Mastering challenges together: developing excellent solutions now

Dear readers,

The first quarter of 2025 has already passed. How did we start the year? 

Our main customers in the Telecommunications division come from the automotive industry. The change in technology and China's strength in electromobility present them with major challenges. Our complex task is to offer testing services even faster and in a more modular way, while of course maintaining the same quality. In collaboration with our customers, we see the rapid changes as an opportunity to rethink established and proven processes, for example with process engineering using AI. 

At the same time, we need to tackle new areas of business, including in the medical and military sectors. There will be a huge demand here in the coming years and we want to be prepared for this with expertise and good contacts. With its stand at EMV in Stuttgart, cetecom advanced is on exactly the right track. 
Global conflicts are influencing the activities of our insurance service provider, the Van Ameyde Group, in the eastern Mediterranean and north-eastern Europe. With targeted innovation management and the modernization of its product range, such as the “Green Card”, the Dutch company is actively optimizing its solutions.

The complex situation in the construction industry is having an impact on our Energy & Environment division. Our planning companies IB Nordhorn and G+N are under great pressure. Being visible on the market now, like G+N in the newly established project presentation on the “dba im Fokus” platform for master builders and architects, is more important than ever before. 
We have also prepared ourselves for challenges with various management training courses. Now it's time to apply what we've learned and make the most of each situation. Our Strategy 2030 with the motto move AS ONE and the establishment of innovative structures pave the way for bringing sustainable solutions to the market through surprising synergies in order to emerge stronger from this phase of consolidation. The guiding principle for our actions is: Where can I achieve excellence in my work today and every day?

We will tackle it. With determined greetings

Thomas Biedermann and Dr. Fabian Fechner

Getting to know each other better in order to understand one another is also a goal of move AS ONE. Only on this common basis can effective synergy effects and opportunities for cooperation arise, excellent solutions be developed together and new business be tackled together. Enoplan takes on the role of icebreaker and presents a short video: Who actually does what, what do the colleagues look like and what are they responsible for? The start of an occasional series!

RWTÜV Managing Director Thomas Biedermann and Dr. Fabian Fechner visited René Garibe, Managing Director of Van Ameyde Austria, in Graz.

The Graz office was founded in the 1990s by Garibe's father and later became part of the Van Ameyde Group. It is a hub for contacts to South-East Europe, with a focus on the “Green Card” system, which settles accident claims involving road users from different countries and was largely co-developed by Henri van Ameyde in 1965. How this system is digitized, modernized and updated in order to optimally cover the open European system as well as border traffic in regions not connected to the Schengen area was part of the informative exchange. Dr. Fabian Fechner sums up: “Globalization will continue and intra-continental freight traffic will grow. The “Green Card” system not only has a long tradition, but just as much potential for the future.”
 

Another working meeting followed in Austria with Dr. Reinhard Willfort and Karo Perchthaler from isn - innovation service network. The focus, of course, was on innovation management. RWTÜV Beteiligung isn has had its own software solution for this for many years, which is used by numerous well-known companies in Europe. isn's range of services is constantly evolving in the areas of training and consulting, and it is now even possible to outsource the entire innovation management process. 

Thomas Biedermann is certain: “RWTÜV has been using the services itself for three years and we are very satisfied, for example with the results of our annual innovation competition. At our latest meeting, the aim was to weave in our new motto move AS ONE, as it is intended to give the employees of the RWTÜV Group the security to adopt a “think and act out of the box” attitude. Especially in times of crisis, innovation is needed for new growth or to activate the power of employees' ideas on the topic of AI. Together, with courage, excellence and inventiveness, the challenges of our time can best be mastered.”

The CIP and intranet at the Group headquarters in Essen also run on the isn platform. Thomas Biedermann and Fabian Fechner offer interested parties an exchange of experiences on the services of the newest member of the RWTÜV Group.
 

“Innovation made in Europe” was also the motto of the visit to the ETH innovation team in Zurich under the leadership of Jeannine Pilloud.  RWTÜV Managing Directors Thomas Biedermann and Dr. Fabian Fechner were impressed, as the team combines professional experience from the business world with the innovative power of the technical university to create forward-looking and effective projects.

Whether in the AI Center, the Energy Science Center or Robotics. Whether in the Students Project House, the House of Natural Resources or at the Innovation Park on the site of a former military airport - the connection between research and practical application can be seen and experienced everywhere. Students and researchers impressed visitors with a skyscraper built with wood, the construction of a rocket “made in Europe”, an inspection robot, other revolutionary AI applications and much more.

