Software development
Platforms, data products and AI agents — from architecture to operations. We develop innovative technologies and roll them out at large, well-known retail groups.
AI and softwarebuilt with craftsmanship —at global scale.
S&W Strategies is an international investment and IT company from Baden-Württemberg, Germany: we build software and AI, launch startups, run investment programmes and hold our own portfolio. With the care of a master workshop, the pace of a startup — and a reliability you can count on in every detail.
One company, three roles: builder, founder, investor.
We are engineers who build our own products. Founders who take startups to market ourselves. And investors who run programmes and holdings internationally. All three under one roof — and all three with the same conviction: the next decade belongs to companies that master artificial intelligence rather than buy it.
- Headquarters
- Gäufelden, Baden-Württemberg
- Legal form
- GmbH · Stuttgart District Court
- Management
- Dmitrij Wasiljev · Vitali Schneider
- Focus
- AI products, data platforms, venture building
What we do.
Venture building
Startups built in-house: validation, MVP, market entry and scaling — with our own venture platform as the operating system.
Investment programmes
International programmes and holdings in products and IT companies. Long-term capital, operational proximity, clear governance.
We automate any business — and bring artificial intelligence into it.
From the first analysis to day-to-day operations: we audit, design, build, roll out, train your team and stay by your side. A closed loop — from a single source.
Automation
We automate processes in any business: sales, procurement, logistics, finance, customer service. Less manual work, fewer errors, more speed.
AI integration
We bring artificial intelligence into existing systems and workflows — agents, assistants and data platforms that measurably take work off your hands.
Audit & strategy
We review processes, data, systems and costs and show where automation and AI have the greatest leverage — with a clear roadmap.
Implementation & operations
We build, roll out and operate: software, integrations, infrastructure. With support, continuous development and dedicated contacts.
Training your teams
We enable your people to work more efficiently with new tools and AI — hands-on, in their own daily work.
Marketing & social media
We run marketing, content and social media for your product — data-driven, with AI tools, from strategy to daily execution.
How we work with you.
Seven steps, one team, no hand-over gap. The people who run the audit are still there for you in operations.
Step 1 of 7
Audit
We look at processes, data, systems and costs — on site or remote, with the people who do the work every day.
What you get
- As-is analysis with bottlenecks and cost drivers
- Automation and AI potential, ranked by leverage
Step 2 of 7
Concept
The audit becomes a roadmap: what first, what later, what not at all. With architecture, effort and goals that can be measured.
What you get
- Prioritised roadmap
- Target architecture and budget frame
- Metrics we let ourselves be measured by
Step 3 of 7
Development
We build in short iterations and show working results early. You see progress, not just status reports.
What you get
- Working software in short cycles
- Tests, documentation and security review
Step 4 of 7
Roll-out
We bring the solution into your operations: integration with existing systems, data migration, go-live with a fallback plan.
What you get
- Integration with ERP, shop, PIM and other systems
- Go-live with hypercare
Step 5 of 7
Training
Your team learns to work productively with the new tools and with AI — in their own daily work, not in a seminar room.
What you get
- Training for users and administrators
- Guides and dedicated contacts
Step 6 of 7
Operations & support
We operate, monitor and keep developing. Dedicated contacts, clear paths when something breaks.
What you get
- Monitoring and maintenance
- Further development along your goals
Step 7 of 7
Marketing & growth
Once the system runs, we move it forward: content, campaigns and social media — data-driven and with AI tools.
What you get
- Marketing and content plan
- Campaigns with reporting
Then the loop starts again — with the next audit.
Reliable, at the forefront of technology, experienced.
We stay when others hand over. We work with the most advanced AI and software technologies and use them every day in our own products. Our team brings many years of experience from IT, retail, automotive, portals and digital transformation. And we think in terms of your business, not tickets: results, costs and growth — as if they were our own.
We bet on artificial intelligence. Not as a feature — as the foundation.
Every product is designed AI-first: agents that execute processes, data platforms that check themselves, and products that speak dozens of languages from day one.
Agentic systems
AI agents that do not just answer but get work done — in engineering, operations and customer processes.
Data platforms
Product and master data as the operating system of commerce: quality, approvals, compliance, publishing.
Multilingual by default
Our products speak up to 26 languages — from the first release, not as a retrofit.
Privacy by design
EU hosting, data minimisation, GDPR-compliant architecture — especially where data is sensitive.
How we build: secure, clean, close to you.
Good software does not come from speed alone. It comes from method, care and a short path between you and the people who build it.
