He conveyed confidence in a desperate situation: British polar explorer Ernest Shackleton and his team survived a two-year battle for survival in the Southern Ocean. What can leaders learn from him in times of crisis?

How to avoid unnecessary productivity dumps in a challenging transformation and reignite motivation.

In this article, we explore the main reasons why projects run late, and describe the 6 pillars you can rely on to ensure your project is on time.

Personal liability, painful penalties: With the new Network and Information Security Directive (NIS-2), the EU is tightening the rules for 17 essential industries. Is your company affected? And if so, how can you carry out the necessary cybersecurity health check? Learn more in our free brochure on NIS-2.

The EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) imposes new obligations on the financial industry by January 2025. High time to get started. Our brochure will get you ready for the DORA sprint. Also included for free: an interactive checklist. It shows you which criteria your company already meets and where you need to improve.

Resistance makes any change stressful. This time, our Inside Transformation series looks at a particularly thorny issue: What can you do when executives boycott your project?

Objectives & Key Results (OKR) are making waves in the business world. So, what’s the essence of this approach, which was first adopted in Silicon Valley? Our video elucidates how to craft OKRs and inspire peak performance within your team.

Tough times, new goals – there are many reasons for companies to reorganize. Whether the plan will succeed is determined by one question: Are we addressing the real problem or just symptoms?

How is AI changing leadership in companies? We recently discussed this question at the in_between leadership conference. In this article, we take a closer look at an interesting application example: With the help of AI, project teams can be optimally staffed and connected.

To innovate and improve, companies need creativity, courage and technical expertise. But those capabilities will not have the desired impact if something else is missing: Here are 5 reasons why project management is the superpower of successful companies.

Companies bear responsibility for society and the environment – and many of them have already made commitments. But, as the demand for sustainable action rises, so too does the pressure to have a more strategic approach.

Criminal hackers are constantly developing new attack methods. How can companies protect their systems from the ground up and arm themselves against new threats?

After a merger, a common question arises: What core values and behaviors unite employees and make the company more productive? In a recent podcast conversation, Silke Grosse-Hornke gives answers.

Some issues seem so sensitive that colleagues won’t talk about them. Their silence can put a strain on collaboration. How can you get people talking about taboo topics?

Who is permitted to use an IT system, and which authorizations are assigned? When introducing a central tool for Identity & Access Management (IAM), companies need to be meticulous. These five steps will help you achieve your goal reliably and keep costs under control.

To achieve project goals safely and quickly, many transformation managers rely on agile principles. How can you adopt agile practices in your change project? Here are five key aspects. How can you adopt agile practices in your change project? Here are five key aspects. Here are five key aspects

Is your company facing a change? Are you looking for ideas to bring forward your project? In our custom-made online workshop “Transformation Management” we develop suitable approaches together.

To make a company more agile, you don’t have to go all out. How to drive change step-by-step and achieve rapid results.

Which locations are particularly worth investment? How can fraud be detected before major damage occurs? AI and Big Data allow increasingly precise predictions. What are the capabilities of data-driven forecasts?

Transformation only succeeds when employees shift their mindsets and adopt new behaviors. That doesn’t happen overnight. How can you keep up motivation? We present findings from psychology and four practical approaches.

Many conferences are currently taking place online. This will change the way we organize events in the long run. Hybrid events in particular have great advantages. How to manage the mix of live and online elements?

A workshop is the ideal setting for defining goals, developing ideas or team building. But is this also true when the event takes place online?

The pandemic poses enough problems – cyber-attacks shouldn’t be one of them. How can companies protect their systems thoroughly and prepare themselves against new threats?

Financial reports at the push of a button – that’s the promise of performance reporting tools. However, employees are not necessarily enthusiastic about the transparency and the associated workload. How can you convince the skeptics?

Change projects frequently provoke resistance, and the criticism expressed is not always fair and objective. This is how you can react when discussion partners present inappropriate arguments.

With modern BI tools, companies can improve, simplify and accelerate internal reports. We show you why it’s worth getting started and what to keep in mind when implementing the technology.

Gorilla, polar bear, lynx: Until the end of the year, we will support the WWF with our sports initiative, collecting monthly donations for wildlife protection.

Especially in times of crisis, managers must show sensitivity. But empathy is often misunderstood, which can do more harm than good. What is empathetic leadership based on?

It sounds like a play on words but it’s nothing less than a paradigm shift: Secure IT by Design means building software, hardware and networks securely from the very beginning instead of fixing vulnerabilities subsequently. Higher initial costs will pay off in the long run.

Explaining a transformation is good – but showcasing can be even better. We present three change management measures which offer a glimpse into the future and reflect what employees expect.

From one day to another, millions of employees are working from home. Probably only a few companies were prepared for this – a risk for information and IT security. What immediate measures can help, and what does the crisis teach us for the future?

