The Faigle Group has acquired Print & More Logistics AG, based in Mellingen, effective August 1, 2021. The company, which has been in business for more than 85 years, is thus expanding the expertise and capacities of its subsidiary Couvertic AG, according to a statement issued to the media. Print & More is a company with many years of experience specializing in data output management and print outsourcing. The company takes over the complete data preparation, printing and machine packaging as well as the mailing of all kinds of documents for its customers. Print & More Logistics AG specializes in transactional printing at a very high level of quality and security.

Even more safety and flexibility

With a second production site, Print & More together with Couvertic can now offer their customers even more security and flexibility. "During the negotiations, I was able to convince myself that the business philosophy and culture of both companies are in line. I am therefore pleased that, with this partnership, we have found a future-oriented solution for both our long-standing customers and our employees that guarantees continuity and high-quality products and services," says Andreas Kleeb, who founded Print & More Logistics AG in 1989 and has also managed it since then.

In accordance with the Faigle Group guideline

Both companies are owner-managed Swiss enterprises. Dr. Andres Iten, Chairman of the Board of Directors and owner of the Faigle Group, adds: "Our business maxim 'high-quality products and first-class service at interesting conditions' has proven itself to date and will continue to be the guideline by which both companies want to be measured. Andreas Kleeb will remain a member of the Board of Directors." As an integrative solution provider, the Faigle Group accompanies customers with what it describes as a sustainable consulting approach and targeted solutions, and guarantees efficient and effective information and output management as well as consistently excellent quality and service levels from strategic planning to operational implementation.

Source and further information

In March 2021, a serious incident occurred in a data center near Strasbourg: after a recent repair, an inverter heated up to such an extent that, as a result, a fire with large amounts of smoke broke out. One area of the four-bay data center, which is operated by a large European cloud provider, was destroyed by the fire, and the others were affected by smoke and soot. Due to the fire, cloud services were unavailable for several days, and data loss could not be ruled out. Several customers, some of them well-known, from all over Europe were affected by the outage.

Check cloud providers before committing "forever"....

This total failure of this cloud provider, which lasted several days, showed how closely companies' IT is linked to the cloud and how important it is to choose the right provider. This is because the effect of so-called data gravity does not allow for quick and easy changes. The more data and services a company uses from a particular provider, the greater the data load and the longer and more sluggish the migration to alternative offerings. This makes it all the more important for companies to clarify a few important points before committing to a cloud provider.

1. are all workloads supported?

The workloads reflect the service performance and innovative strength of the respective provider. Particularly in the case of digitization projects, it is crucial that the provider already delivers important cornerstone services and announces modern modules such as Big Data or IoT (Internet of Things) in its roadmap. After all, the cloud provider should not stand in the way of the digital transformation under any circumstances. The following important workloads should be supported:

• Big Data: These service modules help to quickly evaluate large amounts of data and to gain new insights from the data with the help of predictive models.
• Open Source: The provider should ideally be able to integrate a number of open source platforms in addition to the commercial ones, so that a company has a free choice in these. In particular, platforms such as MongoDB, OpenStack and container-based environments such as Docker or Kubernetes should be covered in order to be future-proof.
• Hyperconverged infrastructures: The provider should support hyperconverged infrastructures and enable the company to connect accordingly so that critical data and applications can operate as highly available and fail-safe as possible.
• Hybrid traditional applications: To enable companies to continue operating their legacy applications, the provider should support hybrid cloud constellations.

2. how smart to recover data?

The case described at the beginning of this article underscores the fact that companies are ultimately responsible for their own data and security. Because if data is not backed up, the provider by no means guarantees that it can fully restore it after a failure. Companies should therefore back up data in the cloud themselves as a matter of principle: The keyword here is "shared responsibility".

