The Bächli webshop, which was also redesigned by Evoq as part of the brand relaunch, represents a decisive improvement in the shopping experience for customers. It strategically combines the two themes of "content" and "conversion". The UX design aims for optimal user guidance and a consistent customer experience both on the PC and in the mobile version. A new mega menu provides a quick overview of the complete range of around 40,000 mountain sports articles. Access is also possible via the various mountain sports disciplines. An intelligent filter system leads to optimal individual search results. In addition to online shopping, Bächli's consulting expertise is not to be neglected. The customer will find a lot of expertise, from size tables to care tips.

However, mountain sports should above all be an experience, and so the online store also offers comprehensive editorially prepared news and reports in the blog and on the events site.

With the brand relaunch, Bächli wants to emphasize its roots in alpinism and position itself as the leading specialist retailer in Swiss mountain sports. In addition to the online store, the customer magazines were also Inspiration and Selection and the branches have also been adapted to the new design. "Our brand is now getting a real boost from the brand relaunch and the new web store," says Jan Maurer, Marketing Manager at Bächli Bergsport. With 13 branches throughout Switzerland - and now also in Ticino as of September 30 - the company is the largest private supplier of mountain sports and outdoor products in Switzerland.

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Responsible at Bächli Bergsport Bächli Bergsport: Jan Maurer (Marketing Manager), Michael Roth (Deputy Marketing Manager) Gernot Böttinger (Digital Marketing), Tamara Wefers (UX Design). Responsible at Evoq: Christian Sutter. Consulting: Susanne Pfäffli. UX/UI Design: Dominique Haussener, Philipp Schilling, Corinne Brunner. Graphic: Martin Bettler, Marc Hahn, Amanda Fuchs. Implementation webshop: Metades, Wolfhausen.

 

Companies must provide their junior managers with the skills to recognize changes in the company and its environment from which new challenges could arise at an early stage, as well as to tackle new challenges courageously. And finally, it must be a matter of successfully managing the areas entrusted to them in a changing environment. In doing so, companies often struggle with the problem that although they can sensitize their junior managers to the complexity of the environment in which they operate and the multi-layered nature of their management tasks in seminars, this complexity and multi-layered nature cannot be experienced in classic seminars. This is why the young executives do not develop the behavioral confidence they need for their (future) leadership work.

Making complexity tangible

That's why, in the fall of 2021, a global technology company that supports Machwürth Team International (MTI) in human resources development decided to conduct a business simulation as part of its leadership development program, in which participants would

• experience the complexity of the environment in which leadership takes place "live", so to speak,
• Try out different problem-solving and management strategies,
• reflect on their actions together and
• identify and try out alternative approaches so that they ultimately have a larger repertoire of actions and their behavioral confidence increases.

In addition, through their trial actions in the business simulation, the junior executives should develop a sense of where there is still a need for development in themselves and in the team if they want to have the desired effect as a leader.

Acting unerringly in a changing environment

First, the human resources developers at the company worked with the project managers at MTI to modify an existing business simulation program so that it reflected the challenges facing the company. The program was adapted to the specifics of the company and its market, from sales developments, production and personnel data to so-called "black swans" - unexpected events such as the Corona pandemic and its economic consequences - so that the simulation could work with real data and reflect several economic periods.

The central challenge was defined as: The company is under high pressure to innovate because its market is changing rapidly and technical progress is constantly enabling new solutions to problems. As a result, the company's strategies and business plans have an ever shorter shelf life. So the divisions also have to regularly rethink and readjust their strategies as well as their processes. This gives rise to the following challenges for managers, among others:

• You need to recognize the need for change early on.
• In addition to their employees, they often have to win over the areas with which they cooperate and their superiors as fellow campaigners to set a new course. And:
• Managers must coordinate their actions and act purposefully as a team.

Learning to manage complexity

Once the preparatory work was completed, a three-day workshop was held in December 2021 with twelve young managers from the company. It started on a Tuesday afternoon. The participants first reflected together:

• What is the function of leadership?
• What are the prerequisites for achieving top performance as an organization over the long term in an era characterized by change? And:
• What demands does this place on leadership?

