Movers and Shakers Interview with Dr. Andreas Schweinbenz, Founder and Chairman, Netviewer AG

 

Dr. Andreas Schweinbenz is the founder and Chairman of the board of Netviewer AG and founder and Chairman of Karlsruhe-based Webzooms AG. Born in May 1967 in Germany's southern Alpine region and now married, Schweinbenz combines a strong work ethic with a love of sports and an appreciation of fine wines. Real-time visual communication and entrepreneurship are two of his main strengths.

 

In his life Schweinbenz has made some bold moves. He lived on a farm in Switzerland for six years, tried his hand at being a sheep farmer in New Zealand and Australia, and took a year-long trip around the world. Sport has always been a high priority — running marathons, cycle racing, and paragliding all allow him to test his limits.

 

By 1996 Schweinbenz was one of the early pioneers of the emerging new economy. As co-founder of Netpioneer GmbH, he was head of marketing for four years. When the Internet bubble burst, Netpioneer was unaffected: With 57 employees and more than 50 customers such as Süddeutsche Zeitung, Deutsche Bahn, and EnBW, Netpioneer is now an established specialist when it comes to implementing high-quality Web applications and custom developments in Germany.

 

Schweinbenz founded Netviewer AG in 2001 when the economy was at its low point. Thanks to his canny business sense, however, Netviewer is today European market leader for real-time collaboration. The company has grown by more than 100 percent annually. Netviewer now employs almost 300 people worldwide at sites in Zurich, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Vienna, Barcelona, Milano and Stockholm, with further international expansion planned. Leading businesses such as BMW, Deutsche Telekom (News - Alert), PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and SAP are among Netviewer's 15,000-plus customers in 55 countries.

 

 

AS: The idea of using the Internet for Web communications emerged in 2000. In March 2001 I attended the annual CeBIT (News - Alert) exhibition and presented our product's prototype which was positioned as 'Online Consulting Tool'. We talked to a lot of software manufacturers and vendors in that exhibition and tried to focus their interest on the 'online consulting tool'. The manufacturers were not particularly interested in the online tool but more in the idea that, without any installations computer screens could be shared. The visit to annual CeBIT exhibition helped us understand how to position our tool as a support product.

At the start, we thought we had a small window of opportunity of just three, maybe- four years. Microsoft (News - Alert) had Netmeeting, which they provided for free but which was not easy to use. We worked very hard and focused on the 'ease of use' part, which would give us an edge in the market and helped us perform better.

 

But, honestly, at that stage we did not anticipate it would grow as big as it has. Over time we have realized that Microsoft is going in a different direction and that they are not as flexible and creative as we are, as is the case with other players like Adobe, or IBM (News - Alert), or now Cisco Webex.

 

AS: Talking about this is my passion — with the way global oil prices are sky rocketing the idea is not that preposterous. In a globalized world time is crucial. Having an edge on the competition is about the ability to make decisions more quickly.

 

People always need to communicate, and it has been proven by the market, that the sharing of visual information about figures, contracts and marketing materials is a good way to move forward. I believe that Web-based video-conferencing will be the next step in the development of the market.

 

There is a definite change in the way how people are behaving. My basic approach is not to change people, rather to provide them with an appropriate tool for change. I believe that in five or ten years we will see people sitting in their living rooms with their TV sets connected to the Internet, taking part in a virtual party.

 

F&S: What forces are driving work environments to change so that people want to collaborate more over the Internet?

AS: It is a market development actually; we strongly believe that the market is changing in terms of a product life cycle. Earlier when we were talking to companies they said that the product would be great for support and maintenance purposes. Now, increasing numbers of companies are realizing the potential business benefits of various collaboration tools, so we are moving into the early maturity phase where we are growing with the competition and with a rapidly changing sales channel.

 

Also, people are becoming aware of a new approach to doing business. They are more likely to communicate with video using Skype (News - Alert) or ICQ and are used to applications that go beyond the firewall. They are discovering the benefits of sharing the screen with their business partners.

 

AS: From an organizational point of view, any company in a competitive situation strives for operational excellence. They need to compete at a global level, irrespective of the industry, and a tool like Web conferencing will give them a chance to improve business and operational productivity.

