At eQ-3/ELV, we developed equipment for time and attendance management. You could buy tags, terminals, and software to record and evaluate time spent at work.
Some competitors were admired, because they had managed to create good products and sell them with healthy margins. ELV was good at creating good enough products for cutomers with smaller pockets (and sell the products with healthy margins).
I visited one of these former competitors in Southern Germany. Some similarities immediately sprang to my mind:
- Both were hard to reach by public transport. You had to travel to a small town and then take an infrequently-offered bus to a location in an industrial area.
- Both ate their own dogfood, i.e. both used their time and attendance management equipment to track time of their staff and to control access to their buildings.
- Both offered their employees the same lunch menu, i.e. refrigerated and heated meals delivered by Apetito. Five years after leaving ELV, I could still recognise the meals and select one I remembered that tasted good (curly kale). It is amazing how stable the menu has been over time.
