Stefanie is passionate about the development of innovative business models in cross-industry ecosystems based on innovative technologies. After completing her banking apprenticeship, studies and doctorate, she worked for Ernst & Young and UniCreditgroup in Corporate Finance Advisory for more than 10 years and then established applied research and training programs with a focus on digital banking at a Zurich University of Applied Sciences. Since 2018 she has headed the Ecosystems competence field (former CC Sourcing). Stefanie is an author (including "Client Value Creation: The Zurich Model of Client-Centric Banking Architecture") as well as a lecturer and advisory board member on various committees.

Blog post Governance mechanisms in the context of platforms and business ecosystems

Less than 15% of business ecosystems are successful in the long term – the main reason for failure is weaknesses in the governance model. It is therefore time to question which governance mechanisms are fundamentally available for business ecosystems and whether there are any application examples (successful or failed). The following blog post looks at a possible catalog of incentive and control mechanisms for business ecosystems.

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Development of Business Ecosystems in the DACH Region and the Potential of “Digital Files” as a Starting Point for Integrated Services

For the past four years, the Ecosystems Competence Center has been regularly investigating which business ecosystems are emerging and developing in the DACH region. This ecosystem radar is supplemented by selected international business ecosystems. A fundamental prerequisite for offering customers integrated solutions through various partners in a Business Ecosystem is the concept of the “digital file”. By this we mean a collection of relevant data related to a specific object on which these solutions focus. Such digital files, e.g. around the object house or car, are currently emerging in all Business Ecosystem areas we observe. This blog post describes the developments of selected Business Ecosystems as well as approaches of digital files.

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Leadership in Swiss Banks

How are leadership styles developing in Swiss banks – basically, Lewin’s traditional leadership styles such as authoritarian/patriarchal, cooperative, etc. are well known. Nowadays, a distinction can also be made between transactional and transformational leadership. This article explains how these leadership styles differ from each other and why the leadership styles in banks are changing towards agile organizational forms.

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Trend Impact Radar 2023: New Trends for the Financial Industry – Part 2

The Competence Center Ecosystems regularly identifies and analyzes the most important trends impacting financial institutions and financial-related service providers. In doing so, we address the development of megatrends, macrotrends and microtrends as well as their impact on the financial industry. As a follow-up to our last blog, which focused on the megatrends and macrotrends we identified as newly relevant to the financial industry in our last internal update, today I would like to present a selection of related microtrends that relate to the topics of data, customer, employees and corporate responsibility.

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Trend Impact Radar 2023: New Trends for the Financial Industry

The Competence Center Ecosystems regularly identifies and analyzes the most important trends impacting financial institutions and financial-related service providers. In doing so, we address both the development of megatrends, macrotrends and microtrends as well as their impact on the financial industry. Today, I would like to share the four mega and macro trends that we have newly identified as relevant to the financial industry in our latest internal update: Web 3.0, AR & VR / Metaverse, Generation without Borders / Permanent Beta and Standards in Telecommunications.

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Race for the Pole Position in the Metaverse – Business Opportunities for Banks

In the media, Meta (formerly Facebook) is positioning itself very strongly as the future metaverse, and it seems as if Meta is building the “one” metaverse. This impression is deceptive. In this article, we will talk about what a metaverse is, which competitors are currently building metaverses, and what opportunities they open up for banks.

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9 Steps to Unlocking Business Ecosystems

The development of a business ecosystem promises the opportunity to provide existing customers with integrated services through cooperation, in some cases across industries, and to gain access to new customer groups. However, building a business ecosystem by yourself is a challenging task, as there are many parties to orchestrate around a value proposition that is attractive to all participants. To increase the chances of success for such a project, it is worth taking a structured approach that not only helps with the design of a promising solution, but also with discovering potential stumbling blocks as early as possible and, at best, avoiding them. One such approach, which is already used by several banks in German-speaking countries, is presented in this article.

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Five Data Strategies for Banks

Ideally, a bank’s data strategy should be derived from its corporate strategy. Possible goals of the data strategy can be process optimization with associated cost reduction, better customer understanding (which can also lead to cost reduction or revenue optimization), or the development of new business models. The following blog post provides an overview of which data strategies for banks there are generally and which use cases can be observed in practice.

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The Potential for Innovative Business Models in the Financial Industry with the Establishment of a Circular Economy

To preserve our world for future generations, we must take action now to stop global warming. The interesting question is how to achieve this. If you consider that CO2 emissions are largely caused directly or indirectly by us consumers, you could assume that we would have to do away with the customer. “Traditional sustainability makes the customer the enemy.” This is where the concept of the Circular Economy comes in, with its concept of decoupling growth and resource consumption. In contrast to linear value creation with its “take-make-use-dispose” concept, the Circular Economy relies on a regenerative system, a circular economy in which the concept of “waste” no longer exists.

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Business Ecosystem, Innovation Ecosystem, Platform Ecosystem – How Many Ecosystem Terms Do We Really Need?

The trend towards value creation in ecosystems has led to a multitude of ecosystem definitions in the past. This makes it difficult even for the interested reader to understand the research results presented. To what extent do the ecosystem concepts really differ and can the findings of one field be transferred to the other?

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Effects of the Coronavirus Pandemic on the Financial Industry

Since the beginning of 2020, the coronavirus pandemic has caused an enormous slump in the global economy due to lockdowns all over the world. The IMF expects global GDP to decline by 5%, and for the euro zone it is likely to be as much as 10.2% [1] – and these are the figures before a possible second wave. It remains to be seen how the economy will recover. What can already be well assessed, on the other hand, are the qualitative effects of the pandemic on the macro trends relevant to the financial industry.

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