In two teams of 6, the participants each created a collage that illustrated these connections. These were presented and debated in the plenary session. Afterwards, the two Machwürth consultants who led the workshop introduced the simulation program to the participants. They also explained the content setting to them. Afterwards, the participants received their role descriptions in the business simulation so that they could already think about it in the evening:

• How do I adequately perform this role and
• what behavior should I show as a leader?

When assigning roles, care was taken to ensure that the young executives were deployed in areas alien to their specialist discipline. For example, production managers became purchasing managers and HR specialists became finance managers. This was to prevent the participants from relying primarily on their specialist knowledge when tackling the challenges in the business simulation. After all, this was not intended to deepen their technical expertise; rather, they were to learn how to remain capable of acting as managers and teams in a complex environment characterized by numerous interdependencies and changes.

The actual business simulation began on Wednesday morning. It consisted of five 90-minute simulation phases, each of which was followed by modules in which the participants reflected on their approach and behavior in the simulation under guidance or dealt with a topic relevant to managing areas. During the business simulation phases, one of the two groups of participants always acted as the management team, while the second group observed them and then gave them feedback. In the next phase, the roles were reversed: the second group continued the simulation while the first group observed it.

The participants are sometimes actors, sometimes observers

In the first phase of the simulation, the content setting was: The company is running smoothly and its business is stable. However, the first weak signs indicate that the general conditions will change in the foreseeable future. Central questions to which the executives were to find an answer in this phase were:

• How do I behave as a manager (or management team) in such a situation? And:
• How do I recognize changes at an early stage that could result in new opportunities or risks?

The members of the second group observed the members of the first during the simulation. Afterwards, their actions were reflected on in plenary before finally the Machwürth consultants gave an impulse lecture on the topic of "Recognizing changes early on", in which they once again clarified it for the participants:

• What tools/methods are available to identify change?
• At what levels can they occur?
• How to evaluate the registered changes in terms of their relevance for the company? And:
• What responses to potentially relevant changes are possible/appropriate?

The second simulation round followed in the afternoon. Now the second group of participants was active and the first was observing them. The setting was now: The company's business remains stable, but the signals that the environment in which it operates is changing are intensifying. In the business simulation, the executives were now faced with the challenge of deriving concrete information from the environmental signals as to whether certain courses might need to be set anew in their own area or in the organization; in addition, to seek discussion with other executives as to whether they were registering similar signals in their area, in order to subsequently start a dialog in the management team as to what measures might need to be taken. This simulation phase was followed by another round of reflection in the plenary session, in which the participants also reflected on their cooperation and interaction. This was followed by further input from the Machwürth consultants - this time on the topic of how information about impending changes can be collected, sorted, structured and evaluated in order to identify the need for change.

The pressure to make decisions and take action increase

The two simulation phases the next day also followed this pattern. In the process, the need for and pressure to make decisions and take action became ever greater - for example, because important key figures such as sales and orders on hand suddenly showed negative signs, or competitors launched new, strong competitive products on the market - so that finally, in the fourth phase of the simulation, it was obvious to (almost) all members of the fictitious organization:

• "If we had not committed to a changed approach and taken initial precautions in Phase 3, we would have slid into a crisis." and
• "If we don't reset the course now, we won't achieve our medium- and long-term goals as an organization."

When dealing with the associated challenges in the business simulation, the managers were able to pull out a "consulting card" if necessary and contact a Machwürth consultant. However, the consultant only gave them the specific information they were looking for and pointed out possible alternative interventions. Afterwards, the executives had to decide for themselves whether these were goal-oriented. The consultants also sometimes stopped the simulation at significant events, whether at the process level or at the level of cooperation and interaction, by means of a "time-out" in order to reflect with the participants on what had just happened and to safeguard the learning processes.

Safeguarding and expanding what has been achieved

In the fifth and final simulation phase on Friday morning, the aim was to check whether the change measures taken were having the desired effect; and, if so, to ensure their sustainability and that the newly designed processes, procedures and structures had the necessary stability. This was again followed by a joint reflection on the simulation in the plenary session, before the Machwürth consultants again gave input on how change processes can be managed - at the personal and organizational levels. In doing so, they regularly referred to what the participants had experienced in the simulation - also in order to create the memory anchors that are important for transfer. In a detailed final round, the participants then once again summarized what they considered to be the most important insights of the last few days and what they would like to transfer from what they had learned to their everyday work. The workshop was then concluded.

