New fragrances at SME Day
The Swiss SME Day on October 25 in St.Gallen is history: The event, which was once again sold out, was held under the motto "SMEs in Competition - Delivering instead of Lying". The topic was addressed by the speakers in various facets, entertainingly moderated by Fabian Unteregger.
Tomorrow's competition for SMEs are digital companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook & Co, said host Tobi Wolf in his opening keynote. The strengths of these companies - despite their size - are their willingness to take risks, their test mentality and the fact that growth is more important than profitability. They also focus more on customer orientation and less on product centricity. SMEs, on the other hand, have stable structures, trust, tradition and know-how as strengths. If you combine these with those of digital companies with their "startup mentality," SMEs become unbeatable in competition. This simply requires more courage, leadership, the right people in the right place and - especially important - simply taking a first small step. "A small step can have an enormous impact," said Tobi Wolf, using a domino as an example, where a small block was able to topple even the largest block via a chain reaction.
SME Day hemp scents
Roger Koch, founder of the only independent Swiss cigarette manufacturer, chose an unconventional approach to his presentation. He made no secret of his frustration with regulations and the increasing obsession with safety and health. This also has an impact on entrepreneurship: "If managers stop living riskily, how can they still take entrepreneurial risks? He himself set a good example as an entrepreneur: with his cigarette manufacturing company, he entered a high-risk market characterized by oligopolies, heavy regulation and declining consumption. But with the innovation of a new type of hemp cigarettes, he found a niche that may have potential for medical applications. Some of the participants tried this product themselves during the breaks - the scent of smoked hemp was for once also unmistakable at the SME Day...
Customer orientation above all
Marcus Schögel, Director of the Institute for Marketing at the University of St.Gallen, then spoke about the success factor of customer orientation. "The age of the customer has dawned," he said. Today, he said, the focus must be on thinking about new solutions from the customer's point of view. "Investments in customer centricity pay off," Schögel continued. This also involves building up customer knowledge among employees. This must be achieved by motivating employees to "always want to do the best for the customer.
Startups competing in front of the audience
In an "inspiration session" - this had less to do with the THC content of the air we breathed mentioned above and more to do with a newly introduced program item - four startups were then allowed to present their business model in the form of 8-minute pitches. Kilian Wagner of VIU showed how his company is virtually reinventing the distribution channels for eyewear, which translates into attractive pricing for customers. The company Felfel, presented by CEO Anna Grassler, is supplying more and more businesses with healthy food from a "smart fridge" that automatically reorders when something is missing. Martin Fengler of Meteomatics explained how drones can make weather forecasts even more accurate, which will become an increasingly important service, especially for weather-dependent businesses. And Susanne Dröscher founded the company CARU AG two years ago with a partner. This company has developed a device that uses sensors to monitor the living environment of mobility-impaired people and can send out emergency calls if necessary. In the end, Felfel came off best in the public's favor.
Of trust and perseverance
The last part of the SME Day was given over to speakers Monika Walser and mountaineer Stephan Siegrist. Monika Walser gave an impressive insight into the first phase of her work as the new CEO of de Sede AG. The first days were marked by mistrust and uncertainty, and it was a Herculean task to rally the workforce behind her again. What proved to be a recipe for success was their honest and transparent communication and the decision - financially risky at the time - to bring the core of production, namely the leather tailoring shop, back in-house. Stephan Siegrist, on the other hand, used the first ascent of a granite wall over 1,000 meters high in Kashmir to show what it means not to give up despite adverse circumstances and to believe in the feasibility of a project right to the end - an obviously clear message to the entrepreneurs as well.
