How to react to the slowdown of the Swiss economy

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source pixabay.com

 Swissmem has reported that "in the first nine months of the year, new orders received declined by 13.2%, turnover by 3.7%, and exports by 1.4%. The downturn in the MEM industries has been rapid and severe. In the space of 15 months, order intake volumes have fallen by 27%." (Source Swissmem ). According to this article, the situation is due to the global market and the missing orders for the export market. One other reason is the exchange rate between the Swiss Franc and the Euro. At the moment we are far away from the 1.20 CHF/Euro that could support the export to the near countries.

 What to do in this situation? Bringing back the Swiss industry competitiveness.

 Where to act? There are several actions to take.

 Product Development: reduce the development cycle for new product introduction. This is very important especially in the case of "design-to-order" business. Consider the possibility to move to an "assembly-to-order" business strategy. The product management approach to markets and segments should support companies in moving towards much faster "time-to-market" strategies. 

 Product Cost: think new products to be easily manufactured (i.e., assembly strategy, minimization of parts and production steps, automatic test strategy, ... ). In addition, the correct design of the value chain should be in place.  

Supply Chain: rethinking the supply chain by fostering partnerships and establishing agreements by sharing risks and revenue. In addition, cost-effective partners do not mean always the ones from low-cost countries, but the ones that can provide lower TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) with the best performance (i.e., plastic, electronics, ... ).      

Additional Services: utilizing IoT technologies to introduce additional services like preventive maintenance because Swiss Made products should provide the best in class performance at lower TCO. 
  

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