OTRS gives me the chance to transfer my vision of an open society to the microcosm of a company.

"If you don’t reach for the highest, you’ll never get any higher."

This means having the ability to anticipate change and take risks. And this, in turn, requires being open to hearing and understanding honest opinions and to having discussions – in order to keep growing and learning.

For me, OTRS represents exactly what I always wanted to do and how I wanted to do it:

with great openness and the willingness to always take a new perspective in order to meet the challenges of our customers – in a team of equals, beyond hierarchies and competition. Liberation through criticism of one's own ideas, because the future is open! Or in the words of Popper:

"The value of a dialogue depends above all on the diversity of competing opinions."

“Chance favors the prepared mind.” (Louis Pasteur)

This idea has always pleased me. If we want to have new ideas, we have to leave the beaten path and open up to other ways of thinking or behaving. That is why it’s worth taking a look at ourselves and that way seeking to realize the products of our imagination. This is the ideological culture we promote at OTRS.

A company's figures are an exciting, challenging and by no means dry issue, and when managed correctly they can be like a ship’s radar in the dark: Properly prepared and interpreted, they open up paths for entrepreneurial decision-making and help us keep the rudder under control.

By standardizing processes and continuously improving quality, we make our contribution to the company at large and place planning security for the stakeholders – our customers and employees – at the heart of our work.

Developing software requires commitment and creativity in a very special way.

OTRS is programmed in PERL, the first postmodern programming language. Larry Wall has described Perl as a humble servant who wants to support many different people without limiting their freedom.

This is exactly how we are developing OTRS: It is the heartbeat of our company, while at the same time reflecting our freedom to do what we consider useful.

"You shouldn’t believe everything you think.”

You cannot found and operate a successful company without a certain desire to explore the unknown; it requires a certain naivety. But after this first phase it’s time for expanding and preserving what you’ve built, and this in turn requires solid expertise and a focus on the resilience of all structures.

With my experience as the founder (not only of OTRS), I contribute significantly to reaching the balance between "seeing the potential in the new and unknown" and "safeguarding and advancing existing achievements" – to ensure both the long-term preservation and the dynamic nature of OTRS.