Dr. Fabian Fechner is certain: “Jeannine Pilloud and her team captivated us with their energy and wealth of ideas. But we know similar innovation hubs from the Ruhr University Bochum, or the University of Duisburg Essen, in Kassel, or also in Saarbrücken or Cologne. This is the spirit and the path we need. This is how we can shape the future, and with the RWTÜV Foundation we are also following this path!”

cetecom advanced specializes in electromagnetic compatibility tests, known as EMC measurements. These are required by law and are necessary to ensure that electrical and electronic devices function properly without interfering with each other.
Electrical devices such as household appliances, lighting equipment, audio and video equipment, systems and components as well as measuring and laboratory equipment are tested in the EMC laboratories in Essen, Saarbrücken and Milipitas (USA) on the basis of a wide range of accreditations. EMV 2025, which takes place in Stuttgart from March 25 - 27, 2025, is therefore an important platform for cetecom advanced, as the trade fair is the central event for electromagnetic compatibility in Europe.

The RWTÜV subsidiary is also a leading provider of testing and certification services in the field of payment transactions and identification, guaranteeing compliance with national and international standards. The colleagues offer a comprehensive service portfolio for SmartCard, NFC and RFID technologies as well as solutions for eTicketing and eHealth. Their services are also aimed at KRITIS companies from the banking, telecommunications, transportation, healthcare and security sectors. In the areas of payment solutions and individual test solutions, cetecom advanced has been able to significantly strengthen its market position in recent years by merging under the umbrella of the RWTÜV Group and thus pooling its resources. Services can be offered more efficiently and customers worldwide can be supported even better.

The focus is now on biometrics, particularly with regard to the certification of biometrically secured credit cards with fingerprint technology. This modern form of authentication ensures increased security in payment transactions and is being introduced to the market by leading companies such as Mastercard, Visa and EMVCo. cetecom advanced is one of the first accredited test laboratories for these technologies - with an active presence in Asia, particularly in Japan and South Korea.

In Japan, for example, cetecom advanced has valuable accreditations for testing contactless Visa terminals and EMVCo C3 as well as for JCB testing and support services. Here, experts with more than 20 years of experience provide exclusive on-site support to customers. In South Korea, cetecom has been offering a comprehensive testing portfolio for payment solutions and payment product approvals for many years, including smart card testing for EMVCo, Visa, Mastercard, AMEX and KLSC.

RWTÜV subsidiary G+N Consult pulled all the strings for the prestigious “Mizal” project in Düsseldorf. It has now received an award from the Association of German Architects (BDA) and has been certified Gold by the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB e.V.).

Under client and project developer Codic Devolopment, G+N Consult GmbH supported the project even before the land was purchased and handled the construction project through to completion with a focus on project management, project control and quality assurance. The tenant for the office campus is the British WPP Group.

In addition to a high-rise office complex, an underground car park, outdoor facilities and roof gardens were built. Based on the architectural concept of the renowned architectural firm Eller+Eller Architekten, a sustainable workspace was created in the direct vicinity of the internationally renowned Düsseldorf Media Harbour and the government district of the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia with high-quality, lively and open office spaces as well as spacious, usable roof landscapes with intensive green and open spaces.

The G+N colleagues coordinated four sub-general contractors in particular, who essentially carried out the construction project, including: implenia (special civil engineering excavation pit), Hochtief (shell construction incl. execution planning, construction site logistics, outdoor facilities and finishing work), Gartner (closed cavity façade (CCF), in which the space between the outer and inner building envelope is hermetically sealed). construction planning, site logistics, outdoor facilities and finishing work), Gartner (closed cavity façade (CCF), in which the space between the outer and inner building shells is hermetically sealed) and Lödige, which built what is now Germany's largest automated parking system with four intermediate levels and four vehicle elevators for this project. Numerous other parties such as specialist planning, testing, service and authority bodies were involved and had to be coordinated.

The result of this great project achievement can be admired “live” in Düsseldorf on Plockstraße – or via the new project presentation now set up by Eller+Eller on the builder and architect platform “dba im Fokus”

March 8, 2025 was International Women's Day again. Thomas Biedermann took this as an opportunity to take stock:

“On International Women's Day 2024, we had exchanged ideas with many women in the Group in various formats, collected their ideas and wishes and then set ourselves various goals for the RWTÜV Group.

In four work clusters, we focused on the topics of awareness, work-life balance, external networking, equal pay and prevention.

Where are we today?

We have already successfully improved and even completed a lot. But it concerns me that there are always efforts to discredit women as equal and equal colleagues. If you compare Hillary Clinton's speech to the United Nations in 1995 with what is happening politically today and how quickly even large companies are turning back some of the positive changes of recent decades, then I can only say for the RWTÜV Group:

We are sticking to it!

• We have 20% more women in management positions than a year ago
• we have a higher proportion of women in our entire Group workforce
• we have established cooperation with external women's networks such as EWMD and others
• we will continue to promote the ewa project for more women in cybersecurity.

We are convinced that this is the right way, the only way. In the RWTÜV Group, we want every day, not just March 8, to be Equality Day.”