When it comes to innovation, Switzerland is a global leader. "However, many local companies face the challenge of adapting their production lines, products and services to the possibilities of digitalization," explains Alexandre Pauchard, CEO of the Swiss Technology Transfer Center CSEM, which has been promoting the transfer of technology and knowledge from science to the Swiss economy for more than 40 years. For that reason, CSEM and OWT, a leading strategy and technology consulting firm, are now entering into a comprehensive partnership. The goal is to expand CSEM's range of services by adding the fields of strategy consulting and digital transformation software development. "Our task will be to integrate the tailor-made deep technologies engineered by CSEM into the infrastructure of companies and to enrich them with individual apps, so that new sources of revenue and market shares can be developed more quickly while reducing costs," adds Frédéric Weill, CEO of OWT. As a result of the partnership, a powerful local player with more than 700 specialists will be created in the Swiss market.
"Digitalization has become a critical factor for competitiveness," says Pauchard. "However, getting there is anything but easy." It usually takes more than a dozen different technical profiles to develop a digital service. These profiles often don't exist within the company and are rare within the marketplace. In addition, companies often can't afford to hire all the specialists they need before they know whether the new digital service will be profitable. Through the cooperation of CSEM and OWT, companies are able to leverage this know-how and take the next step in their development.
The focus is on future-oriented sectors such as sustainable energy, Industry 4.0, digital health and life sciences. CSEM, for example, develops advanced image processing methods and machine learning algorithms that are integrated into a company's manufacturing chain. Thanks to its expertise in strategy and technology consulting as well as software development, OWT now helps to integrate the algorithms faster and better into the IT environment and to enrich them with apps or other solutions tailored to the customer's needs.
Pierre Grydbeck, partner at OWT in charge of the partnership, concludes: "Ultimately, we combine the best of both worlds: OWT provides business strategy consulting as well as valuable experience in digital transformation and user-centric software development, while CSEM offers a unique expertise in the development and application of tailor-made deep hardware and software technologies. As a result, we are able to help small and large Swiss companies invent technology solutions based on substantial scientific or engineering challenges and make them scale using the latest user-centric technologies and digital tools."
With this partnership, Open WT and CSEM now offer companies in Switzerland comprehensive and individualized digitalization- and innovation-support, which further strengthens Switzerland as a center of innovation.