How can entire data sets or only important parts be recovered in the event of an emergency? The provider should also support granular recovery processes so that a company can, for example, recover a virtual machine or individual files of a virtual application on a granular basis without having to download and rebuild the entire database. This saves a lot of time and reduces the effort enormously. It must be ensured that the critical applications and data can be reconstructed in a prioritized manner so that important services are quickly available again after a total failure. To ensure that everything runs as smoothly as possible in this moment of stress, the following functions should be supported by the cloud provider in the business continuity or recovery plans:

• Automated and orchestrated recovery: This means that entire, complex multi-tier applications can be restored fully automatically at the click of a mouse.
• One-for-One Orchestrations: Here, an IT manager must confirm the steps with minimal commands so that he or she remains in full control of the process.
• Testing the recovery plan: It is important to test this disaster recovery process, as well as possible migration scenarios, in a safe manner without impacting production operations.
• Multi-vendor concept: Recovery mechanisms may need to recover applications of different types on different platforms. Therefore, it is essential to choose multi-vendor or independent disaster recovery mechanisms that can protect the data end-to-end.

3. how to save storage space? 

Many companies already use deduplication in their own backup environments to keep the size of backups as small as possible and save storage space. It would be ideal if the cloud provider also supported this form of deduplication. This helps conserve storage and bandwidth by reducing the total amount of data that needs to be stored. One option is for a backup and recovery solution to bring in this intelligence independently of the cloud provider, enabling a multi-cloud strategy.

It is also important to offer storage with different performance levels. High-performance, critical applications should run on higher, more powerful storage, while less important data is stored on slower and less expensive storage services at the provider. The timeliness of the backup also plays a role in this evaluation.

4. how to keep track of the IT infrastructure?

Anyone who migrates their data to the cloud will very likely maintain a hybrid infrastructure architecture for a long time. Data is distributed across all these different platforms on a day-to-day basis, and they have certain interdependencies. It's important to understand and keep track of these dependencies. After all, if one component fails, it may be necessary to take appropriate countermeasures immediately. It is therefore important to continuously monitor the entire infrastructure, the data stock and the state of health.

In this way, critical situations, such as the total failure of a cloud provider, can be bridged well, since data and applications are backed up and, ideally, all critical services are transferred to the cloud of another provider via an automated disaster recovery process. In this way, the disaster in a data center remains limited to that data center.

Cloud providers: also an address for cybercriminals...

Returning to the fire at the aforementioned data center, according to information from an IT security service provider, the fire also caused 36 percent of 140 command servers to disappear, which were used by cybercriminals to host their malware. That cybercriminal groups are using server services from reputable cloud providers seems to be more common than is commonly thought. And knowing how professional today's cybercriminals are, it can (unfortunately) also be assumed that they have the necessary backups...

Sources: Veritas, ZDnet

Editor's tip: If you would like more in-depth information on the topic of the cloud, you can find it here: https://www.digitaleschweiz.ch/markt/cloud-finder-schweiz/

The ransomware wave continues to sweep over companies and authorities. The security situation seems to be getting worse everywhere. It is only a matter of time before your own company is hit, you might think. There are many guides on how to set up cyber defenses against a ransomware attack, or technologies that promise successful defense. But when the time actually comes, it's useful to know what to do first.

In the event of a ransomware attack: Do not pay a ransom

Panic is a bad advisor in any case. Just like reaching for your wallet to pay the ransom, even if this seems like the easiest solution at first.

The first priority is, of course, to get the data and systems available again as quickly as possible. For this to work and for the right lessons to be learned from a successful attack, a few more measures should be followed.

1. quickly isolate devices

Ransomware should not be able to spread further than it already has. Therefore, administrators should isolate affected systems from the network as soon as possible. Especially when cleaning up after the ransomware attack, it helps to prevent the extortionate malware from spreading further.

2. understand the attack vector

Once the affected devices are isolated, it is important to understand how the incident could have occurred. On the one hand, this helps to manage the incident. It also provides valuable lessons for the future. So it's important to find out: Who was Patient Zero on the network?

3. backup and check backups

Applications and servers can be set up again, but data is irreplaceable. Without backups, it is no longer possible to secure them. Therefore, the measure is to take them off the network first. Attackers specifically look for backups as part of their attack. If they are still online, there is a risk that they will be included in the attack. Of course, it is even better to keep offline backups in a physically separate location from the outset. The 3-2-1 rule of backup (there should be at least three Copies of your data will be available, stored on two different media, a backup copy stored at an external location) is an indispensable prerequisite, especially for securing data against extortionist attacks. This means that a ransom demand may come to nothing - at least as far as the data is concerned. Instead, IT administrators can take care of rebuilding the systems.

