Top-class marketing lesson - it's about purpose!
Once again, the Swiss Economic Forum was sold out - and there were solid reasons for this. Not only was the list of invited speakers impressive, but the entire program also made a compact and thematically relevant impression. At the same time, the SEF is also the platform for Switzerland's most important young entrepreneur award, and after a tour of the economic policy horizon by President Doris Leuthard, British historian Timothy Garton-Ash pointed out the global shift in power from West to East that is becoming increasingly apparent. MIT professor Erik Brynjolfsson - known as a global digital guru - emphasized in his remarks that repetitive tasks, whether in industry or services, will be taken over by machines in the future. As a result, human labor will be in demand primarily for interpersonal tasks and creative services. This shift will also require education systems to be realigned. The CEO of Tengelmann, Karl-Erivan Haub, called for top managers to engage with the topic of digitalization in order to learn and understand. At the same time, he pointed out that he sees the CFO function as the biggest obstacle to the necessary change. Understandably, he was unable to provide a patent remedy for cracking this "nut". In his role as CEO, he can also override his CFO himself.
Yvon Chuinard, outdoor freak, founder and owner of Patagonia One of the highlights of this year's SEF was definitely the 78-year-old founder and owner of Patagonia, Yvon Chuinard. In his modest and unspectacular manner, he delivered a marketing lesson of superlatives. Chuinard describes himself as an anti-entrepreneur who came to his leadership role at Patagonia by chance. As a teenager, he actually wanted to spend his life surfing and climbing. However, as the climbing hooks of the time (from Europe) were of poor quality, he began to forge them himself. The quality was so convincing that this material was not only bought by his friends but by an ever larger circle of customers. And the same thing happened with textiles. Here, too, he created jackets and other items of clothing with the primary aim of equipping himself in a practical and functional way. In other words, the "purpose" of his work was not the market, but himself, with the conviction to produce material that was durable and sustainable.
Don't buy this jacket" advertisement - think twice before you buy He has remained true to this principle to this day and began early on to dedicate one percent of his sales to the conservation of nature. The advertisement he placed in the New York Times many years ago is legendary: "Don't buy this jacket" - by this he meant that people should not buy out of boredom, but only when it is necessary. As part of this conviction, he also introduced a repair store where defective material can be made functional again. The title of his bestselling book, "Let My People Go Surfing - The Education of a Reluctant Businessman", sums up his leadership conviction: recruit people with great self-motivation and independence and give them plenty of freedom. With the success of Patagonia, Chuinard has proven that this seemingly exotic management approach can lead to sustainable success. Of course, for the sake of completeness, it should be noted here that implementation in a listed company is likely to be much more difficult.
The SEF 2018 will take place on June 7 - 8, 2018 in Interlaken.
