Bechtle inaugurates new company building in Karlsruhe.

• IT company plans to continue growing
• For the first time, over 100 employees in Karlsruhe
• Ecological measures taken
• Celebration with acrobatics and comedy

After acquiring the new company building in early February 2012, Bechtle GmbH celebrated the official inauguration of its new location at Bernhard-Lichtenberg-Straße 103 in the Oberreut district. After 20 years in Karlsruhe-Knielingen, the new location marks a turning point in the company's history.

Neckarsulm/Karlsruhe, 11 May 2012 – After just ten months of construction, modern workplaces for around 140 employees have been completed on the 3,600 square metre lot in Oberreut. The impressive new facilities provide the Bechtle IT system house with an excellent infrastructure to meet all the technical and functional requirements of a modern IT location. The four-story low-rise building has the necessary sales and technology capacities for Bechtle, as well as for the employees of the Karlsruhe branch of SolidLine, which specialises in CAD. SolidLine AG has been a member of the Bechtle Group since 2011.

Customer-oriented and eco-friendly.

In addition to office space, the new building also has optimum training facilities for up to 80 participants, versatile conference rooms for customer events, and modern testing environments for developing custom IT solutions. The building features both a convenient location and various eco-friendly elements. For example, the geothermal energy concept will allow the building to be heated or cooled—depending on the season—efficiently through a heat pump. The building's own data centre has also been included in this concept.

Planning to grow.

Bechtle Karlsruhe enjoyed a successful business year in 2011, with a 23 per cent increase in revenue to 49.2 million euros. The number of employees also increased by 16 in the past twelve months, for a total of 106—the first time the company's employees have numbered in the triple digits. "There's a good reason why our new building has room for 140 workplaces. Of course, we want to continue the positive development of our business in the future, and continue to grow," says Richard Einstmann, managing director of Bechtle IT System House Karlsruhe. "Without exception, our employees' response to the new facilities has been very, very positive. That was also one of our goals: we wanted to create a pleasant working atmosphere with this modern building."

Inauguration party.

On 10 May, representatives of the press and invited guests received a tour of the building's modern facilities. The tour was followed by a celebratory inauguration ceremony in Karlsruhe's Palazzo events centre with the slogan "Growing together, celebrating together." Customers, partners, employees and representatives of the city of Karlsruhe enjoyed a lively evening filled with acrobatics, music and comedy. In his speech, Dr Thomas Olemotz, COO of Bechtle AG, emphasized Bechtle AG's commitment to its Karlsruhe location and the city's technologically oriented environment, where an IT company can really feel at home. Richard Einstmann thanked everyone involved in constructing the new building and particularly praised the attractive economic conditions for businesses in Karlsruhe. He also placed special emphasis on the dedication of Bechtle's employees, who were heavily involved in preparations for the new location, from the planning phase to the move.

The Baden IT system house has belonged to Bechtle AG, based in Neckarsulm, for 16 years now, but has its roots in Pazdera Computer Vertriebs GmbH, founded in 1984. The system house's customers include both numerous SMBs from the region, and customers from the public sector.

About Bechtle Karlsruhe.

Founded in 1984 by Monika and Rolf Pazdera, the company has been part of Bechtle AG since 1996. The Bechtle Group has over 60 IT system houses in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. 21 of these, including the Karlsruhe location, have their own training centres. Bechtle has 11 system houses in Baden-Württemberg. Founded in 1983, the company has its headquarters in Neckarsulm. It currently employees a staff of over 5,600, and generated revenues of some 2 billion euros in 2011. 49.2 million euros of revenue came from Bechtle's IT system house in Karlsruhe. The company plans to continue growing faster than the market this year. In addition to system house services, Bechtle offers direct sales of IT products (hardware and software) in 14 European countries (www.bechtle.com).