Security from day one
Service-level authorisation, secrets management, security headers and automated security checks (SAST, DAST) in every pipeline. GDPR-compliant data protection is part of the architecture, not an afterthought.
Code quality that lasts
Code reviews, automated tests plus load and end-to-end tests as a release gate: no release goes live without a green overall report. And documentation the next developer can actually read.
A direct line
You talk directly to the architects and developers who build your system — no sales layer, no forwarding chains. Decisions are made in conversation, not in tickets.
Flexible in your favour
Short iterations, priorities you can reset every cycle, scope and pace set by your business. When your market turns, the plan turns with it.
Documentation that keeps up
Architecture decisions, interfaces and runbooks are updated with every release — straight from code and pipeline. Whoever joins the project finds today's state, not last year's.
Speed without shortcuts
Experienced teams, short decision paths and automated pipelines make us fast. Quality remains the yardstick: tests, reviews and security checks are part of every release — not what is left over when there is time.
Our methods
Sixteen methods our teams and our AI agents work by every day — pick one and the picture rebuilds itself into its principle.
Product & delivery
Domain & quality
Architecture
Operations & security
Agile delivery (Scrum & Kanban)
We deliver in short cycles instead of one big bang: every cycle ends with a working result you can see and accept. A Kanban board with WIP limits shows what we are working on and what is blocked; review and retrospective then improve both the product and the collaboration.
Product discovery & lean experiments
Before we build a feature, we test the assumption behind it: hypothesis, success criterion and review date are fixed up front, interviews and clickable prototypes deliver the answer. What holds up, we expand; what does not, we stop before it burns budget.
OKR & outcome steering
We steer by impact, not by the amount of work: a few objectives, each with measurable key results such as revenue, lead time or conversion. Every important decision is recorded with its expected outcome and later checked against the result.
Domain-Driven Design
We model software along your business: clear domains (bounded contexts), a shared language with your experts and domain events between them. That keeps the system understandable as it grows.
Test-Driven Development
Test first, then code: red, green, refactor. Every function is verifiable from the start — changes become safe instead of risky.
Evaluation-Driven Development
For AI features we define measurable evaluations before we build: test cases, quality thresholds, regressions. An AI feature goes live only when it passes its evals.
Spec-driven development
AI agents write code with us, but never without a brief. First comes a specification with goals and boundaries, then a plan in small, verifiable steps. The agents work by fixed rules, every step passes tests and review, and a human signs off.
Event-Driven Architecture
Systems talk through events instead of rigid coupling: Kafka as the backbone, outbox and saga patterns for reliable flows across service boundaries. New features plug in without touching existing ones.
MACH transformation
Microservices, API-first, cloud-native, headless: we replace monoliths step by step (strangler pattern) without stopping live operations. Commerce and platforms can then be renewed piece by piece.
API-first
The interface is the contract and comes first: OpenAPI and AsyncAPI, versioned and secured by contract tests. Web, app, partners and AI agents use the same clean interface.
AI-first
AI is part of the architecture, not an afterthought: agents, retrieval (RAG) and automation with clear boundaries, human approval where it is needed and measurable quality through evals.
Clean & hexagonal architecture
Business logic sits at the core and knows no frameworks; databases, interfaces and third-party systems attach from outside through ports and adapters. Technology can change, the business stays stable.
DevSecOps
Security runs in every pipeline: static and dynamic checks, dependency scans with SBOM, secrets management and zero-trust access via OAuth2/OIDC. Gaps are found before they go live.
Infrastructure as code & GitOps
Infrastructure is built from versioned code: Terraform for cloud resources, Kubernetes and GitOps with Argo CD for deployments. Every environment is reproducible, every change traceable.
CI/CD & end-to-end tests
From commit to operations in one automated line: build, tests, security checks, deployment, monitoring. End-to-end tests with Playwright and load tests with k6 check the system the way your users experience it.
Privacy & compliance by design
Data protection and regulation belong in the architecture, not in the aftermath: data minimisation, encryption and hosting in the EU from the first draft; GDPR, the EU AI Act and NIS2 sit in the backlog as requirements. Evidence for audits is produced along the way.
Law, data and AI — compliant from the first line.
Data is the most valuable thing you entrust to us. That is why we implement legal requirements technically before the first line of code is written — and keep to them across the whole lifecycle.
Art. 25 GDPR
Privacy by design
Data minimisation, purpose limitation, deletion and permission concepts, encryption at rest and in transit, data residency in the EU. We prepare data protection impact assessments on the technical side.
