About 50% of the companies are digital dinosaurs
A study concludes that more than half of the companies in Switzerland lack digital know-how. At the same time, 74% of the companies attribute a major impact of digitalization on their industry. And that can be critical for success.
"Swiss companies still seem to lack digital know-how at both management and employee level," says Sven Ruoss, head of the CAS Social Media Management study at HWZ, summarizing the results of his study. "This is despite the fact that 74% of the companies surveyed assume that digitization will have a large to very large impact on their industry." For half of the Swiss companies, this will be critical to their success by 2017.
Swiss companies are challenged by the digital transformation mainly due to limitations in the IT system, a lack of financial resources and a lack of know-how at the management level. "A rethink is urgently needed, as no industry can escape digital development. A sensible use of digital possibilities can significantly increase customer loyalty and usually leads to an increase in efficiency in all areas," holds Manuel P. Nappo, Head of the Center for Digital Business at the HWZ. The study identifies "digital security" and the areas of "mobile," "big data," "social media" and "cloud computing" as groundbreaking technologies. Product and service enhancements, an improved customer experience and increased productivity are listed as the most important motivations for companies to undertake the digital transformation.
463 people participated in the survey. Of these, 77% were male, 23% female. 62% of the respondents are in management, 33% have no management function and 5% are self-employed.
More on the topic of digital transformation in Switzerland here.
