The technology industry has grown leaps and bounds over the last decade and the pace refuses to slow down. As an industry, it offers opportunities to think creatively, solve difficult challenges, and work with incredibly talented people. These are the things that Georg Beyschlag, President of TeamViewer Americas, feels make his work fulfilling and exciting at the same time.
The Company
TeamViewer provides a connectivity platform to remotely access, control, manage, monitor, and repair devices of any kind – from laptops and mobile phones to industrial machines and robots. It enables companies of all sizes and from all industries to digitalize their business-critical processes through seamless connectivity. TeamViewer’s use cases focus on remote troubleshooting and collaboration, employee onboarding and training, and streamlined knowledge sharing for frontline workers. Each use case provides efficiency bonuses for enterprises, as they can better direct knowledge and expertise where it is most needed.
Against the backdrop of global megatrends like device proliferation, automation, and new work, the primary focus at TeamViewer is empowering the workers through technology. To them, this requires connecting people to devices, people to people, and people to data through an umbrella of technologies and initiatives. “For example, we are intensely focused on building a functional ecosystem of AR and AI-driven tools that can securely connect frontline workers to the knowledge they need and when they need it. The key word there is “functional,” as AR tools have existed for years, but they are ultimately just toys if they do not provide a value-add to enterprises,” explains Georg.
Keeping Innovation First
“As a tech company, TeamViewer would be nothing without innovation,” Georg acknowledges. It’s in their genes and the driving principle of everything they do. As a company like TeamViewer grows, it’s imperative to support core services while also broadening out the overall technology portfolio. TeamViewer began as a remote support technology company. Over the years, they have incorporated the augmented reality and artificial intelligence solutions highlighted above that unlock new opportunities for their business and more value for their customers. That said, they haven’t lost touch with the core offerings. That’s why they recently launched TeamViewer Remote, the next generation of their remote access and support solution that retains the proven remote connectivity functionalities while also significantly modernizing the tech stack, usability, and interface. This demonstrates TeamViewer’s strategic approach to innovation; one that advances technology not for the purpose of chasing the shiny new thing but for the betterment of the customer experience.
Through scrappy creative innovation, they have now grown to enterprise scale and support 60 countries, over 627K SaaS subscribers, and 2.5B connected devices while helping enterprises avoid 37M tonnes of CO2 per year through the use of TeamViewer solutions.
A Hard-Earned Position
In his role, Georg’s focus is to increase sales effectiveness and efficiency in the Americas region. Prior to his role as President Americas, he oversaw TeamViewer’s global human resources and customer support functions, and previously served as Vice President of Finance & Controlling. He was a key player during TeamViewer’s landmark IPO in 2019 and has led many important projects since then, including key acquisitions and overall strategy development. These former positions were instrumental in helping ensure a smooth transition to President of TeamViewer Americas.
Georg holds a Master of Science in Finance from the Technical University of Munich and a Master of Science in Banking, Corporate, Finance, and Securities Law from the University of Sydney. He also has a German Pre-Diploma in Business Administration and Management from the University of Augsburg.
TeamViewer CEO Oliver Steil said: “[Georg Beyschlag] has the right mentality and brings in fresh perspectives to boost growth and to drive the region’s success for the coming years. He has proven to be an excellent leader in various roles at TeamViewer, where he successfully brought people and departments to the next level.”
Georg’s Working Style and Goals
Georg’s working style is characterized by direct communication and trust. He feels that important information is often left out of conversations when people beat around the bush, leading to issues down the line. No matter the leadership role, it is important to him that his teams feel comfortable approaching him and laying out the facts clearly. This way, he feels, they can find a path that moves the team, project, and business to the best outcome quickly. In the same way teams trust him to receive information with an open mind, he trusts them to know their role best and propose a solution. “It isn’t an efficient use of anyone’s time and resources if I micromanage every aspect of a project, so I believe in empowering my teams to take ownership of decisions. My role in this area is to provide strategic guidance to ensure their decisions are complementing the direction and priorities of TeamViewer overall,” says Georg.
As the leader, Georg is committed to accelerating growth in the Americas region first and foremost through his diverse and stellar team. He works with teams across roles, including strategy, corporate development, sports partnerships, human resources, and customer support. All of these are roles with a tremendous impact on the long-term target to bring TeamViewer to the next level as a global technology company. His priority is further developing and strengthening the sales organization across the region to help them leverage their full potential.
Other ways that he plans to support growth at TeamViewer include:
- Commit to focusing on the customer and identifying their needs.
- Develop enterprise solutions tailored to the customers’ needs and not developed as a one size fits all.
- Build and maintain close relationships with our customers in the field.
- Develop and make use of strong strategic partners like SAP, Microsoft, and Google, as well as distributors and resellers.
Applying AI
Georg points out that ChatGPT is a great example of why user experiences are so critical. Artificial intelligence is not new, but companies have struggled to implement the technology at scale for years because developing a broadly useful user interface was challenging. The inherent usability of ChatGPT in this regard is what makes it such a momentous innovation.
“Large Language Models (LLMs) are particularly well-suited to improve solutions in the remote support industry, and we see a lot of potential for their integration into TeamViewer’s products. From improving our AiStudio’s image recognition to helping frontline workers make better, more informed decisions – the use cases are abundant. Step changes like this are what make working in tech so interesting, and I am excited about the future,” exclaims Georg.
Challenges in Adopting Emerging Technologies
Georg appreciates that customers in today’s enterprise environments have high standards for adoption. If your product does not meet the needs of a business, then there is typically a line of competitors ready to offer them something better. The key is to focus on providing not just the latest technologies but to do so in a manner that offers the best and most flexible user experience. This requires providing a product that works seamlessly across all possible use cases, from R&D to manufacturing, to marketing.
“A critical way to enable powerful and flexible solutions is customizability through an open ecosystem. There are countless applications, integrations, and tools that all combine to make workers effective today. The key for a platform technology like TeamViewer is to make its capabilities fit so seamlessly within the user’s workflow that it becomes difficult for them to determine the barriers between our product and the other solutions they use. Developing a flawless user experience is imperative yet tricky, which is why so many companies with good ideas fail,” shares Georg.
Achieving Sustainability
Sustainability is at the core of TeamViewer’s offering. Its products were born out of the need to reduce the necessity for travel and physical presence, which naturally leads to the avoidance of CO2 emissions. This positive impact gets multiplied by a business model granting free access to TeamViewer’s solutions to private users for non-commercial purposes. TeamViewer and its product portfolio have evolved massively since its founding – but the company still helps its customers to avoid unnecessary travel and thus be more sustainable. By using TeamViewer technology to remotely maintain or repair machines and access devices like mobile phones, computers, heavy equipment, robots and vehicles, distances across the globe can be bridged easily, and traveling from one place to another becomes unnecessary in many cases. The company is therefore enabling clients to limit their carbon footprint and help avoid approximately 37 megatons of CO2e emissions per year. This is the same as a fully booked A380 flying 7,000 times non-stop from Singapore to New York or the emissions of 11 million average cars in one year.
To monitor and optimize its own footprint, TeamViewer participates in the Carbon Disclosure Project as part of its sustainability reporting. The company also scrutinizes its emissions according to GHG protocol standards, using certified software for calculations and external scientific support. The results show the achievements of TeamViewer’s efforts: In 2021, the company reduced CO2e emissions by about one-third compared to one year prior.
Quote: “Innovation comes from everywhere.”
