Cloud Mall Baden-Württemberg

In the past, industries were clearly separated from each other and moved within their industrial boundaries. Small and medium-sized companies were able to assert themselves within these limits all by themselves thanks to a solid service. Today, the platform economy is increasingly breaking down these market lines and changing growth and competitive strategies. The willingness and ability to address cloud-based services in conjunction with partners gives companies important differentiation advantages. Key questions are, for example, how to get started with integration solutions, how to find suitable partners and how to successfully develop one's own ideas into cooperative concepts or practical pilots.

Cloud services hold great potential such as flexibility, scalability and cost reduction, which can be leveraged particularly well in business cooperations. Starting points for supporting these cooperations are comprehensive network activities, increasing transparency and trust in cloud services, supporting cooperation and technical integration between companies as well as processing the findings as transfer knowledge for other companies. The project is carried out by the Fraunhofer Institutes IAO and IPA, the InEs Institute of the University of Mannheim, and bwcon GmbH.

A central idea of the project is the creation of a comprehensive cloud ecosystem of suppliers and users. All project activities are on the way to achieving this goal: including a cloud service catalog, a collaboration platform and the development of numerous practical pilots as successful role models for other companies.