4. stop projects and planned tasks

A ransomware attack is an emergency and requires the pooling of all resources. Rebuilding the IT architecture, such as migrations to new environments, or installing new applications and servers should be stopped immediately. Such projects could help the malware spread further. It is equally important to stop scheduled tasks, such as backups. Because in the course of them, the extortionate malware can spread further.

5. quarantine potentially compromised areas.

In general, no possibility should be ruled out immediately after an attack and all potentially affected parts of the infrastructure should be quarantined. This means taking everything offline and examining it individually before it can be used again.

6. after the attack is before the attack: change passwords

Forewarned is forearmed. At the beginning of an incident, it is often not completely clear how it could have happened. Was it just a simple attack? Or was it a complex attack that was possible because the attacker had captured authentication data? If this was the case, he can always make the next attempt. It therefore makes sense in any case to change the passwords of system-critical user accounts.

7. don't panic in case of a ransomware attack - plan and practice critical security situations

If the worst comes to the worst, IT administration will be under a lot of pressure - and there is therefore a risk of making the wrong decision in this pressure situation. To prevent this as far as possible, IT departments should prepare for an emergency. Ideally, those responsible for security should have defined processes. After all, it is precisely in the event of an emergency that companies need a blueprint so that no sensible measures are forgotten. These processes should also be practiced regularly, for example in simulated "red and blue team testing". If employees know that there is a plan that takes effect in the event of an emergency and that this plan has been practiced, the risk of acting incorrectly under pressure is minimized.

Source: Bitdefender

On behalf of XING Switzerland, the market and opinion research company Marketagent.com surveyed 500 working people in German-speaking Switzerland on the subject of professional skills for the working world of tomorrow. The most important results were recently presented.

Willingness to learn new things is one of the most important future competencies

Swiss professionals were asked, among other things, which skills they consider particularly important in relation to the future world of work. The top five are:

1. Willingness to learn new things
2. Communication skills
3. Readiness to perform
4. Adaptability
5. Ability to work with a variety of people

The results show that respondents already feel personally well prepared for most of these skills. Only in the case of communication skills was there a clear gap between importance and personal preparedness, according to the study.

Employer with room for improvement

The respondents are not quite as optimistic about their own employer: just under half of those surveyed (48 percent) think their company is well prepared for the changes in the world of work. A third (35 percent) see their own company as partially prepared and 17 percent believe their employer is poorly prepared for the change in the world of work.

According to the survey, employers also have room for improvement when it comes to the quality of continuing education: Only around half (55 percent) of employees are satisfied with the training and continuing education programs offered by their own company. Another quarter (24 percent) are partially satisfied and 21 percent are dissatisfied.

Continuing education: Preferably on site and in person

Home office, pandemic and virtualization notwithstanding: face-to-face instruction at fixed times during the week is the most popular continuing education format. 30 percent prefer this variant, while 29 percent would prefer a mix of face-to-face and digital instruction. Offerings in the form of time-independent online courses would be the first choice for 25 percent of respondents, while online training at fixed times, e.g. live webinars, are only most popular with just 5 percent.

There are significant differences between the sexes. While time-independent online courses are most popular among women (32 percent), men clearly prefer face-to-face courses at fixed times (36 percent).

Men are more willing to finance continuing education themselves

When it comes to acquiring professional skills for the future, just over a quarter of respondents would be prepared to pay for the relevant training themselves. A further 41 percent would be prepared to invest in appropriate training to some extent, and 30 percent cannot imagine digging into their own pockets. Among men, the willingness to finance training related to future competencies themselves is higher than among women.

