Swiss Market Entry Bootcamp shows development
The Swiss Market Entry Bootcamp was held this year despite Corona in Zurich and was a wonderful opportunity to find out about new start-ups and their innovative strength. 40 start-ups from 20 countries were gathered there. They showed solutions for certain industries that are particularly hard hit by the Corona crisis. French and German companies were represented in the largest number.
In addition to the participants who were on site at the boot camp, many companies also took part online. Germany sent a total of eight companies and seven young companies came from France. They presented both digital health solutions and new technologies for digital learning. Further ideas from the Smart City and Mobility sector were presented, along with FinTech and InsurTech companies as well as the Food and Retail sector.
All companies were united in the thought that the economy was in a state of upheaval, which is being accelerated by Corona. It was sometimes assumed that the structural change or the upheaval in the economy was only triggered by the virus, which may certainly be true for individual companies.
The participating start-ups had to qualify for the boot camp and went through an application process. For example, at least one completed financing round had to be completed with external financial partners, and they also had to provide evidence of a functioning business model.
The goals of the boot camp
The Swiss Market Entry Bootcamp took place in this form for the third time, albeit with a significantly higher number of online participants. It was shown that the corona virus has now significantly influenced almost all areas of work and life and that transformation processes have been initiated on a large scale.
Regardless of whether it is about traveling, shopping, working or studying? new processes and rethinking are required. The participating companies were able to show these new processes and make it clear that changes are possible and sometimes only associated with minor details.
The aim of the boot camp is not only to identify necessities and solutions, but also to enable international partners to network. It is important to find creative solutions for digitization and thus to control business processes. Thanks to various partner companies, it is possible to further consolidate Switzerland's position, because the country is number one in terms of digitization worldwide. This puts Switzerland even ahead of the USA and Sweden, Great Britain and the Netherlands.
Start-ups show innovative solutions
Innovations occur, for example, in the area of reading documents, and the intelligent extraction of data from documents is further developed. This is an important function for insurers or lawyers, among others, because in these areas the absolutely correct reading of data is indispensable.
The manual check can thus be omitted, which in turn means high cost and time savings.
Digital health profiles, learning programs for smartphones and networking opportunities for students and teachers are also areas in which there is currently a noticeable surge in innovation.
Conclusion: more innovations through Corona
Innovations have always been required, but external influences only intensify them. The current corona crisis has contributed or is still contributing to the fact that there is a real innovation surge and numerous young companies are entering the market. The main focus is on the areas of health and the digitization of learning. Whether these innovations were all triggered by Corona or not simply pushed more clearly by the virus remains a question that cannot be answered.
