CERM O2 — Building the MIS for What Come...
A year after Omikai became part of CERM, Mathias is back in front of the INKISH camera — but this time with something entirely new to show.
At Labelexpo Americas in Chicago, CERM introduces O2 for the first time. It is a new browser-based MIS platform combining the technology and thinking developed at Omikai with CERM's four decades of industry experience and extensive customer base.
The first phase is aimed at label converters, initially targeting companies with around 10–20 employees. But the ambition is considerably bigger.
O2 has been built API-first. Everything that can be done through the user interface can also be accessed through APIs — and through MCP, allowing users and developers to interact with the system from LLMs, build their own integrations, develop alternative interfaces, and potentially automate processes in entirely new ways.
For Mathias, that architecture reflects a fundamental change in how MIS systems will be used.
Rather than seeing the MIS simply as an application employees log into, CERM sees O2 increasingly as an engine behind other applications, integrations, AI tools, and workflows.
The user interface itself has also been designed around simplicity. Customer service employees increasingly need to work quickly, often without years of specialist print knowledge, making ease of use just as important as what happens behind the scenes.
And O2 won't stop with labels. The roadmap includes flexible packaging, folding cartons, multi-site organizations, and increasingly complex production environments.
For Mathias, the acquisition has also created a very different working life. As CEO and owner of Omikai, product development was only one of many responsibilities. Inside CERM, his assignment has become wonderfully simple — although perhaps not easy:
Build the best product possible.
O2 is being shown publicly for the first time in Chicago, with selected customers expected to begin using the platform in early 2027.
In this INKISH film, Morten B. Reitoft talks with Mathias about the journey from Omikai to CERM, API-first development, AI and MCP, simplicity in MIS, and why O2 may represent much more than simply another new management information system.