Sources: New Work SE / XING

Bank Cler reports positive figures for the first half of 2021 and appears to be on track for success overall. According to a statement by this financial services provider, which says that its offering is geared in particular to the needs of private clients, the self-employed and SMEs, a major part of this interim result is due to a successful growth strategy in the investment business. There, the volume of deposits increased by CHF 0.7 billion. The possibility of benefiting from the advantages of professional asset management from as little as CHF 1 in initial capital is in high demand, it says. The volume in Bank Cler's investment solution also increased by a further CHF 239.7 million (+22.6%) to over CHF 1.3 billion. Of this, CHF 528.9 million or around 40.7% is attributable to the sustainable investment solution. In terms of traditional asset management and advisory mandates, Bank Cler reports CHF 0.9 million (+4.2%) higher commission income from securities and investment business compared to the same period last year. Client assets increased by CHF 1.3 billion (+6.1%) to CHF 21.9 billion in the first six months. A net new money inflow of CHF 0.6 billion contributed to this development.

Stable net interest income

As a result of the persistently low interest rates, intense competition and margin pressure in the lending business, interest and discount income declined by CHF 4.9 million (-4.5%) to CHF 104.0 million in the first half of 2021. At the same time, lower refinancing costs as well as the active management of sight balances at the SNB and interest in the deposit business led to a CHF 3.4 million (-17.9%) lower interest expense of CHF 15.6 million. Overall, net interest income of CHF 88.8 million is slightly below the level of the prior-year period (-0.4%).

Bank Cler's risk-conscious lending policy, which has been in place for many years, continues to pay off. Thus, no additional value adjustments or provisions for impaired receivables had to be made in the first half of 2021.

Bank Cler focuses on positive customer experiences

The increase in operating profit by a total of CHF 2.2 million (+6.7%) to CHF 35.2 million allows the formation of reserves and strengthened internal financing. The half-year profit amounts to CHF 20.1 million.

Bank Cler intends to continue its successful course with further investments in the future. For example, the branch network is to be further expanded. The implementation of the new support concept will be successfully completed with the modernization of the customer zone at the headquarters in Basel at the end of 2021. In addition to the branch offices, the focus will be on digital channels and video consulting. Self-service functionalities are being continuously expanded to enable customers to access products and services independently of time and place. With the neobanking app Zak, the number of users of which has increased by a further 9,000 to 44,000 within the space of a year, Bank Cler has already been providing an app for everyday banking services for several years. Onboarding is possible around the clock.

Source and further information

Nets Group, a European PayTech company, has evaluated the shares of contactless payments in cashless transactions of its affiliated merchants in the DACH region. Not only are the figures still at a very high level, they continue to rise, according to the evaluation: contactless transactions now account for 77 percent in Germany, 82 percent in Austria, and 80 percent in Switzerland on average for the industry. In some segments, almost every payment made with a card or smartphone is already processed contactlessly.

Contactless transactions no longer just because of the pandemic

The Nets Group evaluation also shows that the use of the contactless function is now both decoupled from the developments in the pandemic and independent of specific sectors and target groups. Whether in shoe stores, drugstores, or flower stores, the contactless rate in June 2021 across the entire retail sector rose again by up to ten percentage points compared to the same month last year. In Austria, almost everyone pays contactless at the grocery store (91 percent) or the bakery (95 percent) when paying by card or smartphone. In Germany and Switzerland, the figures for bakeries are also very high (95 percent; 92 percent), while in the grocery trade it is still slightly lower in both countries at around 85 percent in each case, but is rising steadily even after a year of pandemic.

Existing trend was massively accelerated

"Contactless payment was already a strong trend before the Corona pandemic. We would certainly have reached the same high level in a few years, but the general digitization push has now significantly accelerated the transformation," says Marianne Bregenzer, Country Manager Nets Schweiz AG. The tipping point has clearly been passed. More and more people are using Tap-And-Go, and more and more retailers, including many small ones, are offering it and actively encouraging it, she adds. Contactless transactions in retail have thus become the norm.

"We are convinced that the share of contactless transactions will continue to increase in the future," says Bregenzer. "The tap-and-go function is faster overall, mostly without entering a PIN or signature. Once you get used to it, you won't put your card in the reader again." Not only will convenience and speed continue to increase shares, but more and more payments will be made with smartphones and wearables. With increasing digitization, the reduction of reservations and the customer-centric further development of processes and solutions, payment will become more digital, smarter and thus automatically increasingly contactless. New soft POS solutions on the merchant side - i.e., payment apps on the smartphone or tablet instead of card readers - will also contribute to a shift in the overall payment standard. In a few years, magnetic stripes and EMV chips will probably only be used in exceptional cases for cashless payments at the checkout and will often no longer be possible at all, experts believe.

