Markus Obser has always been interested in zeros and ones, as he admits. Even during his time with the Swiss Confederation, he never missed a training course that revolved around digital and computing in any way. Nevertheless, Obser came to his current profession “like the virgin to the child”, he recalls with a grin. The current founder and Managing Director of handz.on is a trained banker.
But even back then, Obser was not a traditional bank employee. “I often got into trouble because I refused to fulfill a work objective if it simply didn’t make sense for the customer,” he explains. At his former training company, he soon had the opportunity to work in the company’s internal IT department. The computer fan didn’t hesitate for long and was immediately fascinated by the new world of mainframe computers. “The IT department looked like something out of a sci-fi movie – an office with large screens and matrix-like green lettering on them.” When he looked over the shoulder of his future mentor during his taster sessions there, it was clear to him:
I want to do IT!
No sooner said than done: Markus Obser started as a system administrator at the savings bank just six weeks later, attended training courses on system management and became an IBM specialist. After six years, Obser then moved to a management consultancy, where he started in the Information Security division. He wants to contribute his previous experience in the field of system management, dovetail both areas sensibly and create synergies and transparency. “Silos have always put me off,” he admits. But these aspirations came to nothing, as the new employee was thrown in at the deep end – even before he could complete his first training course for his new subject area – and had to take responsibility for his first project as a senior consultant under immense pressure. Not an isolated case, as he soon realizes, and a turning point for him.
“I thought to myself – there must be another way,” admits Obser. “As an advisor, you only have a very limited knowledge advantage in advisory situations, but you’re under enormous stress and the customer only gets half-knowledge and not good advice.” This is unacceptable for him and is what prompted him to set up his own business.
Markus Obser founds a limited company and looks for like-minded people who share his vision of a different quality of IT consulting. After three months, the first employee is on board, followed by the second six months later. handz.on GmbH now has 25 employees and has long been on the road to success.
And what does handz.on do differently from other IT consulting companies?
A lot! “We are completely self-financed and manufacturer-independent,” explains Markus Obser. True to his attitude, which was already evident in his training company at the time: “So that we don’t have to sell customers specific products, but always offer them exactly and honestly what makes the most sense for them.”
In addition to the complementary teams of experts consisting of consultants, IT architects and developers, who ensure fast and loss-free coordination in all areas of work, handz.on sets itself apart from the competition with one special feature in particular: “For every challenge in enterprise service management or asset management, we always consider the issues relating to Data Protection and Information Security right from the start. This means that any requirements in this regard do not only become apparent when the solution has already been fully developed,” explains Obser.
And handz.on also stands out from the crowd of IT consulting firms in terms of employee management and customer relations:
“With us, new employees are always first prepared for the respective project with targeted training,” says Obser. And we always communicate transparently to customers when employees are learning on the job. In such cases, the customer is only invoiced when the employee delivers perfect work.
You can’t make a quick euro that way, but that’s not what Markus Obser is interested in. For him, it’s about how the relationship with customers and employees is lived – about fair, transparent performance and about employees enjoying their job at handz.on every day.