Through the practical business simulation, the company succeeded in increasing the sensitivity of its young managers to the complexity of their management tasks and the numerous interdependencies that have to be taken into account in this context. In addition, the targeted testing of various management, behavioral and cooperation strategies increased their ability to act in an environment characterized by change. The technology company benefited directly from this when, following the outbreak of the Ukraine war in February 2022, not only did procurement problems intensify. That's why it decided: Business simulation should henceforth be a fixed component of our management development - worldwide.

Author:
Hans-Peter Machwürth is Managing Director of the internationally operating training and consulting company Machwürth Team International (MTI Consultancy), Visselhövede (www.mticonsultancy.com).

This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/komplexitaet-von-situationen-managen-training-mit-simulationen/

Every child in Switzerland knows the yellow of the Post - and most Swiss:in recognize the typical typeface at first glance. But even cult brands continue to evolve. That's why Jung von Matt Brand Identity made Swiss Post fit for the future and transformed a rigid corporate design into a fluid design corridor.

Tomorrow's Swiss Post must be ready today for the challenges of the future. This also means that the traditional Swiss company will develop into new areas of service and provide new services for its almost three million customers. In order to cope with this change, the Swiss Post brand must also transform itself, become more flexible and create more design space for a wide range of channels and target groups.

The brand experts at Jung von Matt Brand Identity have therefore further developed the brand identity of Swiss Post. The result is a solution that uses a design corridor to enable situation-specific communication, reduces rules and at the same time leaves fixed elements for orientation: The Swiss Post logo, the familiar typeface and the identity-creating postal yellow are the only binding elements.

Continuous roll-out

The new approach to the further developed brand elements is being rolled out on an ongoing basis, and the first works within the design corridor have already been created: In addition to the employer branding measures and the social media presence, the campaign for Post Advertising, which Jung von Matt Limmat and Jung von Matt Tech realized, is particularly noteworthy.

Because of the new opportunities created by flexibility, the Post's design team was coached and supported on-site by brand designers from Jung von Matt Brand Identity for several weeks.

"With the new brand identity, we have placed responsibility for the Post brand much more broadly within the company. This also means that you have to have a lot of confidence in your own organization - but I am convinced that we can do it. Not least because of the close cooperation and support from Jung von Matt Brand Identity, we can develop a lot of know-how and feeling internally for the design of the brand," says Marc Hadorn, Head of Brand & Identity at Swiss Post.

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Responsible at Swiss Post: Nora Tanner, Andreas Badstöber, Ana Ingold, Marc Hadorn. Responsible at Jung von Matt Brand Identity: Christina Widmann, Alessandra Bally, Julius Jäger, Pablo Scheidegger.

The challenge for the new corporate design was to remain true to Jumbo's DNA, but also to present Coop Bau+Hobby's existing customers with a world that was not completely new. For the design, it was a matter of "feeling the best of both" in terms of design as well.

For the new appearance, kreisvier developed a comprehensive corporate design that meets all retail-relevant requirements in a format- and media-neutral manner. Whether at the POS, as service communication, in promotional brochures, as a poster, film, banner or mailing.

The new brand campaign kicks off, as usual, with attractive offers and a TV commercial that positions Jumbo as a "maker of possibilities" thanks to its wide range of products in the garden, DIY and hobby sectors.

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Responsible at Jumbo: Andreas Siegmann (Company Manager), Daniel Hofmann (Head of Communications Jumbo), Zorica Jurkovic (Head of Advertising Bau+Hobby). Responsible at Kreisvier: Michael Schmidt, Carmen Stähelin, Andreas Erfert, Philipp Kropf, Christian Martin, Dario Bonarrigo, Sinia Brugger (creation), Imke Fichtner, Sybille Gundry, Daniela Burget, Lorena Wissler, Thorbjörn Krischke, Zeynep Danyeri (DTP), Alexandra Kellenberger, Kristina Gerhardt, Monika Freiburghaus, Serhat Yokus (consulting). Responsible at Shining: Leonardo Sanfilippo (Executive Producer), Yanik Müller (Senior Producer), Antonia Grosse Line Producer), Lukas Maeder (Director), Natascha Vavrina (Director of Photography), Nicolas Bechtel (Edit), Simon Hardegger (Grading).