Art. 9 GDPR · Trade Secrets Act
Highly sensitive data
Health, biometric and financial data or trade secrets demand more: separated tenants, complete access logs, pseudonymisation and — where needed — operation entirely within your own infrastructure.
Reg. (EU) 2024/1689
EU AI Act under control
We classify AI features by risk level, implement transparency and documentation duties and build in human oversight wherever the law or common sense calls for it.
External · internal · hybrid
AI-enabling any process
From a single workflow to the entire company landscape: we make processes AI-ready — with external models, with internal models in your environment or hybrid, depending on what your data allows.
The legal framework we build into the technology
- GDPRGeneral Data Protection RegulationReg. (EU) 2016/679addressed
- BDSGGerman Federal Data Protection ActDE · nationaladdressed
- TDDDGData protection in digital servicesDE · nationaladdressed
- EU AI ActRegulation on artificial intelligenceReg. (EU) 2024/1689addressed
- NIS2Cybersecurity of essential entitiesDir. (EU) 2022/2555addressed
- Data ActAccess to and use of dataReg. (EU) 2023/2854addressed
- Cyber Resilience ActSecurity of products with digital elementsReg. (EU) 2024/2847addressed
- Trade Secrets ActProtection of trade secrets (GeschGehG)DE · nationaladdressed
The legal assessment of each case is carried out together with your data protection officer and legal counsel; we deliver the technical implementation and the evidence.
Operations that never sleep. Documentation that never goes stale.
A system is only finished when it runs reliably. Logging, monitoring, alerting and release management come included — and the documentation keeps itself up to date.
- Logging & tracing
- Structured logs and distributed tracing with OpenTelemetry: every request traceable across all services.
- Monitoring & SLOs
- Dashboards and service level objectives that measure what your users experience — not just what the server reports.
- Alerting
- Alerts with clear ownership and a runbook. An alert wakes the right person, together with the knowledge of what to do.
- Release management
- Versioned releases, feature flags, canary and blue-green deployments, rollback in minutes.
- Architecture with a memory
- Architecture decisions as ADRs in the repository: every important decision is justified and easy to find.
- Living documentation
- API reference from the contract, diagrams from the code, runbooks from the pipeline — regenerated with every release.
From practice — what this looks like in code
release: needs: [unit, contract, e2e, security] if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main' steps: - run: k6 run load/checkout.js --threshold 'p(95)<300' - run: zap-baseline.py -t $STAGING_URL -c zap.conf # DAST - run: syft . -o cyclonedx-json > sbom.json # SBOM - uses: ./.github/actions/canary-deploy with: { traffic: 10%, rollback-on: slo-burn }export class OrderPlaced implements DomainEvent { readonly type = "order.placed.v1"; constructor(readonly orderId: OrderId, readonly tenant: TenantId, readonly total: Money, readonly at = Instant.now()) {}} await tx.run(async (db) => { await orders.save(db, order); await outbox.append(db, new OrderPlaced(order.id, order.tenant, order.total));}); // atomic: state and event in one transactionmodule "shop_cluster" { source = "./modules/k8s-cluster" region = "eu-central-1" # EU data residency node_pools = { app = 3, ai = 1 } encryption = { at_rest = true, kms_key = var.kms_key } backup_policy = "daily-35d" tags = local.compliance_tags}- alert: CheckoutLatencyHigh expr: histogram_quantile(0.95, rate(http_request_duration_seconds_bucket{route="/checkout"}[5m])) > 0.3 for: 10m labels: { severity: page, team: commerce } annotations: summary: "Checkout p95 above 300 ms" runbook: "docs/runbooks/checkout-latency.md"@eval_suite(model="assistant-v4", threshold=0.92)def test_product_answers(case): answer = assistant.ask(case.question, context=catalog.search(case.question)) assert grounded(answer, case.sources) # no hallucination assert not contains_pii(answer) # no personal data return score(answer, case.expected)Simplified excerpts from typical projects; names and values are examples.
Decades of experience in manufacturing, retail and public institutions.
We know the reality of large organisations — factory floors, store networks, public authorities — and build technology that actually runs there.
Manufacturing & industryB2B
Production, processes, master data and automation in industrial organisations.
Retail & e-commerceB2B, B2C
Innovative technologies for large, well-known retail groups: product data, omnichannel, fulfilment.
Public sectorB2G
Digital solutions for governmental and public institutions — with the security and traceability requirements that apply there.
More than 150 clients and projects. There is no shortcut to experience.
Compact assignments, mid-sized projects and programmes that run inside corporations for years — plus products of our own. That work has built experience across the industries and disciplines that matter in digital business: from retail to SAP, from product design to AI. We know what holds up in practice. And what doesn't.