Financial service providers are also accelerating the trend: PostFinance is the first Swiss bank to announce an increase in the limit for contactless payments without PIN entry as of mid-August 2021. Holders of a PostFinance debit card will now be able to make contactless payments of up to CHF 100 - previously the limit was CHF 80. PostFinance is thus responding to the wishes of many customers, according to the statement. However, anyone who does not want to use the contactless function of the PostFinance Card can deactivate it at any time in the PostFinance app, in e-finance or at the Postomat, the financial services provider says.

Shortened waiting times and high comfort

The Corona pandemic has increased the need for contactless payment in Switzerland overall. According to the Swiss Payment Monitor 2021, since the outbreak of Covid-19, the majority of the Swiss population makes far fewer cash payments (60 percent) and cash withdrawals (47 percent) than before. Cash use declined significantly due to the Corona pandemic in favor of digital payment solutions such as payment cards and mobile payment solutions.

The benefits of this change in consumer behavior are great for both retailers and customers: checkout is much faster, which reduces waiting times. Especially for purchases of everyday products or smaller amounts, neither PIN nor signature is usually required. This makes the payment process very simple and convenient for both vendor and customer. Merchants also benefit from automated reporting, an overview of all payment flows on their cell phones, and interfaces to downstream processes such as financial accounting," says the Nets Group, summing up the development, which is also pleasing for the company.

Sources: Nets Group, PostFinance

Are we threatened by a price increase for cars? Yes, says a study by credit insurer Euler Hermes, for example. The reason why European carmakers are likely to turn the price screw more sharply is an unprecedented shortage of materials, especially semiconductors. This is creating a mismatch between supply and demand in the European automotive sector that could last until the first half of 2022, according to Euler Hermes' assessment. This presents carmakers with a unique opportunity to raise prices after almost 20 years and significantly improve their margins, it said.

Possible price increase for cars of up to 6 %

"European carmakers are currently sitting on the longer end of the stick due to the chip shortage," says Stefan Ruf, CEO of Euler Hermes Switzerland. "3-6% price increases are therefore currently possible across Europe, in Germany even between 4 and over 10% - at least until the state of emergency in semiconductors returns to normal. However, this is likely to continue into the first half of 2022."

The automotive sector is already benefiting from rising demand following the major reopening after the lockdown in numerous countries. New registrations in Europe increased by +25.2 % year-on-year in H1 2021 to almost 5.4 million passenger cars (+1.354 million units). According to auto schweiz, 143,969 new cars have hit the roads of Switzerland and Liechtenstein since the beginning of 2021, 14.4 percent more than in the first seven months of the "Corona year" 2020 (125,842). However, the effects of the semiconductor crisis are now causing the further market recovery to falter. After registering a small increase in June compared to the same month last year, the July figures are now below the 2020 result and even more significantly behind the pre-crisis level, according to the preliminary results of auto schweiz. Thus, in July 2019, 25,518 new passenger cars had still been put on the road for the first time - the current market level of 19,422 redemptions is 23.9 percent lower.

Pent-up demand discernible

"The catch-up boom is in full swing and the industry is stepping on the gas again," says Stefan Ruf, meanwhile. "While nowhere near pre-crisis levels, we are seeing significant double-digit growth in new registrations in all major European markets, particularly Italy (+51%) and Spain (+34%). This recovery, together with rising pricing power, is a ray of hope for the entire industry that a return to a new normal will soon be underway."

"We are currently experiencing the bottom of the semiconductor crisis, which is hitting us harder than originally expected," is how auto-schweiz Director Andreas Burgener also sums up the current situation. "The shortage of electronic components and chips at manufacturers and suppliers has reached enormous proportions. However, we see light at the end of the tunnel and hope that the situation will normalize in the fourth quarter." By then, no more restrictions are likely to be felt in the coming year, Burgener concluded.

