Shaping Tomorrow Together
Recap: Possehl Innovation Conference 2025
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This article has been translated for your convenience using machine translation. Reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate translation. The official text is the German version of this content.
Being future-ready first and foremost means fostering innovation. How do we achieve this—and above all, how do we achieve it together? That was the guiding question of this year’s Possehl Innovation Conference. The aim: to strengthen the innovative capacity of the Possehl Group collectively and, at the same time, offer a blueprint for innovation within the industrial SME sector. The conference served as a kick-off event, a call to action to encourage the Group’s companies to take bold steps forward.
This year, the Innovation Conference (formerly the Digital Conference) took place from September 15–17 in Croatia—at our portfolio company Mono Software in Osijek and at the HF site in Belišće. Why the new name? Because we believe that innovation goes beyond digitalization, even though digitalization is undeniably a major driver of future viability for industrial SMEs.
A diverse and inspiring program
The conference agenda centered on innovation across processes, projects, and products. Over the course of two and a half days, we explored current challenges and future-proof solutions in a variety of engaging formats.
The event was opened by none other than Emil Possehl himself. Our creative colleagues at Mono used AI to bring a nearly 200-year-old portrait of our founder to life, allowing him to deliver his message directly to his successors.
Dr. Jens-Uwe Meyer of Innolytics set the tone with a keynote on the importance of innovation. A key takeaway: innovation is often a matter of perception, and implementation speed is almost always critical. Take BYD and Duolingo—two companies widely regarded as highly innovative, even though they haven’t technically introduced brand-new products.
The lesson: anyone who wants to be seen as innovative today must move fast. That means experimenting with new technologies rather than waiting to perfect everything—something Germans are notoriously inclined to do. Innovation, then, is also a question of culture and mindset. One Possehl Group company that has long embraced this approach is Eidos. Under the leadership of Paolo Bori, the team has consistently adopted new technologies, enabling the company to increase revenue year after year while keeping team size stable.
Another standout is Hako with its visionary new business model. With CleanCity.io, the company created a platform that makes cities and municipalities cleaner. The platform not only manages cleaning machine fleets but also includes a reporting portal where residents can flag waste issues. Combined with additional apps, the latest sensor technology, and city administration systems, this creates a tool that helps respond to pollution faster and more effectively. For this innovation, Hako received the Emil Award in the category “Best Digital Business Model.”
The Possehl Digital workshop – cross-company and cross-functional collaboration
On the first afternoon, Mono hosted the Digital Workshop. In nine groups of around ten participants each, we explored themes such as AI, regulation, cost efficiency, and a ten-year vision for the Group. What made this format special was the composition of the groups: deliberately mixing participants from different companies and departments across the Group to ensure a broad range of perspectives. After a short introduction, participants rotated through a fair-like setup where they could share thoughts on each topic before diving into group work.
We chose this format because we firmly believe that today’s and tomorrow’s challenges can only be tackled collectively. This holds true not only for the Possehl Group but also for the entire German SME sector.
The concept of heterogeneous groups paid off. Sometimes it’s worth creating friction intentionally to spark new ideas. For instance, a limited budget can be seen as a strategic challenge that forces smarter prioritization. Employees from very different companies and roles discovered they often face the same struggles. The lively discussions led to numerous action items and nine concrete results that will now be taken forward into implementation.
More highlights from the conference
AI adoption and investment are currently accelerating faster than any other technology in industrial history. Yet, as Mono CEO Denis Sušac reminded us in his presentation, AI is not everything. The true strength of the Possehl Group—and the industry at large—lies in designing and building real, tangible products. We must apply the same standards to AI and similar innovations: what works, what doesn’t, and how do we minimize risks moving forward? Above all, successful integration of new technologies is key, as this is where many initiatives fail today.
Another highlight was the presence of a robotics team, featuring both a humanoid and a robotic “dog.” Their demonstration helped answer the question of why so many robots are modeled after humans: the mechanics of the human hand, for example, are perfectly designed for many tasks, making it sensible to design robots that best support human work.
Our key learnings
Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Innovation is less about having the right strategy and more about fostering the right culture and mindset. Without openness to new ideas, there will be no new paths forward. Innovation cuts across all business areas and leadership levels. It requires courage, a willingness to accept occasional failures in the early stages, and—most importantly—less perfectionism (at least at the beginning).
The conference underscored the value of exchange within the Group. The diversity of perspectives across industries—from submarine technology to precious metal processing to bathroom rugs—led to a deeper understanding and fresh insights.
Moreover, the lessons from the past two years of the Digital Conference remain as relevant as ever: we want to strengthen our sense of community within the Group. To remain successful in the future, we must act together. Initiatives such as Next Level Mittelstand and Maschinenraum, which promote networking, knowledge-sharing, and mutual support in the industry, reinforce the conviction that only through solidarity can we stay future-ready.
In the end, all participants agreed on one point: we want to shape the future together as a Group. Framing the conference as a wake-up call worked—the sense of positive momentum generated during those three days will now be carried forward into the wider Group.
Let’s shape the future together!