Shops, marketplaces and checkout journeys for retailers and retail groups — with payment, marketing and promotion whose impact shows in revenue.
Shops and multi-checkout for car manufacturers, portals for media groups and newspaper publishers, digital platforms for trade fairs and their exhibitors.
From idea to market-ready product: consulting, product design and the development of products and services that prove themselves in daily use.
Big data, analytics and AI at the core: we build AI-first platforms and agentic systems — and make data the basis of your decisions.
End-to-end processes across system boundaries: SAP integration, microservice architectures and interfaces that stay reliable under load.
Deployment, infrastructure and support: we take systems into production securely — and keep them stable there, day after day.
150+clients and projects — from compact assignments to multi-year corporate programmes
15+ yearsof project experience for every senior expert
35tenants on a single platform — our largest multi-tenant build to date
−60 %in operating costs in one modernisation programme
What you gain
Digital transformation & AI
We make companies and processes AI-ready — step by step, measurably.
Greater efficiency
Less manual work, less friction, lower operating costs.
Faster to market
Shorter paths from idea to release: new products reach your customers sooner.
Faster decisions
Near real-time analytics instead of monthly reports — decisions grounded in data, not gut feel.
Higher product quality
Automated tests, code reviews and clear quality gates before every release.
Security first
Security is not a project phase for us — it is the foundation.
Control & transparency
Processes, costs and progress traceable at any time — documented against GDPR, the Data Act and the EU AI Act.
Audit & forecast
We measure where you stand, forecast effort and impact — and say openly what is realistic.
Plans and roadmaps that hold — milestone by milestone. No empty promises.
People and network
Founder, visionary and the source of ideas behind S&W Strategies. More than 18 years in product development and product design, driven by one conviction: data and new technologies only matter once they become products that move markets. His home turf is e-commerce — he has been responsible for digital platforms for corporations in retail, media and automotive, in B2B as well as B2C, and brings big data and digital transformation to the places where they create revenue.
E-commerce · B2B & B2CAutomotive · retail · mediaData & big dataProduct design & new technologies
Founder and visionary — and the strategic counterweight in the duo. Many years of experience taking products from a first idea to market readiness, on a solid technical footing. His special field is the public sector: he knows how administrations work and turns that into digitalisation that actually lands there. In B2B transformation he guides companies from the status quo to new business models. Together the two lead S&W as equals: two strategists, two perspectives, one standard for products.
Public sector & administrationB2B transformationProduct creation to marketStrategy & new technologies
Senior network & partners
Experienced architects, developers and consultants with 15 or more years of project experience each, plus specialised partners, engaged per project.
Talent pool
Young, well-trained developers in frontend (React, Next.js), backend (Java, Kotlin, Python), mobile (React Native), cloud & DevOps, QA automation and data & AI, supported by senior mentoring.
Leadership in the team
Our leads take responsibility for results and people: clear goals, pairing and reviews instead of lone fighters. Knowledge belongs to the team, not to one person.
Consulting that stays the course
A strong team of consultants and architects accompanies you from analysis to operations. Every request has an owner and a next step — no task is left lying.
Technologies from practice
170technologies across 14 fields — used in real projects
AI & language models14
RAG, vectors & search8
Backend & languages17
Frontend, mobile & 3D13
Big data & streaming11
Databases8
Geo, maps & coordinates14
Computation & algorithms10
Media, image & video7
Cloud, DevOps & operations16
Security & quality9
Enterprise: SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM18
Management & collaboration7
Design, product & CAD18
Figures and industry references relate to projects our experts have contributed to, including before S&W Strategies GmbH was founded. We name clients only with their consent.
- Right
Strategy before code: understand first, then build.
- Confident
Decisions on solid data — confidence instead of gut feeling.
- Fast
The pace of a startup, the care of a manufactory.
- Smart
Every euro where it achieves the most — invested with precision.
- Efficient
Processes that get measurably leaner — and a business that grows.
Our promise
Build your business the right way — confident, fast and smart.
Spend with precision and raise the efficiency of your processes and your entire business.
Let's talk about your project.
Partnerships, investment programmes, software projects or a first conversation about your plans — write to us.
info@- Address
- S&W Strategies GmbH
Buchenstraße 10, 71126 Gäufelden
Germany - General
- info@sw-strategies.de
- Customer support
- support@sw-strategies.de
- Invoices & e-invoicing
- rechnung@sw-strategies.de
- Contracts & legal
- legal@sw-strategies.de