 

 

Hashtags rarely make it into the vernacular. Usually it's the other way around. #Inspo, however, is such a hashtag. Used as a hashtag, the short term confidently means "Guys, let me inspire you!". And that's exactly what Instagram, Pinterest and Co. are mainly used for in our industry. The word is derived from "inspirational," which means to inspire or be inspired. We like to do this most of all from stars. It doesn't matter if they are social media stars, design stars, movie stars or football stars - they are all our guiding stars and we like to help ourselves to them. Most of those who draw inspiration from them probably don't have as much budget as these celebrities and successful people, but that doesn't seem to matter. We still look to them for inspiration. Why is that?

Life is full of inspirations

An attempt at an explanation: Maybe it's the need to get a bit of their fame or to feel that brief moment of fame for themselves. Or maybe it's the desire to be special and to discover or even think "out-of-the-box" ideas. Especially the latter is more of a constraint than a need in our industry. It starts with the briefing and moves into countless creative sessions. Unfortunately, when we consume the end products of such sessions on posters, in TV commercials and online advertising, we have to ask ourselves why this compulsion always leads to such banal results. Here it is advisable to perhaps get one's inspo "inside-the-box". We numerous normal people have already experienced many more moments in our biography and our everyday life that could serve as inspiration than the few famous people whose lives are probably quite boring and controlled by others. Perhaps this would also result in something more exciting.

But at the moment, we're behaving like the stars on social media. The industry exclusively shows there their edited, in camera published super ideas like the Kardashians and their imitators: their perfect faces, houses, yachts and kids. And because they fear their posts will be meaningless, they use #Inspo.

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* Benno Maggi is co-founder and CEO of Partner & Partner. He has been eavesdropping on the industry for over 30 years, discovering words and terms for us that can either be used for small talk, pomposity, excitement, playing Scrabble, or just because.

With Marine Deloffre, Mazda Suisse has found an ideal complement to anchor this extraordinary spirit on the Swiss market in the future.

Marine Deloffre has extensive experience in the automotive industry. She holds a double French-German diploma in marketing from Euromed Business School in Marseille and Hochschule Bremen in Germany. She also completed an MBA in luxury marketing and international management at the Institut Supérieur de Marketing du Luxe in Paris. Marine Deloffre was already interested in automotive topics during her education and supervised a study on "Change Management" at Daimler in Bremen.

Marine Deloffre began her career at the Paris fashion label Lanvin, for which she organized commercial showrooms and fashion shows. After just two years, however, she moved to Mercedes-Benz France. In the company's Paris marketing department, she first went through the "CAReer Program - The Talent Program," then took on the role of public relations and press manager, and later event and sponsorship manager. She accompanied numerous events, such as Paris Fashion Week, golf events, sailing, brand ambassador programs, AMG events on the race track and 4MATIC events on the ice.

It was also during these events that she got to know her next place of work, the Circuit Paul Ricard in Le Castellet, southern France. As Communications Manager, she brought a whole new lifestyle "touch" to the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup 1000 km with her idea of a "Rooftop Party" and later - after her promotion to Head of Communications - the return of the French Grand Prix to the Formula 1 calendar. A success to which she devoted all her passion. "I don't come from a motorsport family," Marine Deloffre explains. "But I have earned my place in the industry. With hard work and passion, anything is possible."

After three years as Brand Relations Manager at Montblanc Switzerland, Marine Deloffre is now looking forward to her new duties at Mazda (Suisse) SA. Because this means she has once again found her way back to her passion. "I was fascinated by cars as a child," Marine Deloffre explains with a smile. "This passion still accompanies me today. I'm very much looking forward to bringing the Mazda spirit to life with my work and contributing to the brand's success."

"I am very pleased that Marine is taking on the role of Manager PR & Influencers. With her great passion for cars and communication, Marine will ideally complement our team," says Matthias Walker, Managing Director of Mazda (Suisse) SA. "Her vast experience in lifestyle will allow us to consistently continue building our brand in this area as well."

