Volketswil near Zurich, Switzerland, February 03, 2015. Hocoma, the global market leader for the development, manufacturing and marketing of robotic and sensor based devices for functional movement therapy, has announced its partnership with the Slovenian software company XLAB. The pilot phase already started in summer 2014, and a team of dedicated XLAB employees is now fully operational and supporting Hocoma. The strategic decision for XLAB as Hocoma’s flexible long-term software development partner is a valuable investment in the future as it minimizes the risk of manpower shortage at the headquarters due to financial and political turbulences.
State-of-the-Art Software to Motivate Patients Around the World
The Swiss med tech company with a subsidiary in Ljubljana, Slovenia, has made a name for itself with its expertise in the development and use of motivating, challenging and instructive virtual realities for neurological rehabilitation. In cooperation with clinical experts, a large number of new games are developed year by year, helping patients around the world to have more motivation and fun during their recovery process.
Long-term Strategic Partnering Decision to Minimize Foreign Exchange Risk
The software development for all core technologies depends on the close cooperation of different departments within Hocoma and will continue to be done by teams at the headquarters in Switzerland. With regards to the current uncertainty of the financial market and the extremely strong Swiss Franc, Hocoma additionally has to distribute its costs into different currencies and ensure a broad regional coverage of its workforce.
XLAB as Flexible Software Development Partner
After several short-term projects with XLAB, Hocoma chose the solution-oriented Slovenian company as a long-term partner for various software projects. Currently two XLAB experts are supporting Hocoma’s application development and are fully integrated into the Hocoma software team in Switzerland. Depending on the expected workload, the team can be expanded by further XLAB specialists with specific expertise.
Thomas Künzli, Head of Development at Hocoma, is convinced of this strategic decision: “As a company, we have to be prepared for the future. Depending on political and economic developments, we might not be able to grow as much as before at our headquarters. This is why we need to partner with experts such as XLAB, who are willing to grow dynamically with us and can help balance future bottlenecks”.
At XLAB, the new partnership with Hocoma is seen as a great opportunity to work side by side with a domain expert on innovative technologies and to utilize expertise in research and software development. “Having been involved in a multitude of EU projects has given XLAB a competitive advantage over other IT companies in Slovenia, but above all it has taught us that innovation knows no borders. Therefore we are always looking for great ideas and partners such as Hocoma. Until now, this decision proved to be most beneficial for both parties and has lead to a product we all love to use – the Valedo”, says XLAB CEO Gregor Pipan.
From left to right: Thomas Künzli (Hocoma), Gregor Pipan (XLAB) and Mitja Hribar (Hocoma) are looking forward to a fruitful partnership
