Essen/Dortmund/Duisburg. More than 46 million kilometres travelled for its customers; almost 100,000 passengers inspected on average per day within airport security; nearly 900,000 hours of vocational and further training courses: Approximately 70 high-school students from Dortmund, Duisburg and Essen were able to learn today about all of this and about other performance figures of the nation-wide-operating service group KÖTTER Services. As part of the business series "Dialogue with Youth" of Initiativkreis Ruhr (IR), which took place for the ninth time at the family business, they discussed the current economic situation with Friedrich P. Kötter, among others, member of the board of directors of KÖTTER Security, the strategy of the service group in the highly competitive markets for security and building services, as well as many other topics. In addition, they were able to get to know the extensive range of services live at the practice stations.
What is the role of the service sector? What is the economic development of the group of companies with headquarters in Essen and branch offices in, among others, Dortmund and Duisburg? What opportunities for vocational training and career opportunities are available for young professionals? These were only a few questions which the pupils of the Franz-Haniel-Gymnasium from Duisburg, the Goethe-Gymnasium from Dortmund and the Essen Hugo-Kükelhaus-Berufskolleg had.
The key factor for the growth achieved during the past financial year, where sales rose to EUR 545 million (+ 8.6%) and the number of employees to 18,900 (+ 4.4%), are smart service solutions. They range from security services and technology, as well as money and value services, to cleaning and personnel services, to risk and health management. "We offer complete solutions from a single source. They provide synergy effects and uniform quality standards, since, among other things, all services and thus also personnel management are bundled into one hand and there is only one contact person for the customer," explained Friedrich P. Kötter.
The decisive factor for smart service solutions and for "Security 4.0" is the provision of services with its own staff according to the motto "Where the name KÖTTER appears, KÖTTER stands behind it," as well as the growing importance of digital offers and processes. Included here are e.g. online-based service check-ups of the cleaning division, which provide for speedy responses with personnel management, or KÖTTER SmartControl Mobile, which, in the event of alarm procedures, will enable customers in the future to inform themselves about the current status of the intervention, irrespective of time and place. "At the same time, this accentuates the increas-ingly important interaction between human beings and technology," emphasized Friedrich P. Kötter.
To ensure that its employees meet the qualification requirements, the service group relies, among other things, on its own academy. In 2016, it carried out approximately two thirds of the nearly 900,000 hours of training and further education within the company group. Another important element is the wide range of training courses. The family-run company employs nearly 150 trainees nationwide and offers more than 90 training places nationwide, almost 20 of them in Dortmund, Duisburg and Essen. Vocational training is available in the following professions: Office management agent (m/f), specialist in protection and security (m/f), personnel service agent (m/f), building cleaner (m/f), IT systems technician (m/f), electronic engineer for information and communication technology (m/f), specialist in computer science (m/f) for application development as well as specialist computer scientist for system Integration (m/f).
In addition to the discussion, the focus was on practice stations. The students attended the 24/7 emergency service and service centre (NSL), learned about the training programs offered by the company's fire safety academy, and learned about KÖTTER's money and valuables services every year with a total weight of more than 500 tons - roughly equivalent to the launch weight of an Airbus A380, the largest and heaviest passenger aircraft in the world.