Today, we visited the headquarters of our joint platinum partner @blaserswisslube. After a great introduction from Oliver Kaeser, Global Head of Communication, a company tour had been organized to see the TechCenter, Laboratory, Analytics, and Circulator.
Afterward, Mathias Schaller, a former member of the Focus India 2009 edition and currently Head of Supply Chain Management, presented us with the successful supply chain management in India and the correlated sustainability perspectives.
In the afternoon, the workshop with our platinum partner @accenturedach was scheduled where our delegates were able to participate interactively in interesting discussions and share their opinions.
Blaser Swisslube – Company visite
Paolo Cappellano, Blaser Swisslube and our delegation
Oliver Kaeser, Global Head of Communications, welcomed us on-site and introduced us to the company. Blaser is a solid family company in its third generation. As a family company, Blaser always stood for sustainability. Which is also shown in its location in beautiful Hasle-Rüegsau. It is not normal for a chemical production facility to be located in the middle of a residential area by a creek, but Blaser never had any trouble with it.
Blaser does not just sell cooling liquid. They improved the cooling liquid in a way, that they consider it a liquid tool. But why? Because Blaser’s Liquid Tool does not only cool the tools but also reduces the wear and tear. This means, that with Blaser’s Liquid Tool the drill and other tools in the machine are more durable and tool costs, in general, can be reduced. This also leads to more efficiency in production, as setup times decrease. Thanks to its only minimal higher price than normal cooling liquids, Blaser’s customers are able to save manufacturing process costs.
Sustainability and family thrive are also shown in Blaser’s contribution to the FOCUS India Project. As Marc Blaser, CEO of Blaser mentioned: “Employees with a solid education, high initiative, and intercultural skills are crucial – not just only for our success, but for the success of our industry and Switzerland as a whole”.
On the following company tour, Niklaus Allemann and Paolo Cappellano showed us through the TechCenter, the laboratory, and the production and answered a lot of questions.
The house of the first generation is still located in the middle of the production site. As an innovation leader, Blaser has a 3500 m2 laboratory, which is the biggest R&D lab in this segment. After successfully passing the tests in the laboratory, the new products are tested in the TechCenter, which simulates a real customer’s production site. With intensive testing and measuring Blaser ensures that new products not only meet the expectations theoretically.
To conclude the interesting morning, Mathias Schaller, Head of Supply Chain Management and former FOCUS India participant brought us insights into a successful SCM and sustainability.
Some sustainability takeaways
- The industry is still at an early stage with regard to bold climate action
- The contribution towards a reduction of CO2 emissions and water consumption will become more and more an implicit (social pressure) as well as an explicit obligation (policy decisions)
- Raw materials are a major contributor to the overall product carbon footprint.
– Written by Melissa Zürcher and Tobias Zuber
Accenture – Workshop
Accenture Workshop
Accenture is a company that operates all over the world. They are mainly located in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and Russia. However, in total, you find them in 52 different countries. The company’s name is globally highly acquainted, but nobody knows what they are actually doing – not even themselves. It may be the case because the employees are not just distributed over the whole world, but in total, they got an in-depth knowledge of 40 industries. But the company mainly operates in consulting in several sectors. Furthermore, they expand frequently, as the company constantly buys up existing enterprises, which also means that they never know the exact number of employees.
Especially because the company is strongly represented globally, it is aware of its business responsibility towards the world. Therefore there are highlighted three sustainability levels: Economical, Ecological, and Social.
Economical
Independently of customers, employees, shareholders, partners, or locations, the company wants to incorporate sustainability in every action it takes to create added values for the environment.
Ecological
By supporting other companies worldwide to achieve their sustainable goals Accenture contributes to the ecological level of its set business responsibility. Consequently, terms like “Net Zero” are a buzzword for this movement, particularly for digitalization.
Social
For the social level, Accenture offers diverse educational programs for all employees to help improve their skills and raise awareness for taking responsibility towards the environment. By incorporating different partners the company can reach many people globally.
Accenture has several facets which are why it is a brilliant employer for so many people all over the world. Because of different acquisitions the company has a global network that enables it to be innovative, diverse, international, and rich in perspective. Throughout all those reasons, according to the company, the employees are the foundation for their existence, as without them they could not succeed in this dimension.
As mentioned before, sustainability is highly important to the enterprise. This value is clearly noticeable not just internally but also in different projects, like Climeworks. Climeworks is a young startup that was founded in the year 2009, focusing on removing CO2 from the air, by using DAC facility which is located in Iceland. This facility captures the air directly and bounds the CO2 in the filter. Once the filter is saturated with CO2 the filter is heated up to release it from there and to locate it into the ground for mineralization. To continue operating and further growing, financial engagement is necessary.
The challenge for Climeworks and Accenture is to promote the value and awareness for this amazing project to several stakeholders. In a workshop, the Focus India delegation had the opportunity to have a more profound look into the Design Thinking process used by Accenture to create ideas and innovation. According to the company, buzz words for design thinking are “human centered”, “collaborative”, “creative”, “prototype driven”, and “continuously learning”. In addition, it was especially highlighted, that behind this work the business part moves into the background and the human is more present. The approach of design thinking is the design process “Double Diamond” for exploring an issue more widely or deeply and taking focused actions. The delegation applied this approach to the business case of Climeworks to develop ideas on how they could improve their business model. Furthermore, the participants had the opportunity to get in touch with different people and to collaborate.
– Written by Anahí Herren and Nicole Küffer