Projects

Swiss SME Landscape

Switzerland is a country of SMEs. According to the Federal Statistics Office, as of 2019, 99.7% of Swiss companies classify as SMEs, having fewer than 250 employees. They employ over two thirds of the Swiss work force; that's over 3 million people. 12.8% of companies employ at least 10 people, which ties Switzerland with Austria for second place in having the largest number of small and medium companies in Europe. But who are these companies? Which industries are the active in? How do they interact? Short of combing through statistical reports, finding answers to these questions at a glance can be challenging.

Swiss SME Landscape aims to provide tangible insights into these questions by means of map-like visualizations. By gathering publicly available information from sources such as Swiss trade registries and the Federal Statistics Office and applying state of the art machine learning techniques, we can analyze data using natural language processing and advanced clustering and classification techniques. This allows us to, quite literally, paint a picture of SMEs in Switzerland.

Stay tuned, as Swiss SME Landscape will be open to be explored by anyone interested right here on our website!

Innovation in Well-established Enterprises

Everyone and their grandmother will tell you that innovation is necessary to compete in today's global markets. Yet, well-established SMEs, which may have been operating for many years, are encountering challenges in moving with the times, facing fierce competition by both domestic and foreign companies with less experience.

While such companies have a trusting customer base and may be reliably generating revenue, the clock is ticking. Processes and methods may be deeply entrenched, creating an environment that hinders innovation. Nonetheless, companies are aware of these issues and increasingly wish to modernize and innovate. However, they often lack the resources and guidance to pick the right fights and implement targeted improvements, and expensive consulting contracts are rarely a viable option. So how can they manage to change? How can well-established SMEs start innovating with the resources they have?

In this project, we are performing a systematic analysis of the challenges facing SMEs, as well as tried and proven solutions demonstrated by companies which overcame them. Our goal is to create a process - a recipe for success - that SMEs can follow, slow and steady, in order to reach their innovation targets. Interested in learning more? Contact us directly via email, if you think you might benefit from our insights.

The Future of Car Ownership

In light of global warming and an increasing desire by the general public to reduce humanity's reliance on fossile fuels, car makers and dealers are facing novel challenges. Yet, people still desire personal mobility and the familiar feeling of owning their own vehicle. How can these conflicting goals be reconciled? Besides, compared to other industries, like hospitality or commerce, owning and caring for a car feels like a chore that hasn't changed in decades, having to deal with unexpected repairs, insurance premiums and an uneasy feeling about how well a car retains its value. Does it need to be this way?

In collaboration with partners in the automotive and insurance industries, we are developing a new way of owning a car - without actually owning it. And no, we're not talking about leasing, sharing or renting a car, neither are we re-labeling any of the previous. Curious? Subscribe to our newsletter to be notified and become one of the first to benefit from our innovative offerings!