The industry must set the course for the future

The changes in the automotive industry also have an impact on the Swiss supplier industry, says Stefan Ruf. However, he added, the industry now also urgently needs to think outside the box and set an important course so as not to fall further behind when it comes to sustainability and alternative drive technologies. "With higher prices and margins, this is not the worst starting situation."

Higher margins may well serve carmakers, but not their suppliers, as the example of Hatebur Umformmaschinen AG in Reinach BL shows. This family-owned company, which is more than 100 years old, recently had to cut 30 jobs because demand for machines and services had declined rapidly in recent years, as also reported in the Daily Press was to read.

Sources: Euler Hermes, car switzerland 

Telecommunications service provider mobilezone has expanded its Swiss management team and two new members as of June 1, 2021. With this, the company aims to strengthen the areas of Product Management and Digital/E-Commerce, according to a statement to the media.

The extended management of mobilezone

The new members of the Executive Board are Christoph Gisler. He is the new Director Product Management and looks back on a wealth of experience. Prior to his appointment at mobilezone, he developed a digital sales channel for Switzerland's largest mountain sports platform in 2015 and supported the sales and key account management area in the development of siroop.ch from 2016 to 2018. From 2018 to 2020, he managed sales and marketing at Jamei AG. From 2020, he was responsible for marketing and sales for the specialist retail sector at Alltron AG as a member of the management team.

Secondly, Raffaele Sutter was appointed as the new Director Digital. Sutter also has extensive expertise. From 2013 to 2017, he headed the Digital & E-Commerce Competence Center at Migros Industrie. Since 2017, he has been responsible for the online area at Coop as well as the strategic orientation of coop.ch as a member of the management team.

Claudio Barandun complements the management Switzerland

Claudio Barandun will also join the management team in Switzerland as Managing Director of the subsidiary mobiletouch as of August 10, 2021. Claudio Barandun has many years of experience in the service sector and was previously Head of Service Center at Bachmann Mobile Kommunikation AG and Head of Repair at ALSO Switzerland. Since 2020, he has been a member of the Executive Board at Revendo. Claudio Barandun succeeds Peter Poulsen, who left the company in June 2021.

The mobilezone Group, founded in 1999, employs around 1,200 people at its sites in Rotkreuz, Urnäsch, Zweidlen, Berlin, Bochum, Cologne and Münster. Its offering includes a full range of cell phones and rate plans for mobile and fixed-network telephony, digital TV and Internet from all providers.

Source and further information

What is one of the most important cores of marketing? It is the desire that a customer, once convinced of a company or a product, should stay as long as possible and not migrate to potential competitors. The reason for this is extremely simple: such a customer is not only considered to be much easier to handle, but also usually causes noticeably lower costs with higher sales - typically, the cost ratio of new to existing customers is therefore around 5:1. Not least for this reason referral marketing still works so well.

However, it must be clear that what keeps a customer after an initial, positive experience is, above all, consistently high quality in all respects. Establishing and adhering to quality standards is therefore a responsibility that should not be skimped on under any circumstances. This applies above all to the following points, which are largely generally valid (= independent of the industry):

1. a uniform, consistent approach to communication

Customer and company want to communicate, must communicate. No matter in which specific way. However, this is precisely where many companies tend to outsource their customers after a certain (short) period of time.

When it comes to convincing new customers, the front line of canvassers is often called upon. Professionals in communication and product knowledge. They can captivate a previously undecided customer, convince him - and, above all, instill in him an expectation about how to communicate with this company.

In the further course, however, the aforementioned outsourcing then takes place out of false thrift: The customer is passed on to other communication partners, often these are actually third-party companies to which the (existing) customer support has been outsourced.

This is fatal, because the staff there cannot communicate as personally and effectively as the customer is used to. Moreover, it also goes against the trend, because excessive outsourcing has long been considered outdated.

Best Practice: Ideally, a customer should receive the same high-quality communication at all times with the same contact persons. At the very least, however, the support of valuable existing customers should not be mindlessly outsourced.