From an economic point of view, using Web conferencing provides tremendous cost savings. We are now exploring 'Communications 3.0' - which is a future way of communicating where one would not need to travel but could still achieve the same thing using different media.

 

From an environmental point of view, companies should be setting an example. Europeans, especially Germans promote environmental issues, and with Al Gore having expressed his environmental concerns, Americans have also discovered the green benefits of Web conferencing.

 

AS: There is no one specific reason but a series of reasons for this. We have definitely got a product that is very attractive to our costumers. The most significant advantage of our product is ease-of-use and customers claim that Netviewer is much easier and user-friendly in comparison to other major Web conferencing tools in the market. The simplicity of our solution combined with its ability to go through the firewall, whilst requiring no installation helped sales tremendously.

 

Secondly, Netviewer has a comprehensive portfolio and provides a variety of services from meetings, training, remote access and support. This is essential for our customers as they don't want to use multiple tools, but just one comprehensive solution.

 

Thirdly, we stress the importance of the sales force. We realize that, in the early stages, the sales process is very important. Continuous monitoring of sales figures leads to improvements in sales. It is said that everybody in our company is "in sales" – this means we understand the importance of always providing our customers with the best service.

 

AS: In the past, while dealing with local subsidiaries, we realized that the European customer wants to interact with a local sales person who speaks the same language. In the beginning, operations in the European market were conducted from our headquarters based in Germany. We soon realized, however, that in order to expand in Europe we needed to recruit a new multilingual qualified workforce, which was a tough task here in Germany. We started by recruiting 25 people in Paris and then just continued with our European expansion by hiring the right sales force across various countries. The decision of having our 'feet on the ground' in the selected countries was crucial in terms of networking and understanding the local markets.

 

In future, we strongly believe that consumers will play an important role in the market and the major general developments of the market will be consumer driven. A social movement with communities like Facebook is obviously changing the behavior of people, not only in the consumer segment, but also in the enterprise segment.

What we realized is that none of these social communities possess an integrated real-time visual communication tool. This tool can be provided by Netviewer. Our clear goal is to be recognized as 'the real-time visual communication tool' company in the market.

 

AS: Yes, it definitely does. It is obvious that we understand German or European companies much better than the Americans. In the same way the American players understand American companies better. That is one of the reasons why Netviewer is not so active in North America.

 

Our core focus now is on the European market. The American market is quite different from the European market especially on issues like privacy and security - Americans are more reluctant on any privacy issues but it's a very important thing in Europe. We are very well positioned in this field and the awareness of the European particularities also helps us deal with this market better.

 

AS: First of all we were the first, and we were expanding so quickly that whoever came after us had a very difficult task because we were always very strong and pushed our business hard. We never had any bad products and made no major mistakes — so it would have been very hard for any competitor to follow or even overtake us and we expect this situation to continue in the future.

 

Our reputation is very good, we are highly innovative and people do appreciate that, which is very positive from a customer public relations perspective.

 

Last but not least we are performing very well on the sales front and managing our operations very well. If you are economically successful it is extremely difficult for any other company to compete with you. The reason is that we are very flexible and creative in adapting our business to the changing market environment.

 

AS: I established my first business in the mid 90's. I was providing consultancy on environmental best practice in Asia and writing my doctoral thesis on environmental problems in the People's Republic of China. It was successful, but I realized that I did not want to spend so much time in Asia. As I was travelling across China, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore and Hong Kong I had an opportunity to form another company. Netviewer is my third company. I was always an entrepreneur and want to continue doing that, and be creative — in the original sense of the word.

 

Managing a company with almost 300 employees gives more opportunities for development. The environmental issues are very important to me and the combination of building a company that is economically successful and that enjoys a good reputation, drives me to work and strive even harder everyday.

 

Last but not least; I believe that it does not have to be the Americans who are always successful in running and inventing new technologies. I would like to prove that German or European companies can be just as successful.

 

Finding a way to be an entrepreneur and protecting the environment is a perfect combination. Running this business going forward is my small contribution to the world.