msg has been awarded another framework agreement with the Procurement Office of the German Federal Ministry of the Interior. Until the end of 2022, msg will support users in the German Federal Administration with consulting and testing of the accessibility of software, websites and mobile derivates. The framework agreement can be extended twice for another year.

Accessibility plays a key role in the planning and implementation of the German Federal Government’s IT measures. While new, digital offerings already had to be accessible since September 2019 and existing, digital offerings since September 2020, the deadline for mobile applications is also due to expire in June 2021.

As a result, the Act to Improve Online Access to Administration Services (Onlinezugangsgesetzt - OZG (Online Access Act)) requires the federal, state and local authorities to also offer their administration services digitally via administration portals by the end of 2022.

“The Online Access Act introduces a paradigm shift by placing the focus on the users. However, only the accessible implementation of these administration services will ensure that everyone can participate. We at msg are pleased to support the German Federal Administration in this socially relevant task,” says Nils Hoffarth, responsible manager for the framework agreement.

Excellent! msg systems, m3, msgGillardon and msg life are among the best business consulting companies in Germany

This is the result of a survey conducted by the business magazine brand eins and of the statistics portal Statista. The study is regarded as the most comprehensive on the German business consultancy market, is based exclusively on recommendations from consultants and customers and was conducted online.

To get a representative verdict, 2,334 partners and principals of business consulting companies participated in the survey. A further 1,100 senior executives of consultancy customers then reported on their experiences with the business consulting companies in question. In addition, 234 senior executives (head of strategy, head of business development, etc.) from DAX, M-DAX, S-DAX and Tec-DAX companies were specifically identified and invited to participate in the survey.

We are very pleased with this result.

Information on the methodology of the survey can be found here:

The European Union builds its own European Blockchain Service Infrastructure (EBSI) that allows companies as well as governments to develop digital eco-systems and business models across industries and countries. In this context, the European Commission has now invited tenders for the improvement of performance and scalability as well for the development of use cases.

Together with Commercio.network, Cosmos Network, the Italian qualified trust service provider Namiral Spa, Targens GmbH, the Fraunhofer Institutes for Applied Information Technology (FIT) and Industrial Engineering (IAO), and the Juribo law office, msg bids for this tender. The consortium bundles international expertise as well as academic excellence in the fields of performance, scalability, interoperability, trustability, security, and state-of-the-art data privacy. Its members have track records in the development of use cases within this technology and in the establishment of distributed ecosystems bases on distributed ledger technologies in regulated industries.

The European Commission plans to decide on the proposals within the first half of 2021, in the first stage assessing the concepts and choosing the consortia that will then develop prototypes in the second stage. A once-again reduced number of bidders will start an exemplary implementation in the third stage.

msg has announced the acquisition of the crowdsourcing supplier passbrains. With this acquisition, msg is expanding its service portfolio to include crowdsourcing: The offering ranges from ideation and functional testing to user and customer experience as well as the testing of IoT devices in the field.

Direct user feedback optimizes product development

passbrains supports companies in ensuring and improving the quality of digital products, services and processes as well as networked hardware. The acquisition of the crowdsourcing supplier makes it possible to involve more than 35,000 crowd members in msg customer projects via the digital passbrains platform. This way, end user requirements and ideas can be integrated and the developed solutions can be validated early on. Real users test the functionality in real scenarios. They can test the functionality, compatibility and usability on a variety of end devices, in different regions and languages. Incoming suggestions for improvements bring direct added value as the buy-in of product innovations is ensured at an early stage.

“The cross-company digital collaboration platform from passbrains offers us and our customers many possibilities: From the development of ideas and product validation across multiple cycles to increased customer acceptance of the solution in production. In addition, we can make the collaboration between our msg employees, our customers and the crowd community more efficient,” says Recardo Jackson, Head of Test, Quality & Lifecycle Management at msg.

Guaranteeing digital excellence in a growing market

passbrains and msg have been working together on various projects since 2019. The integration of passbrains into the msg group enables synergies from which customers and the crowd will benefit. Together, msg and passbrains are creating an even stronger network for crowdtesting, crowdsourcing and digital assurance.

“Ten years on from its founding, passbrains has – in msg – the best partner at its side not merely to maintain existing service excellence, but to improve it and to tap into new customer groups,” says Johannes Widman, Managing Director of the passbrains Delivery Center. “With msg, we remain faithful to our motto “Quality before Quantity” in a growing market and with an expanded service portfolio.”

msg has entered into a strategic partnership with enterprise software firm R3, a pioneer in the field of distributed ledger technology (DLT) through its platform, Corda. The collaboration aims to enable seamless integration of Corda networks with SAP systems. In addition, msg is developing innovative applications built on Corda, known as CorDapps, with a focus on the financial services and insurance industries.

DLT solutions from a single source

The cooperation between msg and R3 enables customers to acquire customized DLT solutions and services directly from msg. msg will further expand its DLT portfolio with new products and services based on Corda. In addition to services such as IT and business consulting, msg customers can also obtain prototyping and training, application development, implementation and hosting services for DLT platforms.

The Corda ecosystem grows to over 350 participants

With Corda, R3 has established a permissioned blockchain platform that is used by more than 350 organizations worldwide. These include global banks and financial institutions, insurance companies, regulatory authorities, energy and telecommunications providers, healthcare, supply chain and technology companies. msg is one of SAP's top partners and an expert in SAP solutions. The company is currently working on an integration platform and insurance applications for various DLT networks, including Marco Polo, B3i and RiTAblock.