Digital competitiveness: Switzerland once again among the top 5 worldwide
The new digital competitiveness ranking was published on September 28, 2022. Switzerland climbs to 5th place out of 63 countries surveyed (2021: 6th place). It already occupied this position in 2019, before the pandemic affected the economies as a whole.
The IMD, Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, has published its world ranking on "Digital Competitiveness". The results for Switzerland will be explained at the Digital Competitiveness Summit 2022 on September 28 in Lausanne.
Among the top 10 in terms of digital competitiveness, Denmark takes 1st place, while the USA, in 2nd place, has to relinquish its top spot for the first time since the launch of the "IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking" in 2017. Sweden remains in 3rd place, Singapore improves by one rank (4th place) and the Netherlands also rises by one place to 6th place (from 7th place).
Digital competitiveness: Switzerland makes progress
Switzerland's rise in the rankings is due to its good performance in the knowledge factor, which the World Competitiveness Center defines as "the necessary know-how to discover, understand and develop new technologies". This factor is one of a total of three main categories according to which the researchers rank the results of the studies. The other two factors are future viability and technology.
Top rank in knowledge
For all subfactors in the range Knowledge ranks Switzerland among the top 10 economies, coming in 2nd in terms of talent, remaining 8th in terms of scientific concentration, and also 8th in terms of education and training. In the area of Technology Switzerland's position remains unchanged for the subfactors capital (12th place) and technological framework (11th place), while the regulatory framework has improved slightly compared to the previous year (2022: 8th place vs. 2021: 9th place).
Switzerland's need to catch up
The ranking makes it clear that Switzerland's digital capabilities are in need of improvement: The availability of digital skills is viewed less positively by managers today than it was a year ago; this criterion has dropped to 18th place (from 11th). Scores also remain relatively low for science graduates (26th), women graduates (30th), number of female researchers (31st), and R&D productivity as measured by number of publications (35th) - despite improvements in most of these areas. Overall, the findings shed light on the factors that make it easier for governments and the private sector to improve their ability to protect digital infrastructure from cyberattacks, the experts said. In addition, they show how this promotes the adoption and diffusion of digital technologies. Switzerland ranks 27th out of 63 in terms of government cybersecurity capabilities, 15th in terms of the importance of cybersecurity to business leaders ("To what extent is cybersecurity adequately addressed by businesses?"), 18th in terms of e-participation, and 16th in terms of e-government (providing online government services to increase access and inclusion for citizen:s).
Source: https://digitalswitzerland.com/