Sharing one's opinion, asking awkward questions, admitting mistakes, voicing criticism or making an unusual suggestion - all of these involve a certain risk for the person speaking out, even in the workplace. But it is precisely there that it is crucial for innovation and advancement that employees dare to speak out. Without fear of being laughed at or punished. This is where psychological security comes into play. Psychological safety exists when team members perceive the team as a safe environment in which they can take risks. To enable teams to develop their psychological security in a targeted manner, researchers from the Institute for Data Application and Security IDAS at the Bern University of Applied Sciences BFH, in collaboration with the Zurich University of Applied Sciences ZHAW, have developed and tested a training program. This is now available to the public. 

15 minutes to train the psychological safety

In developing the program, the researchers drew on findings from basic research as well as their own further investigations. They created a series of short exercises and had them tested by a total of 50 teams with 4 to 22 members each. Participants included teams from companies such as Swisscom, SBB and Digitec Galaxus AG. Every Monday for six months, the participants received an e-mail with instructions for an exercise and short questions about the previous week's exercise. Each exercise took about 15 minutes and could be divided into one of three categories: Skills exercises, in which a new behavior is tried out; Reflection exercises, in which team members are asked to think about a specific aspect; and Team exercises, in which something new is worked out in the team or new behaviors are tried out. 

Better performance and more innovative power

In order to be able to demonstrate the effects of the exercises, the researchers conducted online surveys every two months. For comparison purposes and to be able to identify and exclude operational environmental factors, a control group consisting of 12 other teams from the participating companies also took part in the trials. These teams did not complete any exercises, but only filled out team development questionnaires. The effect of the training on the psychological safety, performance and innovative strength of the teams was demonstrated by the surveys. In contrast, no significant changes were found in the control group.

The complete training, consisting of 24 exercises including instructions, is available to the public free of charge and can be used independently. www.psych-safety.org

This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/training-steigert-psychologische-sicherheit-in-teams/

Empty pipelines in the east and idle nuclear plants in the west, for example in France, are causing horrendously rising prices and massive supply bottlenecks. This not only jeopardizes the energy supply of IT and thus IT security as a whole, but also the vital interests of our society as a whole. Societies with a high level of digitalization maturity are hanging on the umbilical cord of IT. We have long since crossed this "virtual" line. And IT, in turn, hangs on the drip of a smooth energy supply. Large parts of our economy, our infrastructure and our social services are unable to function without stable IT support. And IT needs power from the socket - whether we like it or not. IT security must therefore be thought of first and foremost as IT resilience. And the conditions for this are currently very poor.

IT networks depend on supply networks

Instead of blue-eyed voluntarism and tactical mirror fencing, we need strategic foresight, geopolitical sobriety, concentration on what is necessary and a complete renunciation of ideological blinkers. One thing is clear: The events of the last few weeks have shown us how much our society, based on the division of labor, depends on a secure energy supply. We have always known this, but we have been very successful in suppressing it. And there was no reason to burden ourselves with this unpleasant certainty in boom times. But now it's payday and the bill is being served. Right at the top, it lists the dependencies we have entered into with IT and the digitization of all areas of life for our livelihoods. What happens in a digitized warehouse if the IT control system fails? Just try to access a high rack without a robot. Nothing can be done manually. Even if, for example, urgently needed spare parts for pipeline pumps were stored there, we wouldn't be able to find and access them. What happens in hospitals, waterworks or waste disposal companies without secure, i.e. simply running IT? The list could be continued indefinitely. Critical infrastructures are more or less digitized. Without functioning IT, they will have to cease operations just like value-added businesses with hundreds of thousands of jobs. A bleak picture, admittedly, but with a not inconsiderable probability factor.

An end to daydreaming

IT security therefore means first and foremost security of supply. In our euphoria about digitization, we took this for granted. But this naïve optimism has come to nothing. The more digitized modern societies become, the more they hang on to the energy-hungry IT umbilical cord. Digitized functions, however, cannot be replaced by manual intervention. This is conceptually intended and correct within the digital logic. But woe betide us if the energy supply is missing. In 1973, we were still able to have a car-free Sunday. In 2022, an IT-free weekend? Absurd. Even seemingly mundane activities like milking or refueling would no longer be possible. The idealizing notion of the reversibility of technological developments turns out to be a romantic illusion in the case of IT and digitization as well. Instead of dreaming of a roll-back, it must be given a more stable foundation. IT resilience starts with the conveyor systems and pipelines, the wind turbines and solar plants, the power plants and supply networks. And this fundamental form of IT security urgently needs to get to the top of the to-do agenda.

