We had an amazing start into the Seminar in Switzerland 2022! We are happy to share insights of some speeches, provided by our delegates.
The opening speeches were held by Prof. Michael Jeive, Prof. Dr. Regula Altmann-Jöhl, and our joint sponsor, CEO Marc Blaser from @blaserswisslube.
Afterwards, we got the opportunity to get some exciting insights on Ricardo Garcias work at @scantrustofficial. In the afternoon, we got a wide range of information about renewable energy from Dr. Pankaj Agarwal from Panitek Power AG. Nicolai Reinbold from @cvlabszug explained more in-depth about Blockchain and Jürgen Stückle from @bearingpoint_de helped us to understand post-pandemic cyber strategies. We want to thank all our speakers for today for sharing their valuable experiences with us!
Prof. Michael Jeive, Head of the International Student Project, Prof. Dr. Regula Altmann-Jöhl, Director School of Business FHNW and Marc Blaser, CEO Blaser Swisslube AG – Opening Speeches
Prof. Dr. Regula Altmann-Jöhl, Director School of Business
Marc Blaser, CEO Blaser Swisslube AG
Prof. Dr. Regula Altmann-Jöhl, the Director of the School of Business, welcomed all delegates from the prestigious flagship projects: Insight China, Focus India, ConnectUS, and ExploreASEAN to the Seminar in Switzerland of the International Student Projects 2022. More than 20 years ago it all began with Insight China and in the following years, the other projects were added. The goal is to learn about the economic and political landscape and give all delegates an insight into the cultural diversity of these countries as well as learn about doing business in the respective regions. It is also an effective opportunity for FHNW and the students to build international connections and profit from knowledge sharing through constructive interaction with companies and other key stakeholders.
The opening speech was held by Marc Blaser the CEO of Blaser Swisslube. The company was founded in 1936 by his grandfather Willy Blaser and is now run in its third generation. In the initial phase, they sold products such as shoe polish and cleaning items. As of today, they changed their former product line and are now providing high-performance metalworking fluids, CNC process optimization, and support services.
The company has been one of the main sponsors of the FHNW International Students Projects for many years and Marc Blaser emphasized that he is very pleased that we could hold this seminar week on-site and hopefully leave the online seminars behind us. As a first point, he highlighted how challenging the international competition in our globalized world nowadays is, further he talked about the importance of targeting the customer and their needs right to create benefits for the provider as well as for the consumer.
At Blaser Swisslube, people come first. They are one of if not the most important resources and can make a difference. In this context, it is also important to mention that trust is of course an essential part of it. This should mean that no matter whether the people strive for their individual success, they still must keep their confidence high and be team players. However, we live in a technical advanced world, no one can replace the skills and know-how of human beings.
He managed also to connect his speech with the still ongoing pandemic situation and emphasized their PCR-testing procedures which are executed for many years to control their products and detect inconsistencies quickly.
To sum up, the following quote completes his motivational speech: “The future is not a gift it is an achievement. Every generation helps make its own future. This is the essential challenge of the present.”
– Written by Lea Baumberger
Ricardo Garcia, Scantrust
Scantrust is a young international company that ensures the traceability of products and interaction with the end-user by applying a new technology that makes QR-codes uncopiable.
Internationality
Since the beginning, Scantrust has been operating internationally. They started in Lausanne and Shanghai and expanded into various countries. Today, products with their QR-Codes can be found in over 130 countries worldwide. This is also represented in their very diverse workforce that hired specialists for many different aspects.
Value Proposition
The solution of Scantrust refers to all companies that create their revenues with exports and manage a complex supply chain. In this environment many fake products exist, they can encounter grey market activities and unauthorized distribution. Additionally, companies actually have no direct contact with end-users. Therefore, Scantrust is used mostly for two purposes: Reducing risks in the supply chain and building a direct digital touchpoint with the end-user.
Every product is being allocated to an unique QR-code which acts as the product ID. The technology Scantrust uses has such a high-resolution print with a great density of dots which makes it uncopiable. Because when someone wants to fake it, he has to copy it but by doing so, it loses 20-30% of its density. When scanning the code, it will be identified as fake.
Every time the QR-code is scanned there is a new data point. This can help to mitigate risks for example when through scanning the company finds out that its products are not sold at the planned destination. To encourage customers to scan these QR-codes many use incentives and a company app to integrate them into the process. This leads to the next use case where companies are interested in direct contact with the end-user and their data. Relevant information could be the time when it is scanned, the location, or how long users look at the content provided concerning the product.
Challenges for Scantrust are cyber security topics and ensuring that the packaging and the QR-code can not be faked because it labels the containers, not the content itself. Further, they need more people who scan the QR-codes to make the system more effective and efficient.
Indian Case Studies
In India, this technology is mostly used by multinational companies that face a risk or problem in India. The technology is then implemented by a locally based team or if there is no local team, they use it just to track the products.
- Dupon – They implemented the technology locally and use the QR-codes to prove authenticity. They have also implemented a loyalty program to encourage installers to buy their products rather than the competitors.
