In the course of the presentation, the participants were not only informed about the Hofer's historical milestones and its internal work procedures, but were also provided with a glance at the company's plans for the future. An important goal the ALPHA Retail Network tries to achieve is the steady increase of internal expertise in the areas of „Customer Interaction“, „Supply Chain Management“ and „New (Digital) Business“. For that purpose, the Hofer KG has reserved a big part of its second headquarter for rooms and facilities for further education.
These lecture halls and workshop rooms are not used for teaching activities of the Hofer academy itself: The company does also cooperate with a big partner from the field of science - the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria. Employees of this organization do not only do research in the specially built retail labs, but also hold lectures for students of the part-time master's degree program "Digital Transport and Logistics Management". The purpose of this cooperation was explained in detail by Dr. Isabella Boitllehner, a representative of the organization's faculty in Steyr.
Furthermore, the guided tour revealed that the Hofer KG still has some space left for subtenants: Directly over the lecture halls and workshop rooms, stylish offices with walls made of glass are located. These offices are intended to serve as co-working-space for start-ups that are expected to foster innovation with their ideas. During the tour, the alumni were also presented the architectural thoughts that were realized in the course of the redesign of the building. Aside workshop rooms and co-working-spaces for smaller companies, you can find various types of single offices, project rooms, a speaker's platform as well as wide, open spaces that serve as cafeteria places or as a place for holding pitch presentations.
In the cafeteria area, the event ended with some relaxed chatting at a small buffet. The pictures enclosed aim to convey the impressions collected during this guided tour. Thank you very much for coming, dear alumni, hope to see you again soon!
