World Market No. 3 — But Nobody Knows It Yet: Podcast with ASC CEO Gerald Kromer

Despite this market position, Kromer clearly names a challenge in the podcast:

"Too many organizations make decisions about their compliance platform without knowing ASC at all – without even thinking of us."

"We are a hidden champion. And the 'hidden' part is a bit of our problem."

Decisions about compliance platforms are no longer made solely on the basis of technical evaluations. Brand awareness plays an increasingly significant role. Any organization that is not already top of mind when a CCO or CIO starts researching will often not make it onto the longlist at all.

This is the context in which ASC is working to strengthen its market presence — with the goal of making brand visibility match the strength of the technology.

Engineering culture alone does not fully explain the success. What completes the picture is a clear understanding of what it means to operate at the technological frontier on a sustained basis. Kromer puts it directly:

"I genuinely believe that in the technology industry, you have to be at the forefront if you want to play in the first league. And that is what we want — that is what we do. I consider it vital to survival to be at the front of technological development."

"Vital to survival" — not as an exaggeration, but as a precise assessment. ASC competes against American billion-dollar corporations that deploy multiples of its resources. In this competition, there is no middle ground. Either you are close enough to the development to help shape it — or you fall behind.

Each of the decisions that follow — the Microsoft partnership, the native cloud approach, the AI integration — is an expression of exactly this mindset.

When Microsoft Teams began its rise through the enterprise market from 2017 onwards, ASC made an early decision: not to observe this development from the sidelines, but to help shape it. The partnership with Microsoft led to jointly developing the compliance API for Teams — at a point in time when this was anything but a foregone conclusion.

"We were one of three companies worldwide that co-developed this compliance API for Teams with Microsoft. And that is quite an achievement for a software company from Hösbach."

"Sometimes as an entrepreneur you also need a little luck. We had hit the right moment — when Microsoft was also looking for partners."

Technological substance and the right timing — both together made this partnership possible. And it continues to shape how ASC operates in the market today: close to platform development, early in new integrations, with a direct line to one of the most important technology partners in the world.

The Microsoft partnership was never just a strategic signal to the outside world. It had a direct impact on the architecture of the solutions themselves. Organizations that commit early to a platform and actively participate in its development build differently: more scalable, more integrative, and with a consistently global mindset. This difference becomes visible in customer conversations today — particularly when organizations are evaluating speed, scalability, and international rollouts.

What cloud-native development means in practice becomes clear quickly: A German insurance company wanted to roll out its compliance solution simultaneously in Germany, Australia, and South Africa. It asked both ASC and a competitor the same question: How long will implementation take?

The competitor planned on-site technician deployments. The answer: six weeks.

"We said: two hours. There is Azure in South Africa, there is Azure in Australia. I can activate it wherever you need it."

"One Day Readiness" at ASC is not a marketing promise — it is the direct result of an architectural decision. For organizations with international operations, this means compliance infrastructure that grows with the business: no lead times, no technician travel, no rollout projects.

For IT leaders, this becomes relevant the moment a new office opens, an acquisition closes, or a regulatory deadline is set. Six weeks is simply not an option.

ASC is a software company. But when Kromer talks about the future, he does not talk about product roadmaps. He talks about people.

"Our only asset is people. We rely on having good, motivated people."

This sounds like standard vocabulary — until you put it in context. ASC is a family-owned company from the Bavarian Main region, running global software development in competition with American billion-dollar corporations. Surviving in that competition does not require perfect processes. It requires people who genuinely enjoy that kind of challenge.

"When I conduct interviews, I always bring this up: we are a global company — do you enjoy that? I enjoy it. And those are the people you need to find."

A team member recently told Kromer that he had not expected to work with such interesting technologies at this point in his career. That is not an employer branding quote. It is the result of a company culture built on the conviction that technological leadership and personal development are not in conflict.