- ExxonMobil – They use the technology for loyalty and incentives rather than counterfeiting
- Motul – They use the technology for anti-counterfeiting and tracking the products in the supply chain
Scantrust’s team culture
As Scantrust started as an international company with the locations in Lausanne and Shanghai, the cultural aspect was the base since the beginning for the team culture:
- Culture and spirit
- Clear leadership and strategy
- Clear processes and areas of authority
- “Over” communication
- Beware of subcultures
– Written by Nicole Küffer and Anahi Herren
Ricardo Garcia, Scantrust
Nicolai Reinbold, CV Labs – Blockchain
Nicolai Reinbold is the co-head at CV Labs and was involved in various start-ups. Two special features distinguish CV VC from other investors: Investments exclusively into start-ups that develop products and services built on blockchain technology. The other feature is that the company operates an additional business (CV Labs) to its core investment business, consisting of co-working spaces, consulting, and events. With locations in Zug (CH), Vaduz (FL), and South Africa. Within CV Labs, Nicolai Reinbold scouts high-quality start-ups as Europe’s largest blockchain start-up contest.
Blockchain is an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way that makes it impossible to hack or cheat the system. A blockchain is essentially a digital ledger of transactions that is duplicated and distributed across the entire network of computer systems on the blockchain. Blockchain increases trust, security, transparency, and the traceability of data shared across a business network. The technology is often used in the crypto-currencies sector and can for example be used as a currency in countries where it is not easy to open a bank account.
Switzerland has 1’128 crypto companies of which half of them are located in Zug. The CV VC portfolio ranges over cyber security for IoT devices (Asvin), transparency in the wine industry (vault wines), push email (Vereign), end-to-end encrypted messenger where the developer does not collect any data from the consumers (Pravica), and more. Furthermore, CV VC is investing in start-ups with the use of blockchain, but they also plan to invest in 100 African startups in the next 4 years and therefore become the first blockchain accelerator on the African continent. Right now, there are 14 members in the crypto valley that are worth over 1 billion Swiss francs. The total amount that is being managed by the CV Labs is 611 billion, these are companies and investors around Switzerland and Lichtenstein. Since 2021, the Swiss government started to support people that are interested in crypto currencies with a white paper. By 2021 there are places where it is possible to pay your taxes with the crypto currency, for example in Zug. In India, there is a rise in interest in crypto currency because not many people are able to open easily a bank account. Primarily Blockchain would be interesting for India in terms of finding a solution for transparency.
– Written by Edin Milanovic and Sneka Sugumaran
Nicolai Reinbold, CV Labs
Jürgen Stückle, Bearing Point – Post-Pandemic Cyber Strategies
Jürgen Stückle, Bearing Point
Bearing Point is an independent, privately-owned management and technology consulting firm with European roots and is strongly present in Switzerland. With its 4’600 employees, their aim is to support clients in realizing their efficiency growth and sustainability agenda in different sectors such as finance, insurance, production, chemicals, automotive, etc. Jürgen Stückle is appointed as Cyber Security Advisor for Bearing Point.
The key cyber-attack vector (main attacks) are supply chain, phishing, malware, ransomware, and insider threats (which is often underestimated). There are two reasons and interests for an attacker. On one hand, there are the criminals (=competitors) with the interest of money, destroying, and information gathering. This has the effect of short outages until payment / mostly restricted impact and data breaches. On the other hand, we have the Intelligence Agencies (IA) with the interest of war preparation, destroying, information gathering cause dissatisfaction and insecurity. This has the effect of long-term outages, instability of nations. Based on the “Homebase for cyber-attacks” ranking, the most attackers originate from Russia, China, North Korea. Russia wants to come back to old strength, this is achieved with the destabilization, also Russia wants to weaken the western companies and have the possibility to prepare the case of war by cyber attacks. China wants to become the world’s number 1 power. They have hired 100k hackers from the state, there are also many criminals or companies that want to get know-how from the west. North Korea is doing it because they need money, whereas India is in 7th place.
What has changed due to the pandemic? Digitalization is a very important topic and a lot of companies started to digitize. But the cost-benefit of several digitalization projects in the past was not as good as expected. For every trend, there is an anti-trend. There are still (older) people who are not used to the digital ambiance. Companies and governments are forcing digitalization because of the pandemic problems (lemming effect). The companies were better prepared than the government for the pandemic. Why is it important to be (better) prepared? In the event of a cyber incident, there are only a few hours to respond. The impact of a cyber incident can have an immediate impact on a company or a state. This means that electricity, gas, telco, or other important services are no longer available. The key topics to think about are zero trust (don’t trust anybody or anything), external, internal, and supply chain.
In conclusion, digitalization is an opportunity for all countries to be a pioneer in a field and thus secure a strong position in the world. But there are a lot of risks, especially with the dependencies on cyber attacks and supply chains. Are we really prepared for a massive cyber incident? We don’t have the same time to react or adjust as we did during the pandemic. Cyber security should be given a much higher priority in companies. States should tackle cyber security, much more intensively and invest much more. It would be a good synergy when countries like India, UAE, and Switzerland could join forces to protect their common interests.
– Written by Kishan Rajah and Elio Schmid