Author:
Andrea Wörrlein is managing director of VNC in Berlin and member of the board of directors of VNC AG in Zug.

This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/ohne-sichere-energieversorgung-gibt-es-keine-it-sicherheit/

In the last business year, more overnight stays were recorded than ever before, which is explained as the result of exemplary cooperation.

Pascal Jenny, President of Arosa Tourism, was able to present a positive business result with a profit of just under CHF 35,000 at this year's Annual General Meeting. In total, Arosa Tourism generated a turnover of CHF 14,402,566. The balance sheet as at April 30, 2022 shows equity of CHF 567,182, which corresponds to 7.02 percent of the balance sheet total.

A look at the statistics also reveals encouraging news: overnight stays increased once again. In the 2021/22 tourism year, a total of 1,162,354 guests stayed overnight in the vacation region, which also includes Schanfigg. The magic 1 million mark was exceeded for the first time in many years. Arosa can therefore close the financial year with the highest number of overnight stays ever. This comes after an intensive year with challenges such as coronavirus, uncertainties in tourism due to the war and a great need to catch up in terms of leisure consumption. Arosa remains one of the most popular destinations for Swiss visitors even after the coronavirus pandemic. Guests from neighboring countries also returned to Schanfigg. This is also reflected in the figures for Arosa's service providers. Arosa Bergbahnen AG closed the 2021/2022 financial year with the best result in the company's 92-year history.

Arosa Bärenland as a motor for the summer

According to Arosoa Tourism, the important strategy processes of recent years have had an impact. More than 20 years ago, the Graubünden mountains were already thinking about summer positioning. The result, for example, was the successful all-inclusive concept with ongoing additions to the range. Today, guests staying overnight in summer benefit from numerous services with the Arosa Card, including free use of the mountain railways. What was once laughed at as a harebrained idea is now probably the biggest driver of summer tourism: Arosa Bärenland. The innovative animal conservation project opened in summer 2018 after a long planning phase. Today, a look at the statistics makes the success clear. Since the opening, a clear upward trend is visible, the summer business is booming. Another focus is on sustainability. The overarching Arosa 2030 strategy promotes sustainability in all three dimensions. Initial project implementations have been successfully realized, including an energy awareness campaign for second-homers, the "Films for the Earth" festival and others. For example, the LINK survey (2022) resulted in virtually a zero to one hundred start. On the question of sustainability, Arosa already ranks second behind Zermatt. And this only one year after the launch of Arosa 2030 with the goal of becoming one of the most sustainable Swiss vacation regions. President Pascal Jenny says: "The transformation to holistic sustainability continues. It is important that we constantly question ourselves, develop further and also keep an eye on major social trends. Because only in this way can we continue to write Arosa's success story together."

Arosa in the top 3 mountain destinations - after Zermatt and Davos

The latest Link study also shows that Arosa is one of the top 3 destinations in Switzerland. Only Zermatt and Davos were mentioned more when asked about vacation destinations in the mountains. This popularity is not only due to the extraordinary media presence. But above all to the strong and convincing overall product. Successful mountain railroads, hotel projects, innovative gastronomy concepts and active service providers contribute enormously to the guest experience. Roland Schuler, Tourism Director, is convinced: "Arosa offers an incredibly attractive environment. We are pleased to see that all service providers contribute to Arosa's overall development with individual efforts and projects. In this way, the product will remain desirable for guests in the future."

 

 

 

The Swiss Digital Initiative (SDI) is an independent, non-profit foundation based in Geneva, founded in 2020 by digitalswitzerland and under the patronage of Federal Councilor Ueli Maurer. The initiative was created in 2019 as a result of the first "Swiss Global Digital Summit" on ethics and fairness in the digital age. The SDI pursues concrete projects with the aim of securing ethical standards and promoting responsible conduct in the digital world. It brings together science, politics, civil society and business to find solutions that strengthen trust in digital technologies and the actors of digital transformation.

