2022: Ergon continues to develop – sustainably

There were diverse new developments at Ergon Informatik in 2022: an office in Germany, an expanded solutions business and innovation projects. At the same time, Ergon has continued to develop proven products and services and pursue its stable growth course.

IT service provider and software manufacturer Ergon Informatik recorded turnover of CHF 65.2 million in 2022, marking constant 5 per cent growth on the prior year’s sales. The company created 38 new jobs and saw the number of employees increase to 398. These people achieved remarkable things and successfully completed 332 projects. Ergon won 36 new customers and 47 projects constituting new business. “Our employees have shown extraordinary commitment to achieving the best results for our customers. That’s the basis of our business success,” says Gabriela Keller, CEO of Ergon Informatik. The customer portfolio is broad and well balanced – with a focus on the financial services industry. Ergon also concentrates on areas of innovation such as data science, cloud computing, machine learning, IoT and augmented reality.

Business with banks continues to grow

Ergon posted the greatest growth in turnover in its core competence of banking. One milestone was the launch of the instant payments project in connection with CardX, Ergon’s payment authorisation solution. The solution’s customer base has expanded to include six new banks. CardX authorises payments and transactions anywhere in real time, 24/7/365. Through CardX, Ergon is continuing to expand its solutions business.

Airlock also saw growth. In 2022, Ergon’s security solution acquired five international banking customers from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Indonesia. They included Frankfurter Bankgesellschaft (Deutschland).

Swiss Armed Forces use Airlock

The Swiss Armed Forces have been using Airlock. Together with 2,000 participants from 32 NATO countries, they took part in a cyber defence exercise. Airlock Gateway was used to protect the simulated national IT infrastructure from attacks. Airlock also received recognition in the form of gold in seven categories of the Cybersecurity Excellence Award.

Pioneering projects

Various customers brought Ergon in for innovation projects. For example, machine learning has been used in an SBB project. The railway company deploys a radio track detector app developed by Ergon that is used to send shunting requirements. A voice recognition function is to be integrated into the app so that it can also be used hands-free in cold weather. A particular challenge is ensuring accurate speech recognition when there are loud noises in the background, for example when trains are passing or two people are speaking at the same time. The most stringent safety requirements also have to be met.

One project for Digitec Galaxus involves data science. Switzerland’s largest online retailer set itself the target of reducing its carbon footprint and increasing customer satisfaction. One measure was to optimise the dimensions of its packages. The reason is that packages contain filling material because they’re not completely full. This is environmentally unfriendly and unpopular with customers. It also increases transport volumes. Ergon helped Digitec Galaxus to optimise the dimensions of its packages. The result: it’s been possible to reduce the amount of filling material in parcels by 28 per cent.

Pocket-sized construction site? It’s possible thanks to an augmented reality project. Fieldwalk is a smart teamwork app that digitally displays construction plans and BIM models and records construction defects with precise locations. Two apps, Fieldwalk-2D and Fieldwalk-AR, have been available in the AppStore since 2022.

Innovative working time solution for Coop

On behalf of Coop, Ergon digitalised the management of SECO authorisations. The app for staff working hour authorisations serves simultaneously as a checking tool and database. Employees’ working hours are aligned with the relevant legal requirements and authorisations. This is a particular strength of the solution for recording working hours, as rest times are an extremely complex matter. So far the solution is unique: there is no comparable means of automatically checking the provisions of labour law in the retail sector in Switzerland.

Ergon’s offices continue to grow

The German market is of growing importance to Ergon. This prompted Ergon to found a subsidiary in Frankfurt am Main in 2022. Airlock is already one of the market leaders in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. This applies to identity-related application and API security as well as to securing container applications and microservices. The branch in Germany makes it possible to be closer to customers and assure Ergon’s high quality of service. Ergon has also developed its head office in Zurich. The building on Merkurstrasse provides additional rooms for workshops and a hall for podiums and events.