From a career change to a leader.
Achieving goals together, making the impossible possible, picking up where others leave off—these are the qualities that make Melanie Schüle stand out. She joined Bechtle after switching from another industry 18 years ago and she has been Head of Bechtle Clouds since October—an impressive career.
It was in January 2000, that the qualified lawyer and notary began looking for a career change, one that would let her and her strengths fully develop. An advert for a position at Bechtle caught her eye, she applied and managed to impress Jürgen Schäfer—current COO for E-commerce at Bechtle—enough to land an interview. The now 46-year-old began at Bechtle in product management. It turned out to be the beginning of an impressive career.
“In the beginning, I absorbed any and all information like a sponge, to try and integrate into the IT sector,” remembers Melanie Schüle. She quickly became responsible for the vendor Compaq. After it merged with Hewlett Packard, she successfully positioned Bechtle as a HP growth partner and laid the foundations for an excellent partnership.
Outstanding partnership with Cisco.
Ten years later, in 2010, Melanie Schüle became Head of Business Development for Networking Solutions and Cisco. In the meantime, Bechtle has become one of the most important German technology partners for Cisco, meaning that Bechtle succeeded in being one of the strongest partners for the second time in Cisco’s Partner Awards in November 2018, winning Cloud Partner of the Year Germany and Partner of the Year Architectural Excellence Enterprise Networks Germany.
These awards honour outstanding achievements, strength in innovation and commitment to the implementation of extraordinary customer projects. During her time as Business Unit Leader, she also laid the foundations for the now firmly established traineeship as an IT Business Architect at Bechtle.
Infectious disposition.
Melanie Schüle’s disposition is infectious, as is the spring in her step—this is how she manages to inspire teams in an extraordinary way, implement ideas and reach goals. Because of her entrepreneurial success and motivating character, she was nominated for the one-year Bechtle Management Qualifications in 2011, the General Management Programme. For her, major recognition of her work—for Bechtle, a logical progression. “I learned a great deal from the programme” Melanie Schüle confirms, “a lot about the readiness to embrace change and I’m now more reflective—the feedback was incredibly valuable, it was a key moment in my career.”
In addition to the theoretical training, she also appreciates how Bechtle is an employer that allows the freedom to take the initiative and trusts in its employees. “It was especially important to me that I don’t have to choose between a career and my family, because there are moments when I really have to put my children first.” At Bechtle, I’ve found my ideal home,” says the mother of two.
In recent years, Melanie Schüle has put her heart and soul into building up new business areas with the development of our networking business being impressive proof of her energy and assertiveness. "What always impresses me is her talent to make the seemingly impossible possible,” says Michael Guschlbauer, Member of the Executive Board, IT System House and Managed Services, Bechtle AG. In October 2018, thanks to her professional success and motivating personality, Melanie Schüle was chosen to be the new Head of Bechtle Clouds GmbH.
Nicole Dörr kicks off her Bechtle success story in 1991. Her career begins at a time when the company has some 50 employees. It takes some detours via Freiburg and Stuttgart before, in 2002, it homes back in on Bechtle. Her motto: “Move and the way appears.”
When Matthias Drescher applied for a job at Bechtle, things didn’t really go to plan. But when he found one door shut, he got his foot in another. The start of an exceptional career that reached its latest peak in June 2016—the former Bechtle trainee takes the helm of Bechtle ÖA direct.
“Back in 1988, when the first vision was published with the goals of an IPO and €100 million revenues by the year 2000, I, like many others, was sceptical”, admits Harald Lorch. He has been with Bechtle from the very start and recently celebrated his 35th anniversary ...
When he thinks ahead to 2030, Christian Döngi imagines us “working with smart equipment like smart glasses, smart gloves and robots and with a high degree of automation.” He’s a Bechtle innovation manager. His home is logistics. His business is the future.
Alexander Schweitzer describes himself as a straightforward guy, and his career at Bechtle is a case in point. Ten years ago, his first day at Bechtle also happened to mark his first venture into IT. Fast-forward a decade, in 2021 he’s one of two managing directors of Bechtle direct. When you look closely, though, his trajectory didn’t always follow such a straight line.