Microsoft refreshes its newest operating system twice a year – much more often than earlier versions. Therefore IT specialists and business users will have to spend more time testing connected software. How can they limit the extra effort?

Industry thrives on new ideas. But not every innovation project is worth long-term investment. How can companies tell tops from flops as early as possible?

The BSG Basket Ladies Ludwigsburg are fighting for a top rank in southern Germany’s second federal league. Recently they started into the second half of the season, supported by Grosse-Hornke as new sponsor.

Many of our colleagues are sports enthusiasts. We love running, climbing, diving, horse-riding and other activities. In 2019, we boosted our training routines with a big challenge: Our aim was to run a distance which equals crossing the European continent. And we made it! For every kilometer, Grosse-Hornke is donating to charity – a total of 1,500 euros.

The fossil distillate Naphtha is one of the most important resources in petrochemistry. Its price fluctuates strongly. In her master’s thesis, Stella Buchmann showed how companies can optimally deal with this fact. Yesterday she was awarded the Study Award Business Chemistry 2019, granted by Grosse-Hornke and the University of Münster.

IT security in the Cloud remains a hot topic. Grosse-Hornke took the opportunity to find out about the latest developments at the leading international IT-SA trade fair in Nuremberg. This year, 750 exhibitors from 25 nations took part.

If you want to introduce new values, strategies or working methods in your organization, the best method is usually a classic: the workshop cascade. We show how to implement this evergreen perfectly, avoiding mistakes that stand in the way of success.

IT security is a building with several essential elements –the way employees handle systems and data, a fire-proof infrastructure and many other aspects. With our “House of IT Security” concept, companies can determine the most important fields of action, including all interdependencies.

It can be very stressful for employees when their company goes through a difficult time. But not everyone reacts to problems in the same way. How can you overcome such a phase of uncertainty as relaxed as possible?

In a surprisingly large number of companies, employees can use USB flash drives without restrictions. Thus, confidential data can easily fall into the wrong hands. What is the best way to deal with the tiny storage devices?

If agile methods don’t work as expected, this may be due to smaller or bigger construction errors. There is usually no standard solution.

It is difficult to change everyday behavior – attitudes and habits cannot be altered overnight. How can organizations change the way their employees think? Six tips from our change practice.

Companies invest a lot of money in their IT, in the best case only in the most useful projects: IT Portfolio Managers prioritize projects according to defined criteria. But how often do you put this ranking to the test? Not just once a year but several times, according to supporters of agile methods.

Companies are purchasing more and more IT services from external providers – or they change providers in order to reduce costs or purchase additional competencies. However, expectations and results are sometimes far apart if important details have not been clarified from the start.

In December Silke Grosse-Hornke went on a husky tour in the Finnish wilderness. To reach your destination safely out there, you need an experienced guide who gives clear instructions. Here is Silke’s personal travel report.

In November, the German magazine FOCUS-Business and the employer review platform Kununu reviewed 750,000 companies and selected the 2,800 top employers of SMEs in 2019. Grosse-Hornke is one of them – with a strong ranking among the best 200 consulting firms.

For his master’s thesis, Niels Gerhard took a closer look at the procurement function of a chemical company: How agile is the organization – is there any room for improvement? He delivered an excellent analysis, which won our Student Award Business Chemistry 2018, in cooperation with the University of Münster.

IT Development and Operations are growing together in many companies. This principle is called DevOps, and it has to be reflected in the technical tools: Shared software enables a seamless cooperation. Our practical example illustrates how companies can put together an optimal tool chain.

For many managers, work life is a mental marathon. Stress can hardly be avoided. Silke Grosse-Hornke knows this all too well. This summer, she put on her hiking boots in order to find a balance. Here she shares her experiences on the Scottish West Highland Way.

Today, companies possess a mass of data that analysts could only dream of years ago. However, this resource is rarely used in an optimal manner. Managing data as assets is a fundamental shift for many companies. We show a pragmatic way to turn zeros and ones into gold.

Many companies maintain large IT service catalogs. For employees it is often difficult to find suitable hardware and software and combine them correctly. Service Bundling simplifies the selection of IT products and accelerates delivery. In addition, the company can reduce costs for numerous IT workstations. Our case study illustrates how this works.

Today, almost every company is using cloud services. But the question is whether an external cloud solution is always better than a local system (“on premise”). Moreover, employees have to follow certain rules when using cloud services. Our practice example shows how companies can get the best out of the market while retaining the necessary control.

Approximately 40 percent of all desktops and laptops worldwide are still running Windows 7, but Microsoft’s extended support for this operating system will expire in early 2020. It’s time to switch to the new Windows. Our example illustrates how companies can manage this change smoothly.

When it takes longer to fix a software problem or to deliver new hardware, this is usually due to over-complex IT processes. Our practical example shows how companies can improve and accelerate their IT Service Management.