursday, 14 September at AOE in Wiesbaden. We present all talks in short teaser-videos and show you how you can participate and see the livestreams online.

Aviation

The Moodie Davitt Report: Calling for a hands-on approach to omnichannel retail

In its big special, The Moodie Davitt Report gives a comprehensive overview of AOE's OM³ Suite, the innovative Omnichannel Multi-Merchant Marketplace. The e-Zine cover titles "Calling for a hands-on approach to omnichannel retail", with the the subhead about AOE's CEO reading "Kian Gould - Airport commerce's positive disruptor". 

Aviation

Social media reactions to the presentation of the Frankfurt Airport project

Together with Kai Schmidhuber, Senior Vice President Multichannel & eCommerce at Fraport, AOE CEO Kian Gould held the keynote as well as a breakout session at the Imagine Conference 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The topic was the joint Omnichannel project to digitalize the Frankfurt Airport. The reactions of Twitter users were overwhelming. You can find a selection of tweets below. The day before the keynote, the joint project of Fraport and AOE (see video) was awarded the Prize for “Best Omnichannel Experience”. The award recognizes excellence for the best omnichannel experience across multiple channels. The solution provides passengers with numerous useful on- and offline shopping-, service- and real-time information options; for example, customers can choose from a number of options when ordering merchandise, which can then be delivered to the gate or home, or picked up in-store at the airport.

Aviation

Why digitalization of the airport industry has become unavoidable

The AOE team has created a unique Omnichannel platform for the Frankfurt Airport through an innovative development approach. The aim of the project was to connect travel-relevant information, service offerings and shopping opportunities – and thus to digitalize the Frankfurt airport. Background facts about the most demanding and comprehensive project in our history, to date. The Frankfurt Airport is full of superlatives! With an annual passenger count of 61 million it is by far the largest airport in Germany, the second-largest in Europe after London Heathrow and number eleven in the world. To compare: 61 million passengers are more people than the combined population of Canada and Australia. This corresponds to handling over 160,000 passengers per day, or the population of a mid-sized city. Throw in some 80,000 people who work at the airport – more people than the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro can hold. The airport is operated by Fraport, the company that watches over the entire airport. In addition to flight operations, Fraport is also responsible for the infrastructure: Rental of areas to retailers and restaurants, parking space management and ad spaces, but also digital assets such as Wi-Fi hotspots, iBeacons and passenger data. Fraport determines departure and arrival gates, controls passenger flow, security areas and, thanks to passenger data, knows its customers. Some 200,000 people are at the airport every day – making it Germany’s largest mall. And the airport earns revenues with every Euro spent, as retailers pay a revenue-dependent premium.

AOE press releases

AOE Krefeld – a virtual tour through our Krefeld office

AOE press releases

AOE reaches first place in Kununu employer rankings

In this year's rankings of the German employer review site Kununu, AOE reaches first place in the Internet and multimedia industry with outstanding evaluations by the employees. "Where do employees feel most at home?" is the overriding question of the employer rankings of Kununu. Especially in the booming Internet and multimedia industry employees are often burdened by time pressure and the pressure to perform as well as by frequent interruptions in their work, as the study "Working in the Digital World" shows. In this dynamic and fast-paced environment AOE is apparently successful in creating an agreeable and pleasant working climate, as the extremely positive results of the Kununu employer rankings show. AOE was thus able to be top-of-the-list for the first time in the 2015 Kununu employer rankings for the multimedia / Internet Industry. Already in July 2015, AOE reached second place in the Kununu rankings for work-life balance, whereas the company was ranked 8th in the previous year. In addition to a pleasant work-life balance, career opportunities, the behavior of superiors and salary were also evaluated and have now been rewarded accordingly.

Inside AOE

Interview with Sylvain Rayé (Part 2)

In part 2 of the interview, Sylvain Rayé talks about advantages and disadvantages of Open Source software vs. proprietary software, reasons for agile web development methods in projects and explains how he became part of the Magento world and organizer of the Meet Magento CH conference in Zurich, Switzerland. About Sylvain Rayé: Sylvain is a computer engineer and certified Magento developer with more than ten years of experience in web development. After his career started as project manager in the French Air Force, he worked for more than six years as CTO at rissip Online Learning.In 2013, Sylvain founded his own company Diglin in Zurich, Switzerland, specialized on bringing physical shops to the online business, based on Open Source products. Sylvain is very much involved in the Magento world. He is a contributor to the Magento community, was vice president of the Magento community Firegento and organizes the Magento Hackathons in Switzerland. Moreover, he is organizer of the Meet Magento CH conference in Zurich, Switzerland. Please click here for part 1 of the Interview with Sylvain Rayé.

Inside AOE

Interview with Sylvain Rayé (Part 1)

Sylvain Rayé, certified French Magento developer and organizer of the Meet Magento CH conference in Zurich, Switzerland, talks in part 1 of our interview about success factors in E-Commerce projects, gives tips, insights and examples for online shops and what is necessary for digital transformation. About Sylvain Rayé: Sylvain is a computer engineer and certified Magento developer with more than ten years of experience in web development. After his career started as project manager in the French Air Force, he worked for more than six years as CTO at rissip Online Learning.In 2013, Sylvain founded his own company Diglin in Zurich, Switzerland, specialized on bringing physical shops to the online business, based on Open Source products. Sylvain is very much involved in the Magento world. He is a contributor to the Magento community, was vice president of the Magento community Firegento and organizes the Magento Hackathons in Switzerland. Moreover, he is organizer of the Meet Magento CH conference in Zurich, Switzerland.