2. reliable, safe delivery at any time

Deliveries of goods are a significant cost factor - and not only because the B2B area has long been part of the packaging law. No, of course they cost both the shipping company and, depending on delivery conditions, the recipient good money, because typically suppliers are interposed.

A great many companies have already experienced severe slumps in this area in recent times. Primarily because they switched to more economical alternatives, either in terms of the type of packaging or the delivery service provider.

Now this does not mean that thriftiness is fundamentally worse; however, it often results in quality losses, especially when it comes to delivery - later or more unpredictable deliveries, sometimes even battered shipping boxes or - the marketing super-GAU - a product damaged by the supplier or the delivery and transport conditions.

Best Practice: Deliveries or their conditions may only change at the same level, but better only in the direction of even greater quality. This begins with a constant high quality protection of the goods through consistently transport-safe packaging and extends to cooperation with transport service providers where lower costs are not at the expense of everything else.

3. written down and bindingly communicated rules

One employee familiarly addresses existing customers by their first name, while another treats them as if they were an unknown new customer; one employee works in a customer-oriented manner, while the other is more company-oriented.

It's inconsistencies like these that can quickly cause disagreement among existing customers. Because although they are in contact with one and the same company every time, it sometimes feels different to them each time.

Best Practice: Quality standards are only as good as those who have to comply with them - i.e. those who are actually in contact with customers or ensure that they are satisfied by goods or services. Accordingly, all quality standards must be standardized. Every employee must know them in detail, be trained in them again and again. And there must be zero tolerance for deviations. The qualitystandard means that the quality always remains the same.

However, this also involves evaluating the specifications again and again, exposing sources of error - and also questioning those who ultimately have to implement the standards before they are introduced. Here, networking within the company with positive feedback loops is unspeakably valuable.

4. the pursuit of recognized certifications and their use

Many quality standards can only be internal to a company, as they are an important unique selling point that sets a company apart from all its competitors. However, this is definitely not a universal rule.

In fact, it makes tremendous sense to have quality standards certified, especially when they are industry-wide or even exceed them. A prominent example of this is everything, what is covered by ISO 9001 falls. To be certified under it, the following steps are necessary:

1. The selection of a certifying service provider takes place. Here, many companies are represented on the market.
2. An in-house pre-audit will be held to explain the details.
3. This is followed by two audit stages, which clarify the actual state in the house.
4. Based on this, either measures are defined and processed, or direct certification takes place.
5. The certification is reviewed every three years.

The primary advantage of such certifications is that companies can establish uniform, international quality standards. However, many certificates lead to an entry in officially visible lists - this in turn can be used as a secondary advantage for external presentation. Perhaps not with existing customers, but certainly with new ones.

Best Practice: In the case of quality standards, it should always be examined to what extent they can be officially certified. Firstly, because this allows good things to be made even better. Second, because official certificates have a strong, positive signal effect on the outside. Of course, these processes cost money, which is the exact opposite of frugality, but it is usually money well spent.

Author:
Heiner Jahnen has been working in the field of content management for over 20 years.

At the KMU Swiss Symposium, successful personalities from various sectors and industries speak about their experiences in a practical and timely manner. They illuminate and discuss the conference topic from different perspectives on keywords such as industry, trade, money, security, law, personnel, association and sport. Due to the pandemic, the last symposium, originally planned for March 2020, could not be held.

KMU Swiss Symposium: Over 300 participants expected

The next KMU Swiss Symposium will take place on Thursday 2 September in the Campus Hall Culture + Congresses in Brugg-Windisch. This year's theme deals with the upheaval in the economy and society, which is very appropriate to what has been experienced in recent months. According to the organizers, around 300-400 participants are expected, including various guests of honor and personalities from business and politics. "Our guests appreciate the high practical relevance of the presentations," says Armin Baumann, initiator of KMU Swiss

Conference Topic: Upheaval in Economy and Society

"The only constant is change!" is often heard. Currently, much is in upheaval or questioned. This leads to the fact that certainly an upheaval in economy and society will take place and will be accelerated by the pandemic. This will happen earlier for some people and later for others. What will be the challenges we encounter in our private, business and social environment? There will certainly be losers and winners. Those who participate will certainly belong to the second group.

