At Elektro Fatschi Ingenieurbetrieb, order processing worked for a long time the way it does in most trade businesses. Measurements by hand, quotes in the evening, emails piling up. After the system changeover, the daily routine looks different. Most people think of automation in the trades first as expensive software that overhauls the entire business. At Elektro Fatschi it was exactly the opposite. The technician stands on site and simply records the measurement as a voice message, no...

According to a Bitkom survey, so far only about one in six German companies actively uses artificial intelligence in day-to-day operations. In the skilled trades the rate is even lower, even though this is exactly where a lot of time gets lost in recurring administrative tasks. Most trade businesses think of AI automation first as complicated software that takes weeks to learn. That is not true. The master craftsman writes quotes by hand in the evening after work. Scheduling runs through a...

According to a Bitkom study, German businesses suffered damages of around 206 billion euros in 2023 from theft, espionage, and sabotage. Small and medium-sized companies are increasingly targeted because they are often less protected than large corporations. Most mid-sized companies believe cybersecurity is an IT issue you set up once and then forget. That is not true. The firewall was installed three years ago and has run unchanged ever since. An employee opens an attachment that looks like...