Prof. Dr. Frederik Ahlemann’s Chair of Information Systems and Strategic IT Management has cooperated very successfully with the main IT department of the municipal multi-service group, Duisburger Versorgungs- und Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH (DVV), since the end of 2014. The cooperation aims to develop IT as a customer-oriented and reliable partner, and to improve operational and strategic IT processes. Prof. Ahlemann and several research assistants work closely with the DVV’s staff. The focus is on Demand Management, IT Project Management, Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM), and IT Strategy. All of the sub-projects have achieved great success.

The contract between our chair and the DVV has been extended after several years of successful cooperation. In the current cooperation period, the focus is on a new topic, Smart City. This topic includes the networking of numerous City of Duisburg actors by means of modern information and communication technologies, which will increase the city’s quality of life and its competitiveness. 

The DVV multi-service group comprises over 30 companies, primarily in the areas of utilities, mobility, IT & telecommunications and services, such as Stadtwerke Duisburg AG and Duisburger Verkehrsgesellschaft AG (DVG). Another subsidiary is DU-IT Gesellschaft für Informationstechnologie Duisburg mbH (DU-IT), which has 180 employees. DU-IT supplies the City of Duisburg, the University of Duisburg-Essen, and the Wirtschaftsbetriebe Duisburg with IT services in the fields of software and applications, office communication, computer centers, as well as networks and telecommunications. In addition, DU-IT is authoritatively involved in the Smart City Duisburg Initiative, offers the Rhine Cloud as a platform, and is a partner of the Smart City Duisburg Innovation Center (SDU-IC) the network.

Since 2012, the Chair of Information Systems and Strategic IT Management has dealt extensively with issues related to companies and institutions’ digital transformation. This not only includes the development and evaluation of process models, methods, and tools that support IT’s successful management, but  we also investigate the behavior of and effects on people interacting with these artifacts. In order to ensure our research results’ applicability and sustainable benefit, the chair works closely with companies and public institutions.