“55 years of digital by tradition”
This year’s PTA Group summer seminar was held under a very special banner: the Mannheim-based IT consultancy was celebrating its 55th anniversary. This had to be duly celebrated and also gave the employees time and space to reflect on the milestone achieved. Once again this year, the focus of the event was on a lively exchange about current projects, technologies, trends and expertise. As in previous years, the PTA team met for a get-together at the Lufthansa Seeheim conference hotel, this time from June 21 to 23. The conference hotel has long since proven itself as an ideal location – the ambience was right again this year and all participants felt comfortable in a familiar atmosphere. Thanks to numerous breaks and a great supporting program, there was once again plenty of time this year for extensive discussions with colleagues from all offices, whether at the street food festival on Friday evening, the outdoor event on Saturday afternoon or the closing barbecue in the evening.
As always on Fridays, the PTA team was opened and welcomed by the PTA management, who got everyone in the mood for two eventful and exciting seminar days. This was followed by the first technical contribution: Matthias Kirtschig from the Hacker School gave interesting insights into how young IT talents can be specifically promoted from an early age. Children and young people love learning and the Hacker School has set itself the goal of showing pupils how much fun IT can be. In view of the fact that there is a shortage of IT experts in the IT sector, this was a speech that certainly had implications for Germany as a business location.
Challenges for AI in the regulated insurance market
After a short break, the future topic of AI and its application scenarios in the insurance industry was on the agenda. Insurance has long been one of the most established sectors of the German economy. While their business model is an established one, they constantly have new opportunities to explore and challenges to overcome. And, of course, AI is helping both sides to manage change and remain successful in the future. This was the core thesis of the two speakers Jürgen Merkel from Allianz and Daniel Holzer from Blue Incite. They explained the interaction with traditional data management and provided insights into specific aspects that are typical for an insurance company. In addition to a thematic overview, the industry experts also provided valuable insights from the sector.
After the first presentations, it was time for a well-deserved lunch break. Afterwards, the PTA team had plenty of opportunity to get their gray matter going again for the afternoon session in various active workshops – such as creative team design, board games, a facial gymnastics workshop or tai chi.
Market overview of middleware-compatible business integration solutions
This began with interesting insights from our colleague Martin Wengenmayr. He explored the question of what to do when an outdated application needs to be replaced that also transports data via various channels to integrate different systems, converts it and provides it flexibly. The IT expert’s tip: Ideally, project managers should take the opportunity to analyze various alternative solutions, subject each to a suitability test and potentially even put their suitability to the test in a proof of concept. According to Wengenmayr, this provides the best possible basis for viable decision-making for future-proof support of critical business processes. The speaker presented a corresponding approach in which he practically compared four competing systems. Advantages and disadvantages were discussed, not least of course the difficulties that can arise during the evaluation.
Management report – honoring the Hackathos, street food and open end at the disco
At the end of the varied and eventful first day of the PTA Summer Seminar 2024, the PTA Management Board led by Matthias Wossidlo, Dr. Tim Walleyo, Jana Fischer, Dennis Haßlöcher and Peter Fischer gave a detailed overview of the economic situation of the entire PTA Group and its future strategic direction, as always. Following the annual report, the company anniversaries and the winners of PTA’s internal hackathon were honored. And then it was high time to transform the lobby and terrace of the conference hotel into a street food festival. At this unique dinner, the entire team was able to fortify themselves with delicious, creative dishes from all over the world at many different stands. At the end of the first day of the seminar, the anniversary was celebrated in high spirits – with dancing in the disco or in convivial company at the bar.
The start of day 2 of the summer seminar: With vigor into the variety of themed workshops
As always, the second day of the PTA summer seminar began with a variety of themed workshops. Here, participants with the same specialist interests came together in individual topic groups to exchange ideas. Others shared their industry or topic knowledge and sounded out the state of the art in terms of new technologies. As always, the spectrum was wide-ranging and was dedicated to current topics such as electromobility, the obligation of sustainability reporting or the functioning of alpha-beta search algorithms of a chess program.
Booster for software development
In the final topic slot of the 2024 summer seminar, Gerhard Ahrens and Marc Armbruster then ventured an expert outlook on how automation can be used to increase efficiency and quality in development projects. The speakers emphasized that software development is still an expensive business, as many steps are still carried out manually. The IT experts presented practical approaches and possibilities beyond low-code and impressively demonstrated how efficiency, competitiveness and at the same time the quality of software can be increased through automation.
The second day came to an atmospheric end: green team action, champagne reception and final BBQ
After lunch together, the seminar participants started the afternoon with a joint team event – always one of the highlights of every PTA summer seminar. In cooperation with BUND Nature Conservation and the Hessian State Forests, the PTA team discovered the importance of biodiversity and species diversity. Because one clear mission of the entire PTA is to sustainably improve the forest habitat. Through joint, playful activities in nature, the participants experienced the importance of protecting and caring for nature. Finally, a small, informal champagne reception kicked off the culinary get-together on the final evening. As always, everyone enjoyed a delicious barbecue at the end of the day and had plenty of time and opportunity to socialize and exchange ideas.
