Among the subsidiaries, Wegasoft, which was acquired in 2014, led the field and achieved an increase in turnover of 15.2%. Both Wegasoft and ABS Systemberatung, which is also part of the ams.group, continue to offer their own ERP products on the market. With the ams.erp, ABS and Wega.erp product families, the ams.group offers a flexible solution portfolio that provides all companies in the capital goods industry with the right business software for their company size and stage of development. The current ams customer satisfaction study also shows that the differentiated ERP offering is well received in the market. Here, all the parameters examined showed a positive development compared to the previous year.

The annual customer satisfaction study is based on a user survey conducted by the Düsseldorf-based consulting firm ef+p at the end of 2017. The most meaningful single indicator is the recommendation rate. It rose by a further six points compared to the previous year to over 80%. There was also a significant increase in the question of whether the goals and expectations set with the introduction of ams.erp were met. More than three quarters of the customers surveyed answered in the affirmative. In the assessment of ams' customer-related business areas, consulting and sales developed particularly well. Here, the approval rate rose by around 10 percent compared to the previous year. The customer satisfaction survey also provided a ranking of the most interesting consulting topics: Organizational development, project management and business process optimization are at the top of this ranking. With innovation projects in the areas of Industry 4.0 and Big Data, ams is responding to customer feedback. Innovation management addresses the application areas of production and maintenance in equal measure.

At the end of 2017, the ams.group employed a total of 190 people. Over the year as a whole, this corresponds to an increase of 8.5 percent. As in previous years, the focus of staff expansion was on the areas of consulting and product development. Very importantly, in view of the growing shortage of skilled workers, the HR department was pleased to see a further increase in the return rate to 27%. Specifically, the rate shows that every fourth employee hired in 2017 was someone who had previously worked at ams. At the same time, ams was also able to improve in the area of employee retention. As in previous years, the average length of service continued to rise despite the expansion of the workforce in recent years and now stands at over seven years.

"In 2018, we will continue to expand our workforce at the same rate," says Simone Schiffgens, Chief Human Resources and Finance Officer, who has also been responsible for Sales since the beginning of 2017. "At the same time, we are stepping up our efforts in the area of employee retention," continues Schiffgens. The Management Board expects a far-reaching reorganization project to have a particular impact, which will benefit customers as well as employees. The project provides for a departure from the line organization that still prevails in the company. It will be replaced by a lean, adaptable working structure based on the principles of agile self-organization. At the heart of this is the basic idea that employees are given sufficient creative freedom to involve precisely those colleagues in project teams who have the skills required for the current business task in the best possible way. The restructuring of the work organization will start in February 2018 and will be completed over the course of the year. The central development project is being carried out by the two Management Board members Simone Schiffgens and Eckhard Ulmer. kp