Swedish IT consultancy Consid applies Scandinavian values to its partnership with OTTO

Founded in 1949, OTTO GmbH & Co KG is committed to acting responsibly and represents a long-established player in the retail industry, primarily through its mail order business. In fiscal year 2022/2023, the OTTO GmbH & Co KG generated impressive turnover of around 6.3 billion euros and is Germany’s second-largest online marketplace. Today, the parent company – OTTO Group – comprises around 123 companies from various sectors.

The partnership with Consid, a leading Swedish company known in Scandinavia for its expertise in the field of digital solutions, illustrates OTTO’s openness to new impulses in software development through the selection of partners. “We have noticed Consid as a new player in the German market and are always open to exploring other options,” explains Jürgen Holtschmidt, Head of Technical Product Development Platform Data at OTTO, emphasizing, “Consid lives our agile values and brings the appropriate tech stack to the Scandinavian-style collaboration. On this basis, the partnership can continue to grow.

“We are very pleased about this partnership,” says Lena Fahrenkrug, Head of Sales at Consid in Germany, and emphasizes, “Consid’s market entry as a Swedish IT company in Germany is making steady progress. The agreement with OTTO demonstrates our strength, even though we are still relatively new to the German market”.

Hamburg is home to all the leading companies in the industry, making it a very competitive environment. “We are aware of the highly competitive IT landscape in Hamburg, which is precisely why we chose this location,” emphasizes Peter Hellgren, CEO and founder of Consid. The goal is to become a leading IT service provider in Northern Europe within the next five years, with an emphasis on Germany and Hamburg in particular.

Consid and OTTO share many values. “Consid stands for software craftsmanship and, in its motherland Sweden, above all for the topic of sustainability,” says Lars Napret, responsible for Consid’s market entry in northern Germany, and adds: “With consid;tion, we are hosting one of the world’s largest hackathons that brings together artificial intelligence with urgent challenges in the field of sustainability, and in which 850 teams have already participated.”

Many companies are on a journey as in their transformation. Exogenous shocks, increased customer expectations, shorter innovation cycles, and disruptive competition are leading to stressed organizations. In addition to the adoption of new technologies, digital transformation also requires business agility to transform incoming change impulses into new value for users. With the value proposition of digital resilience, Consid accompanies on this journey. “Starting from our customers’ vision, we realize digital business models as value streams,” concludes Lars Napret. “We support our customers in generating impact through their digital strategies, enabling them to positively differentiate themselves from their market competitors.”