Dr. Rupert Stuffer, the founder and CEO of Collaboration Factory, is a pioneer in the field of project and portfolio management software. His company's flagship product, cplace, has been making waves in the industry due to its unique approach to project management.
Collaboration Factory is the company that created cplace, which is a software toolkit for Next Generation Project and Portfolio Management. The company's approach is to provide custom-fit software that supports their customers' projects and processes, rather than having their customers adapt their processes to fit the software.
Cplace enables contemporary work in and around projects by connecting the work in classic spreadsheets with unstructured data in wikis, dashboards, and documents. The software provides users with significantly more flexible and elegant solutions, which they can adapt directly to their specific needs.
Innovative Approach to Project Management Software
The key differentiators of cplace are the company's approach to co-creation and co-innovation with their customers and partners as well as their solutions' flexibility. The company is building a strong community around its product and working with the community to bring solutions to the market faster, on a much broader knowledge base. Cplace shares its know-how with its partners and customers and receives much in return.
The company's approach is different from classic project management tools, which are usually very rigid with their defined algorithms, making them suitable for simulations or calculations. However, they often reach their limits in dynamic day-to-day project work. In contrast, cplace is more flexible and adaptable to users' specific needs.
From Concept to Market Leader
Dr. Stuffer has been working on topics such as organization, process design, and project management since his doctorate. He spent many years of his professional life dealing with the practice of project management in close cooperation with customers, especially in the automotive industry. He gained a deeper understanding of what software can accomplish for project management and recognised what the market solutions could not yet do. He saw this as a chance to start a company that would develop software for contemporary project work and cooperation in a more innovative way.
Collaboration Factory has successfully surpassed the classic market leaders in competition and convinced global players from various industries with tens of thousands of employees to rely on cplace as their strategic platform. The company's biggest achievement to date is being able to call all German automotive manufacturers its customers.
One of the global leaders in the pharmaceutical industry has implemented cplace as their enterprise project and portfolio management platform. For them, it has become more than just software; it has also created a new style of working that is agile, lean, collaborative, and fast. This elevates them to the forefront of their respective industries and stimulates cross-departmental cooperation.
The Importance of Agile and Adaptable Solutions for the Future
Collaboration Factory hopes to make a crucial contribution to resolving the IT bottleneck, allowing citizen development, cross-company cooperation, scaling agile teams, and overall speed and efficiency. Companies need business software solutions faster than ever, and Dr. Stuffer believes that cplace will make all the difference.
As a result of the present situation, certain clients or potential customers are facing project delays. Despite this, the company remains on track for growth. Due to the political and economic situation, the company has decided to postpone its planned market launch in China for the time being. Some efforts towards internationalisation are being conducted more cautiously.
Cplace is a game-changer in the project and portfolio management software industry. The company's unique approach to co-creation and co-innovation with its customers and partners and its solutions' flexibility make cplace stand out from the competition. The company has successfully proven its product's practicality, and it is being used successfully in many global corporations.
Dr. Stuffer about Tech Tour
Dr. Stuffer has benefited the most from the networking opportunities offered by Tech Tour’s events and activities. The conversations with potential investors and the exchange of experiences with other founders in similar situations helped him a lot.
