• GK increases sales by 27.8 percent in two years
• Focus pays off: 40 new customer projects worldwide
• GK expands logo with the addition of “a Fujitsu company”

With the successful completion of the squeeze-out, Fujitsu, one of the largest IT groups in the world, acquired all shares in GK Software SE in the summer of this year. The new board, which was appointed in connection with this development   two years ago, looks back at an excellent transformation story. The Group has developed very well, significantly increasing sales and profitability, carrying out successful M&A activities, and winning numerous new international customers.

GK Software SE has been wholly owned by the Japanese Fujitsu Group since July and will reflect this with an expanded logo featuring the addition of “a Fujitsu company” from September 15. This marks the successful completion of the takeover process that began on March 1, 2023, with a voluntary public offer. Even as a wholly owned Fujitsu subsidiary, GK will remain an independent company based in Germany with a complete focus on retail. In June 2023, a new management board was appointed under the leadership of CEO Michael Scheibner, who quickly restructured the company and massively improved sales and earnings. Michael Scheibner, CEO of GK, comments. “My goal was to put our customers back at the center of our business. To do this, we had to realign GK and focus our solutions on the most important customer challenges. To this end, we implemented a broad-based strategy process that massively improved our immediate weaknesses and redundancies. This has significantly increased our added value for customers and at the same time generated new earnings potential.”

As a result, the Group's revenue rose from EUR 152.1 million in fiscal year 2022 to EUR 194.3 million in fiscal year 2024, an increase of 27.8 percent within two years. At the same time, GK became significantly more profitable, achieving EBIT of €27.2 million in the past fiscal year, which was 62.4 percent higher than in fiscal year 2022 (= €16.8 million). The EBIT margin thus improved to 14.0 percent.

This strong increase was based on several pillars: new business has been exceptionally successful over the past two years. With almost 40 projects with new customers on all continents, including several very large international retailers, GK was able to significantly expand its customer base. In addition, the implementation business remained very robust and high-margin. Over the past two years, the new GK Management Board has also invested heavily in existing customer relationships and driven forward the migration of large existing customers to the cloud.

Since the restructuring of the Executive Board, GK has also been active in M&A and successfully sold DF Deutsche Fiskal GmbH. With the acquisition of Nomitri GmbH, the group expanded in the area of deep tech and significantly strengthened its AI portfolio with GK Vision. GK Engage was successfully launched as a second new solution and is already in use or being prepared for use by large retailers.

Michael Scheibner sums up the past few years as follows: “Two years ago, we set out with a clear plan to make GK fit for the future. With Fujitsu's support, we were able to implement this plan and make strategic decisions to strengthen our competitive edge, the quality of our solutions and services, and also to align the company's culture with the future. Now we are in the driver's seat as GK undergoes a transformation affecting all areas to become a modern cloud company that is attractive to employees from all over the world. I am very proud to be able to accompany this exciting phase in the company's history together with a great team.”