Digital Trust Label" lighthouse project

The Swiss Digital Initiative has so far been managed by Niniane Paeffgen. After three years since its founding, a period of development and leadership, the current managing director will leave the foundation as of November 2022. She will take some time off to devote herself to new tasks afterwards. The highlight of her tenure was the launch of the world's first digital responsibility label, the "Digital Trust Label". The aim of this lighthouse project is to create awareness for the handling of digital data, privacy and artificial intelligence and to carry this out from Geneva into the world. With the project "Ethics of Artificial Intelligence" and "Corporate Digital Responsibility in Practice", other concrete projects have been developed and implemented with renowned partners such as HEAD Genève and IMD Lausanne. Doris Leuthard, President of the Swiss Digital Initiative and former Federal Councillor: "We sincerely thank Niniane for her tireless commitment and work for the Foundation, but also for the positioning of Switzerland and Geneva in the areas of digital ethics and trust. Thanks to her commitment, the Foundation is well positioned for the future."

Swiss Digital Initiative enters a new phase

Fathi Derder will drive the international positioning of the SDI and the label, according to the foundation. With the operationalization and the awarding of the label to the first twenty digital trust pioneers, the SDI is entering a new phase, it continues. A strong focus is now on the further development and international scaling of the Digital Trust Label. A committee of experts was recently recruited in an open application process. Under its leadership, the label is to become an internationally recognized standard for trustworthy digital applications.

Fathi Derder brings expertise from the intersection of politics, business and society. As a journalist, former National Councillor, Managing Director and co-founder of the Swiss Food & Nutrition Valley, he has "the political sensitivity, the necessary experience and motivation to write the next chapter of Swiss Digital
initiative," announced the foundation. SDI President Doris Leuthard: "We are proud that in Fathi Derder we have been able to attract such a high-caliber, competent and committed personality. This confirms the high status that the SDI has already achieved after just a few years."

Source: https://www.swiss-digital-initiative.org/

This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/swiss-digital-initiative-sdi-mit-neuer-geschaeftsfuehrung/

The study "Diversity & Inclusion as a Competitive Advantage" addresses the relationship between diversity, inclusion and corporate competitiveness. The goal of the reviewers was to test the following hypothesis: Companies that implement diversity and inclusion strategically are more resilient and more successful in the long term than companies that do not pursue such a strategy.

Social commitment has positive consequences

With the help of various research questions, the ZHAW reviewed existing literature and empirical data and also addressed the economic, managerial and political perspectives. The findings of the report confirm that strategic management of diversity and inclusion increases the competitive advantage of companies by enhancing their creativity, innovation and brand attractiveness and reducing the shortage of skilled workers.

One of the reviewers is the head of the Center for Competition Law and Compliance at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), Patrick Krauskopf: "The report scientifically demonstrates how diversity and inclusion positively influence the competitiveness of companies and thus creates an important link between social commitment and business development.

Expert opinion simplifies implementation in practice

But why is a scientific report needed to advance society's commitment to equality? "In the study, we create a solid foundation that helps to enable a development towards more diversity and inclusion in practice," explains Simone Müller-Staubli, initiator of Swiss Diversity.

Swiss Diversity and the ZHAW are supported by the Equal Opportunities Office of the Canton of Zurich and BKW AG, the energy and infrastructure company based in Bern. Sonja Michel, Business Transformation at BKW, explains BKW's commitment with the fact that a huge variety of personalities, cultures and experiences come together in the internationally active company: "We support the study with the goal of ensuring that as many people as possible can work in equal-opportunity and inclusive corporate cultures. Because on the one hand, the study promotes understanding in our company about the connections between diversity and economic success. On the other hand, it also provides other Swiss companies with valuable recommendations for action for their strategic diversity management."

Inspiration for Swiss Companies in Diversity and Inclusion

The results should inspire Swiss companies to stand up for a diverse and inclusive corporate culture. Patrick Krauskopf emphasizes that it is essential to treat diversity and inclusion at the highest level: "Strategic diversity and inclusion management is needed that goes beyond the HR departments and is anchored in all areas of the organization. After all, increased equality of opportunity benefits the company economically.

This finding is central for the Equality Office of the Canton of Zurich: "For us, the key to confirming the cost-effectiveness of inclusion and diversity is to use this study to show the economic progress. In this way, we can implement diversity and inclusion convincingly and more comprehensively," says Head Helena Trachsel.

