It’s exciting to see what emerges in the exchange. A joint lunch break with our newest employee Julia (Sales & Marketing), a few specific questions and Christian Eich, CEO of WorNet AG, chats from the sewing box. What is the idea behind SecuMail and how did it come about? The full story:

 

Julia: Hello Christian, I’ve been with you for a year now and support you in sales and marketing. I feel totally at home and think that the atmosphere at Wornet AG is something very special. Could it be that it is because we are still owner-managed? That’s extraordinary, in our time!

Christian: I don’t know if that’s the only reason. We generally try to create a family atmosphere. When selecting new employees, for example, we pay great attention to ensuring that the new team member is a good fit for the team.

 

Julia: How did you come up with the idea of founding WorNet and specializing in email security?

Christian: That’s a longer story… in fact, our company history began with a thesis at the Gymnasium Geretsried. At that time, we three students dealt with a topic and that welded us together. To this day, two of us, Supervisory Board member Dirk Steinkopf and I as Chairman of the Board of Management are still with WorNet AG. By the way, we didn’t start as a working group right away. During our student days, we first founded a Gbr and dealt with the question of how to connect companies to the Internet. That was in the early 90s! One of the first customers, by the way, was the insurer Münchner Verein. They are still our customer today. After the Munich club was connected to the Internet, HEXAL and Tyczka were added. We have also connected them to the Internet. With the connection to the Internet, of course, came the danger of viruses. The question of the Munich association “and what do we do with viruses” led me to write my own script for this problem. Our Mail Scan 1.0! We then also offered it to HEXAL and Tyczka. By the way, until 2006, the software was continuously developed only for these customers. Then came the idea of making the whole thing multi-client capable and offering it to the broad market. In 2006, we also visited SYSTEMS. However, this did not bring anything to new customers at first, but strengthened our decision to offer SecuMail as a filter service and no longer just as locally installed software. And we still do today!

 

Julia: Exciting story. Above all, that you already focused on SPAM filters in the early 90s and have always developed it further and always kept it in focus. What do you think distinguishes us from competitors?

Christian: I see a very big difference in the fact that we are not “investor-driven”. We are passionate about what we do and can act completely independently and freely. Above all, we can do what we think is right with our decades of experience, instead of having to do what donors want in the background. A second key difference is our focus on SMEs. We understand their needs and can adapt our software to them if necessary. We don’t look at the big ones with the “always higher, faster, further”. We were down-to-earth and we always have been! What is also a great advantage for customers: with us, the customer always talks to the developer himself. We do not work with anonymous call centres, callers always arrive directly and talk to one of our employees.

 

Julia: Wow! These are powerful arguments that distinguish us significantly from the competition. Did I understand you correctly that we can adapt our products to the respective customer needs and that the customer does not have to adapt to the product, as is often the case?

Christian: Yes so is it! Since it is our own software, we can always react independently and promptly to threats and also realize customer wishes and ideas. By the way, I would like to add that we are always honest and transparent in our cooperation with our customers. I think this is a value that has also become rather rare in our time. Sometimes a mistake can happen, but not twice! I’ve never hidden behind an empty glossy façade, with us the customer always knows where he stands. That is still the case today, that’s what my team and I stand for. This is what we, WorNet AG, stand for!

 

Julia: You attach great importance to the fact that our cloud is hosted by ourselves and only in Germany. If you think about Microsoft’s current security incidents, this seems to be proving its worth. So our customers can really feel safe with us?

Christian: Yes! We do not have any third-party providers or freelancers in our system. It is well completed and only under our control. The data centers are located in Munich and Frankfurt/Main. By the way, our choice of locations is based on customer wishes, which were surveyed as part of a survey. Data centers abroad were out of the question for us. And something else on the subject of safety: of course we are ISO 27001 certified.

 

Julia: Christian, what I would be interested in at the end: what is your vision for the future of WorNet AG?

Christian: One of many points that concerns me is internationalization and the idea of another, secure location within Europe.

 

Julia: That sounds like an exciting prospect for our customers and also for us employees. We are moving in an industry of the future and security issues in the IT sector are more important than ever! Thank you for the open insight and the positive outlook.

Christian: Thank you for the interview and I hope all interested parties enjoy reading!