AOE press releases

Continuous Development and Deployment Presentation at the Jenkins User Conference

Fabrizio Branca, lead system developer at AOE in its US head office in San Francisco and winner of the Magento Pioneer Award 2015, will speak about continuous development and deployment processes at the Jenkins User Conference on Wednesday, September 2, 2015. For almost ten years, Fabrizio has been experimenting with continuous integration and deployment, thus being able to draw on a broad range of experience. Fabrizio’s topic submission convinced the jury, giving him the opportunity to present at the conference and share his knowledge.

AOE press releases

AOE ranked second in the Kununu Top 10 employers in Germany

AOE has been ranked second in this year’s Kununu top 10 list for employers with the best work-life-balance in Germany. AOE scored 4.83 from 5 possible points. At AOE Family is the Priority Family life is respected and if possible supported through flextime. According to AOE, massive overtime is frowned upon. Employee events and additional work-free days between Christmas and New Year also contribute to the excellent work climate.

AOE press releases

Open House for students at AOE Headquarters in Wiesbaden/Germany

More than 20 interested students from the University of Mainz and the Technical College Rhein Main attended this year's open house at AOE headquarters in Wiesbaden. Founder and CEO Kian Gould spent time with the guests to introduce AOE, discussed agile concepts and development methods and presented key references. Afterwards, things got more specific: Scrum Master Thomas Layh and Product Owner Oliver Hoffmann-Vigneron explained the agile development method Scrum using the Connected Car (ConCar) project as an example. Developer Bastian Ike then showed how shop development and automated testing take place at AOE. The students were enthusiastic and eagerly asked questions. Lukas Hück concluded the presentations with a practical example from the point-of-view of a student who describes his start at AOE as a full-time developer after his studies of media informatics at the Technical College RheinMain. Lukas described the knowledge he was still lacking after his studies and how he was able to acquire this missing knowledge in a very short time with the assistance of helpful colleagues, AOE's mentoring program as well as his own willingness to learn. After the presentations, the guest were given a guided tour through the AOE offices, where the recreational area with pool table, massage room as well as table tennis and -football were some of the the students' highlights – in addition to the state-of-the-art workplaces. The tour concluded the “formal” portion of the open house; during the causal “Chill & Grill” on our expansive terrace, guests and AOE employees had the opportunity to get to know each other better while enjoying steak and beer. The last students gave Lukas a run for his money during a world-class soccer match on the Sony Playstation.

AOE press releases

AOE supports the Open Invention Network

AOE has become a supporter of the Open Invention Network (OIN). The Open Invention Network was founded with the mission “to enable and protect Linux”. OIN is a defensive patent pool and community of patent non-aggression which enables freedom of action for Linux. "The Open Invention Network is a shared defensive patent pool with the mission to protect Linux."

AOE press releases

AOE in top 30 of German BVDW agency ranking

The continuous growth of AOE is mirrored in this year’s agency ranking by the German “Bundesverband digitale Wirtschaft” (German “Federal Union of Digital Business”, BVDW). For the first time, AOE is among the top 30 companies in the ranking. As a specialized web provider and Open Source integrator, AOE successfully competes with large media agencies both in Germany and internationally. In BVDW's 2015 agency ranking, AOE climbed seven positions compared to last year’s ranking. Compared to five years ago, AOE climbed from rank 61 to 29 – a continuous upward trend. Parallel to the positive trend in the agency rankings, the number of employees and revenue are also increasing. With 103 employees at the end of 2014, AOE had 20 more employees than in 2013 – an increase of approximately 24 percent. The acquisition of German agency AIJKO was one of the reasons the number of employees increased to 150 employees to date. The revenue growth also continued to increase. In the previous year, revenue totaled 7.14 million Euro; in this year’s ranking, AOE increased its revenue beyond the ten-million-euro threshold for the first time, which equates to an increase of 40.2 percent year-on-year.

AOE press releases

AOE developer Fabrizio Branca wins Magento Pioneer Award 2015

The Magento Pioneer Award 2015 goes to AOE developer Fabrizio Branca. Two AOE developers were among the final eight nominees in that category at Magento’s and eBay Enterprise’s Imagine Commerce Conference, which is taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada, from April 20 to April 22. Fabrizio Branca is the winner of the 2015 Magento Pioneer Award. The award is given for exceptional performance, innovative ideas and collaborative work developing the Open Source E-Commerce platform Magento. The award is part of the Excellence Awards 2015 and is given in ten categories. Branca works as Lead System Developer at AOE’s US headquarters in San Francisco. Together with co-winner Marius Strajeru from Bucharest/Romania, Branca’s entry succeeded against seven other nominees. German AOE developer Bastian Ike, also finalist of the Magento Pioneer Award, was happy for his colleague: "We were aware that only one of us could win the award. I’m happy for Fabrizio and proud to be part of AOE." The Excellence Awards are announced every year at eBay Enterprise’s Imagine Commerce Conference.

AOE press releases

Interview: Akeneo CEO Frédéric de Gombert about the rise and development of the Open Source PIM start-up.

Frédéric de Gombert is Co-Founder and CEO at Akeneo, an Open Source Product Information Management (PIM) system designed for retailers looking for efficient answers to their multichannel needs. In the interview with Alain Veuve he talks about the Akeneo success story, the rise and development of Akeneo PIM and about upcoming challenges for the start-up.