Global pressures are causing challenges for companies worldwide. The critical global trends impacting Swiss companies are related to supply chain shortages, industry convergence, the K-shaped economic recovery happening at different rates and magnitudes, and inflation in combination with rising interest rates. And finally, the corporate focus on sustainability goals is proven to be both an opportunity and a challenge.

Looking ahead, companies who are able to identify global and local trends and recognize their impact will come out stronger from any crisis.

External global pressures play a major role in a company’s success, and the one factor that stands out is the dependency on suppliers. Some might even consider substituting their current out-of-reach providers to local ones.

A solid, well-networked set of partners (also referred to as an ecosystem) is a much more lucrative approach to consider. For the companies that cleverly implement these ecosystems, dependencies seem to convert into strategic advantages rather than obstacles.

Well Gesundheit is a joint venture between health insurance companies CSS and Visana, digital healthcare provider Medi24, and a mail-order pharmacy Zur Rose. By leveraging expertise from various industries such as insurance, technology, innovation, and even banking, the joint venture succeeded in becoming Switzerland’s top healthcare platform. Patients can benefit from a one-stop shop where they can book doctor’s appointments, order medication, and gain access to other healthcare services.

The integrated customer experiences this portal offers have been adopted by other countries like the US and Canada and are becoming very appealing to other EU countries. There are currently 2,000 healthcare practitioners tending to patients through the Well Clinic.

Swiss companies ecosystem partnership across industries
(2013-2020)

Throughout Switzerland and other European countries, companies who have been leveraging ecosystem partnerships have seen far better results in the past eight years than those who have not.

Some questions remain: Are their efforts truly paying off and if so, what are they doing differently?
We asked some of these questions to 100 Swiss executives whose organizations are currently engaging in ecosystem partnerships, and we have noticed a clear divide between companies that gain value from their ecosystem efforts and those that do not. The same is true for those that see ecosystem partnerships in their future and those that do not.

Through our findings, we have also identified 38 Ecosystem Top Performers (ETPs). These are companies that have achieved, to a large extent, their financial goals in terms of ROI and revenue growth. ETPs come from many sectors but the most successful ones come from retail, engineering, manufacturing, and insurance.

What they do differently is shaped by their objectives and how they overcome challenges.

When choosing the right partner, companies need to make conscious decisions. Some of their considerations include deciding whether to partner with a Big Tech player, or bring government, non-profit organizations, and even start-ups into the fold.

They are also strategically putting technical and operational leaders in charge of their ecosystems and are maximizing digital efforts to drive growth through cloud apps, AI, and machine learning technologies.

Overall, ETPs focus on actions. One of their top priorities is embracing sustainability targets, as well as adopting new business processes, and embedding their ecosystem strategy as a core building block of their overall corporate strategy. The chart below showcases which actions ETPs focus on to drive the most value from their ecosystem partnerships.