Highlight quality, values and goals
Label sustainably successful
Stefan Strausak, Managing Director of the Swiss Joint Professional Committee for Timber Construction (SPBH) and thus the executive body of the label, says: "We are delighted to have gained valuable partners for Holzbau Plus in these four institutions. We share the same understanding of how SMEs can remain successful in the long term: with satisfied and healthy employees." "The Holzbau Plus label shows in an exemplary way how a comprehensive concept of quality in SMEs can create added value for clients, employees and entrepreneurs," explains Prof. Dr. Guy Ochsenbein, Head of the FHNW School of Business.
Focus on customers and employees
The idea of a separate quality label within the timber construction industry emerged back in 2005 during the development of the Collective Labor Agreement (CLA) for Timber Construction. In 2007, an intensive development process lasting several years resulted in a collective labor agreement that is unique in Switzerland and internationally. The Holzbau Plus quality label stands for a customer and employee-oriented company structure and is characterized by partnership-based company management, which is the basis for sustainable corporate success. In the meantime, 43 companies have acquired the quality label in a multi-stage process.
Findings from practice and teaching
Prof. Dr. Stefan Gürtler, lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW), explains the importance of labels for companies in an interview with MK. Before becoming a lecturer, Gürtler worked at a leading level in communications on the agency and client side.MK Are labels fundamentally useful marketing tools? STEFAN GÜRTLER It's not just a marketing issue, but also one of product management. Here, every company is faced with the strategic decision of positioning products independently, working together with selected partners in a co-marketing approach or aligning the service with certain industry standards that are associated with a label. Labels are particularly suitable instruments where services are complex and the quality of the offer is difficult to assess, as is the case in the construction industry or the healthcare sector.MK What does it take for a label to be successful?GÜRTLER Quite a lot - unfortunately and thankfully. Thank God, because investments are necessary to differentiate yourself from other market players - which economically limits the number of successful labels. Unfortunately, because these investments also have to be supported. These investments are subject to transparent and clear "procedural and administrative rules", as the DIN regulations put it, and they are aimed at designing a comprehensible and relevant added value for buyers and sellers as well as publicizing and further developing the label. MK What are the advantages of a label?GÜRTLER A uniform information and risk minimization function for the buyer. Labels make it clear which properties are acquired and which uncertainties are eliminated. We live in times of "moral consumption", buyers are concerned about the social and ecological consequences of product manufacture, use and disposal. They increasingly prefer products that they can evaluate in terms of their social and environmental characteristics. This is where well-established labels can play a guiding role. If the timber construction label can credibly convey added social value, it really does give its bearers a differentiating advantage.MK What disadvantages can it have?GÜRTLER labels are problematic if the time and costs involved in acquiring the label are high or cannot be properly estimated and the benefits of owning the label are unclear: no recognition, no unique selling point, no reputational gain for the owner, no direct benefit for the buyer, no financial advantages when selling objects. Social labels in particular have a fleeting benefit that strengthens the reputation of the provider but does not provide the consumer with any sustainable added value. MK Where does a label make sense, where less?As already mentioned, GÜRTLER labels make sense for complex products and services with so-called hidden product features. Buyers receive information and guarantees on certain product and performance characteristics via labels, and sellers can differentiate themselves from the competition. It makes perfect sense to award a timber construction label to "socially responsible companies" in the construction industry, where dumping wages, critical working conditions or price agreements occur.MK What do you recommend to the Holzbau Plus seal of quality so that it can grow and flourish?GÜRTLER It takes time for a label to assume its leading role, and intensive communication. No label has yet established itself. It also requires intensive discussion with market participants in order to develop an understanding of the acceptance or non-acceptance of the underlying standards. And the flexibility to change what needs to be changed. Prof. Dr. Stefan Gürtler, FHNW lecturer with extensive practical experience.