Famous personalities on stage

The following entrepreneurial personalities provide lasting impressions:

• Werner van Gent (Co-Founder Treffpunkt Orient and Reporter SRF
• Beni Huggel (young entrepreneur and former Swiss football player)
• Atilla Vuran (Founder PONTEA AG)
• Rolf Härdi (CTIO DB Group Management)
• Daniel Fiechter (CIO STOBAG AG, Lecturer MAS Industry 4.0, FFHS)
• Britta Pukall (Founder milani design & consulting AG)
• Rafael Waber (Managing Director SwissShrimp AG)

For more information on the speakers, please visit www.kmuswiss.ch/symposium

Especially after the corona-induced home office obligation, not only freelancers and startups, but also more and more employed knowledge workers discover coworking as an ideal alternative to the home office.

Work model of the future

In Switzerland, the Coworking Switzerland association is promoting the coworking movement. Its members are convinced that society is facing unprecedented economic, environmental, social and cultural challenges - recent developments and experiences from the Covid 19 pandemic have visibly confirmed this. Coworking is redefining the way we work, they say, by connecting people in a professional work environment that enables interactions and collaborations. Furthermore, coworking enables companies to overcome distances and thus better tap into the labor market and be more competitive. Employees can reduce commuting, better balance their professional and personal lives, and increase their own productivity.

Trying it out on International Coworking Day

For International Coworking Day on August 9, CreativeSpace, an operator of coworking spaces in St.Gallen and Zurich, invites anyone tired of home office or commuting stress to try coworking for free on that date - at both locations. On the first Friday of every month, there will also be an opportunity to try out coworking and see what the "new normal" in a coworking space might look like, says Claudius Krucker, founder of CreativeSpace and co-president of the Swiss Coworking Association. Accordingly, he is looking forward to welcoming new taster coworkers.

Coworking becomes "normal

It is foreseeable that coworking will become an important part of the new normal after the pandemic. In addition, seven federal parliamentarians already signed a postulate last year that 100000 coworking workplaces should be established in Switzerland by 2030.

More information: Coworking Switzerland

What will the SME of the future look like? How can companies change so that the working world 4.0 becomes reality? In the digital age, new strategies and tools are needed. The guidebook "Arbeitswelt 4.0: Das KMU der Zukunft" (Working World 4.0: The SME of the Future), published in the Beobachter edition, uses numerous practical examples to show how new, innovative business models are developed and implemented. Newer working methods such as design thinking and agile project management are explained clearly in this book.

Practical tips for the SME of the future

Transformation is above all also a cultural process. The way work is done and how people want to work is changing. That's why the guidebook also focuses on the design of the work environment, leadership and collaboration, and recruitment, and it highlights the value of a strong corporate culture in the age of social collaboration and blended and remote work.

The book is intended as a guide for a broad readership: whether as an entrepreneur, freelancer, employer, self-employed person or manager - the practice-oriented work introduces readers to the working world 4.0 as an interplay of people, technologies and working environments. The content focuses on:

• What is digital transformation and what do I need to consider for my company? With step-by-step instructions for the transition to the working world 4.0
• The future of recruiting and personnel management: Which competencies are important? How do I recruit? Social media, mobile recruiting? And once you have found your employees: How do I lead in the working world 4.0?
• Where and when do my employees and I work? Everything about the flexible workplace, home office and modern working time arrangements
• Virtual collaboration: Many useful tools for digital meetings, IT-supported communication, social collaboration, and answers to questions about data protection and IT security.
• Legal framework including sample clauses for employment contracts with your homeworkers

The authors

Nicole Krättli is a multimedia journalist and book author. As part of her journalistic work, she regularly deals with the digitalization of the working world and the economic, social and legal consequences arising from these changes. Marc K. Peter is a professor at the FHNW School of Business and has supported many companies with their digital strategies and projects. His topics include digital transformation, IT security and the working world 4.0. He is also co-author of the book "IT security for SMEs" from the same publisher.

Working world 4.0
Nicole Krättli, Marc K. Peter
232 pages, softcover,
CHF 48.- , 1st edition, August 2021
ISBN 978-3-03875-379-7
Observer Edition