Source and further information: www.swissdiversity.com

This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/diversity-und-inklusion-wettbewerbsvorteil-fuer-firmen/

In its latest study, consulting firm Publicis Sapient, together with Launchmetrics, is dedicated to measuring marketing success in the fashion, luxury and beauty industries. The report The State of Measurement in Fashion, Luxury & Beauty 2022 is designed to help decision-makers better understand marketing impact and attribution and identify the metrics, tools and KPIs brands should use to measure the effectiveness of their data strategies. The survey polled more than 1,000 marketing, communications and PR professionals from the fashion, luxury and beauty industries worldwide, including the U.S., Europe, Australia and China.

The research confirms that many lack a consistent metric system to help them analyze the effectiveness of their data strategies. The report sheds light on marketers' challenges and creates an understanding of the importance of Big Data and precise measurement points. As a result, decision-makers should see how they can improve ROI, enhance brand performance and achieve greater efficiency.

Influencer Marketing: The Shift from Measuring Brand Awareness to Measuring Sales Impact

According to the survey, the best voice for brands to increase brand awareness is owned media at 39 percent, followed by influencers at 22 percent.

Instagram continues to be the leading marketing channel for businesses in the luxury segment, but most respondents said they are limited by current tools and find it difficult to find the right KPIs to measure ROI.

It is no longer enough to view social media as just a channel to increase brand awareness and engagement. To stay competitive, brands need to capture the impact of their social media strategy on business goals and conversion. Data supports this shift in focus, with 80 % of marketers using economic metrics to measure influencer effectiveness or attempting to identify proxies, such as website traffic with referral links, to try to attribute sales to campaigns. Only 24 % focus on reach and views.

The value of influencers remains undisputed. However, 40 percent of marketers worldwide rely on influencers to self-report their data, as brands sometimes don't have the tools to track them - opening the door to potential misrepresentation. 34 percent of CMOs and 51 percent of CTOs believe marketing data is unreliable because reliance on partner self-reporting opens the door to manipulation.

Marketing data as a key factor for success

Sixty percent of marketers and 70 percent of data scientists believe that a unified view of marketing performance must be a top priority for organizations. More than 50 percent of CMOs said that data accessibility and clear visibility of marketing performance to senior leadership are drivers of marketing success. Therefore, creating a clear governance model and system for tracking, reporting and harnessing marketing data is elementary.

28 percent of CMOs in the U.S. are investing in measurement and analytics to track their marketing activities and enable advanced strategies like scalable personalization.

Challenge: Measuring marketing impact and attribution

 Some 51 percent of respondents believe it is difficult to extract actionable insights from data to analyze the success of online activities and decide where to invest.

40 percent of respondents cited benchmarking as their biggest challenge. 31 % of respondents said identifying the right competitive analysis tool was a major obstacle to marketing planning.

Nearly 50 percent of CMOs said finding talent with technical skills to interpret marketing data is critical, further exacerbating the trust issue CMOs and CDOs have with their marketing data.

According to the survey, the best voice for brands to increase brand awareness is owned media at 39 percent, followed by influencers at 22 percent.

Instagram continues to be the leading marketing channel for businesses in the luxury segment, but most respondents said they are limited by current tools and find it difficult to find the right KPIs to measure ROI.

It is no longer enough to view social media as just a channel to increase brand awareness and engagement. To stay competitive, brands need to capture the impact of their social media strategy on business goals and conversion. Data supports this shift in focus, with 80 % of marketers using economic metrics to measure influencer effectiveness or attempting to identify proxies, such as website traffic with referral links, to try to attribute sales to campaigns. Only 24 % focus on reach and views.

The value of influencers remains undisputed. However, 40 percent of marketers worldwide rely on influencers to self-report their data, as brands sometimes don't have the tools to track them - opening the door to potential misrepresentation. 34 percent of CMOs and 51 percent of CTOs believe marketing data is unreliable because reliance on partner self-reporting opens the door to manipulation.

Link between online and offline

The study found that capturing customer journey data across touchpoints is a challenge. Only 13 % of marketers track in-store traffic and try to link it to online activities.

Nearly 40 percent of marketers struggle to link online and offline data because cross-channel reporting is at least partially, if not entirely, manual.

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The comprehensive study is available for free download.