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Happy Birthday - Gigaton turns 25! Consistency In the Midst of Change.

22.10.2021

1st October 1996: Almost exactly 25 years ago, Gigaton, the Heddesheim based logistics software organization saw the light of day. Looking back at 25 years of the company’s history all about change and consistency.

It all started with a longstanding friendship between three friends: a businessman, a developer and a network engineer who got to know each other at their workplace– a combination which is not particularly uncommon in an IT department. What’s also not unusual is that they’ve regularly met after work to share inspirational ideas in a convivial atmosphere. The fact that these ideas however became a vision ultimately leading to the founding of a successfully operating, medium-sized logistics software company is just remarkable. The first step towards setting up a new business was not an easy decision for Managing Partner Axel Gutensohn, who needed to be convinced persistently by this friends that such great ideas needed to be realized. Finally, he did - the right choice from today’s perspective!

From a general perspective, we saw a big change since 1996. That’s particularly true for the very dynamic IT sector, where change is inevitable in daily business. Back in the days, we were only getting used to mainly consistent graphical interfaces, the Internet was a fresh new concept and many users weren’t too familiar with using mobile phones, while smart phones haven’t been invented yet.

Digital networking was only at the beginning of its steep, successful career. However, it was clear already in 1996 that IT systems are the future and that the need for them to be reliable will only increase.

With their expertise in the IT sector, the founders of Gigaton soon understood this trend and the challenge to optimize processes through IT, which was as relevant as today. Confronted with this specific task, they’ve decided to not leverage already existing IT systems but to use their vision and lots of know how to develop their own system instead.

In 1997, following a short lead time with maximum sales skills, the very first client was won and “LogoS”, the brand new, in-house developed warehouse management system saw the light of day. Though at this point in time, the system was initially customized to fit the specific pilot client’s defined needs, it had been designed as an extensible client-specific standard software with focus on an open and flexible structure.

Starting in the “experiments’ basement”, 1997 was also the year that the company moved to its first office building in Hessian Viernheim. The company continued to grow and welcomed its first employees with the first trainee in 1999, who has now a leading role at Gigaton.

And then, one day, 2021 arrived. Celebrating its 25th birthday, Gigaton has grown to include 58 employees since then. Close to 45 trainees have been trained and integrated in the corporate development. Currently more than 50 applications are supported in over 10 countries with more than 3,000 active users. Gigaton continues to see a healthy grow, even if completely different structures are needed to lead the company at this level.

It may seem that everything within the company has changed, but that’s certainly not true! The same three friends from 1996 are still enjoying each other’s company after work at the bar, contemplating how to successfully tackle the next 25 years. We’re ready!



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