IT strategy and digital transformation
Strategy development for technology and digital transformation, innovative digital business models and their timely delivery, including building talent, processes and structures.
Founder
Dr. Michael Kirchhof
Founder and managing director of Dr. Kirchhof Ventures GmbH. Technology leadership and digital transformation for over 20 years, focused on the interface between IT, business units and service providers.
Industries: banking, insurance, telecommunications, media, retail, healthcare. Assignments from corporations to start-ups, in Germany, Switzerland and the UK.
Focus
Technology and architecture
Scaled Agile, enterprise architecture, IT re-platforming, cloud, DevOps, performance and cyber security. Delivery of IT innovations such as data thinking, digitalization and artificial intelligence.
Leadership and delivery
Line management and leadership of project teams of over 200 people. Supplier management, crisis management, post-merger integration. Clear for management and engineering alike.
Selected results
Platform replacement at a private bank
Turnaround of the data readiness stream with teams in the UK, Switzerland, India and the Philippines: 99.98 % of the data migrated automatically and reproducibly overnight, €1.5 million per year saved by consolidating paid benchmarks.
Digitalization of a Swiss insurer
Restart including a platform change: monthly project costs about 20 % lower, bug resolution time halved through test automation. Tariff optimization through big data analysis and visualization on top of a legacy application (mainframe): insurance sales over 20 % higher at the same margin, without software changes, time to market two weeks.
First European IPTV product
Nationwide launch on time through an iterative approach, adapted team and reporting structures and a cross-functional task force of over 200 people.
Digital strategy for a media company
Action-oriented strategy for modernizing a leading Swiss media company, within a budget 20 % lower, backed by an international benchmark.
IT re-architecture and procurement
Aligned implementation roadmap, standardization potential and a systematic procurement process: negotiated result over 20 % below the first offer and over 40 % below the previous platform.
Sustainability in the media sector
Reuse of existing hardware for a large telecommunications group, found through startup screening and rapid prototyping: about €25 million in replacement costs saved.
Blueprint for an eHome product
Reusable blueprint for internationalization designed and implemented: two calendar months saved per project.
System hardening of an IPTV platform
Eliminated customer-relevant disruptions on an early-mover IPTV platform through a novel correlation of heterogeneous measurement data and end-to-end quality management. The approach is still in use.
Lean in healthcare
Optimized administrative processes using the lean principles of the Toyota Production System. Improved suture-to-incision time in the operating theatres of two regional hospitals through standardized equipment, direct materials management information in the theatre and tracking of surgical instruments.
Post-merger integration in retail
Smooth merging of the technical systems. Costs reduced by limiting technical capacity, backed by structured load tests, risk-minimizing measures and monitoring at business process level.
Career
- since 04/2015
Dr. Kirchhof Ventures GmbH, Düsseldorf. Managing director. Company leadership, strategy, leading international projects and R&D (digital transformation, eHealth, data-driven business models).
- 02/2006 to 03/2015
mm1 Consulting & Management, Stuttgart. Senior consultant, associate partner, finally partner and member of the management board, head of the transformation practice and IT.
- 09/2001 to 09/2005
RWTH Aachen University, Chair of Computer Science 3 (Software Engineering). Research associate, research on platform architectures, automation and reusability, built up the eHome research group.
Qualification
- Education
- Doctorate (Dr. rer. nat.) and diploma in computer science, both RWTH Aachen University
- Certification
- Certified Professional Scrum Master
- Languages
- German (native), English (business fluent)
- International
- Extended work stays in Zurich and London