Steffen Rühl – Director & Technical Consultant
In 1997 Steffen started an apprenticeship as a Management Assistant for Information and Telecommunication Systems at Pitney Bowes Germany. The apprenticeship led him through the entire German organization with a touchpoint to the international part of the business. Before graduation, he received a wide variety of offers from IT, Marketing, Sales and other business divisions. He finally decided to take an offer from the DMT (Document Messaging Technologies) part of the business where he received a contract as a permanent employee as Software Product Specialist.
In the first years, Steffen took over responsibility for an Automated Document Factory (ADF) solution at a major German bank. Under Steffen’s responsibility, the software product was completely rewritten and finally accepted by the customer. He used the time to educate himself in the field of SQL Server. At the same time Steffen was trained on the Pitney Bowes docSense software products Dialogue, StreamWeaver, D3, Doc1 and DFWorks. This made Steffen work in several projects around and with these products. Additionally, he participated in Holden sales training courses to assist with his pre-sales activities.
Steffen was selected for the key role of software expert of the inserter control software Direct Connect and the workflow control software InSite of Pitney Bowes in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. He helped pioneer the early placements of servo controlled inserting solutions into early adopter accounts, particularly in the Financial Services, Local Government and Service Bureau sectors. His responsibility was soon extended to include the Nordics region.
He attended further courses in SQL and continued his education in the discipline of project management.
With his extensive systems experience Steffen established himself as the specialist in the suite of Pitney Bowes inserter software and, in particular, implementations into ADF environments. He managed to bring legacy systems from Bell & Howell as well as competitive equipment from Bowe, Kern and others into one environment.
His role included sales training, pre-sales and bid support, project management and implementation service.
Having skills in SQL as well as project management than led him to become subject matter expert in mail sorting machines, their implementation into different market segments; national posts, presorting for national posts as well as private carriers. The opening of postal markets in Europe forced Pitney Bowes to find new employees which Steffen located. He introduced them to the complex subject of sorting equipment. Topics such as down stream access (DSA) postal consolidation (BZA/BZE) as well as postmen’s walk optimization where successfully build into the standard software suite of his employer with his support. He successfully designed solutions, supported their implementation and supervised projects in Europe, Australasia as well as Melanesia.
After 19 years Steffen decided that it is time for a new opportunity and to move on to pastures new.
He found this within Compart, developing their business in a new market segment. During this time, he reeducated himself in data streams as well as in the DocBridge products Mill Plus, Delta and Pilot. This new segment was quickly developed, and Steffen stepped out from Compart.
He founded his own businesses and worked in multiple roles in the market such as technical support, technical consultant as well as corporate consultancy.
Steffen passionately believes in continuous improvement and motivates himself by thinking about old things anew, looking beyond today and redefining systems for the future.