HWZ strengthens Center for Marketing & Sales

"Many customers long for a sense of home and security as a counter-trend to anonymous globalization. Brands that meet this need for closeness, genuineness and authenticity are therefore particularly successful," says Dr. Stephan Feige, who heads the newly founded department for authentic brand management at the HWZ. Feige has a doctorate in retail-oriented brand management, has worked as a marketing lecturer at various institutions and has been a partner at the management consultancy htp St. Gallen since 1999.

Potential in sales & distribution

The area of sales and distribution is severely underrepresented in teaching and research in Switzerland. Developments such as multichannel management, new technological systems and the increasing demands on personal selling need to be understood and managed more systematically. Dr. Jörg Staudacher, partner at WATC Consulting AG, is the head of the specialist unit. He has been involved in the design of numerous successful study programs, has conducted several studies in the field of sales and distribution and is an international expert in the better use of customer information in sales.

Tasks of the specialist units

Both departments form an interface between research and teaching at the HWZ and the business world. They are involved in practice-oriented research and serve companies, associations, the administration and the steering committees of the Swiss universities of applied sciences as contacts for technical questions and for other forms of cooperation in which scientific expertise is sought. Both new specialist units carry out studies and projects, publish findings and offer researchers and companies the opportunity to exchange ideas.