Swiss boards of directors focus on process optimization
In collaboration with Deloitte and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, swissVR surveyed 460 board members on business prospects and current board topics such as strategies and innovation. In the first "swissVR Monitor" issue, board members were quite positive about the business outlook for the next twelve months.
The outlook for their own company - 53% expect a positive business development for their company - is assessed much more optimistically than that for the industry and the economy as a whole. Prof. Dr. Dr. Christian Wunderlin, President of swissVR, says: "The discrepancy between the assessment of the outlook for one's own company and that of the industry indicates how great the confidence is in one's own efforts to master current challenges and in the success of one's own company."
Strategic top issues of the BoD
96 percent of the board members surveyed confirm that they currently play an active role in defining corporate strategy - and thus comply with the legal mandate. The majority of respondents were positive about the competence of the board of directors in strategic matters. However, 30 percent believe that individual members may be out of their depth when it comes to strategic issues. The proportion is considerably higher among SMEs than among large companies.
Optimizations and strategies
Board members have to deal with a wide range of topics and set priorities. According to the survey, the most important topics in the last twelve months were increasing efficiency and optimizing internal processes (43%), developing a corporate strategy (36%) and personnel challenges at Executive Board level (35%).
For the next year, the respondents only expect a comparably high importance for the efficiency topic. On the other hand, digitalization, market and sales strategy, and talent management will gain in importance in the future.
Swiss focus on innovation
The majority of the innovation focus is on service and product innovations (58% and 47% respectively). Swiss companies already seem to be following the global trend towards a service society with its strong focus on the development of new services. However, the traditional focus of many Swiss companies - the development and improvement of new products - continues to enjoy a high priority.
The fact that many board members also consider process and business model innovation to be important (30% and 22% respectively) is an indication that Swiss companies are already increasingly innovating beyond the product and are driving innovation in other parts of the value chain (including services, processes, marketing). Furthermore, a large majority (86%) of the surveyed BoD members underline that suitable employees and the right know-how are an absolute priority in order to pursue successful innovation activities. (Study "swissVR Monitor 2017")
