Blog and news posts in all categories

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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Strategic Role Profiles in the Context of Open Banking for Swiss Banks

In the context of Open Banking, four different role profiles can be distinguished that banks can assume: Individualist, Producer, Distributor and Platform. The role profiles are differentiated with regard to the distribution and creation of services and allow banks to put together a tailored, new business model in the individual banking areas. In the second part of this three-part blog post series, the individual role profiles will be described in detail and their impact on a bank’s business model will be illustrated.

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Study results analyzing the needs of Swiss individuals for trusted data spaces 

To harness the potential of data to better target societal and economic needs and foster innovation, the Swiss federal administration is promoting the development and operation of trusted data spaces for its citizens. In order to identify the needs of the individuals of Switzerland in terms of data spaces and thus to involve the population in the process of developing trusted data spaces, the Business Engineering Institute St. Gallen has developed a study in collaboration with the University of Lausanne. The following is a brief summary of the results of the study.

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Implications of Open Banking for the Business Model of Banks 

In order to implement Open Banking, the European Union has been pursuing a regulatory-driven approach with PSD2 since 2018. In contrast, Switzerland is currently one of the few countries like the United States, Argentina, South Africa, and China to pursue a market-driven approach. However, last December, the Swiss Federal Council addressed Swiss financial institutions with a clear message and wants to accelerate developments around Open Banking. The first part of this three-part blog post series presents the impact of Open Banking on the business model of Swiss universal banks.

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This was the Open Banking Summit 2023

After the successful Summit 2022, the doors opened again on August 24th at Google in Zurich for this year’s Open Banking Summit 2023. With over 100 participants and top-class speakers, the OpenBankingProject once again proved to be one of the enterprise networks in the context of Open Banking. This blog post summarizes the content of the Open Banking Summit 2023.

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Research Area Distributed Ledger Technology

The Competence Center Ecosystems of the Business Engineering Institute St. Gallen develops solutions for relevant problems from practice. In the context of this blog post, the overall research goal of the re-search area Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is presented. This research goal is to develop a frame-work that demonstrates and supports the methodological approach of DLT implementations to enable companies to adequately address relevant requirements of the implementation process of a DLT.

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Research Area Business Ecosystems: Presentation of the current research project: Conceptualizing the accumulation of value (value capture) through a framework

Within the Competence Center Ecosystems of the Business Engineering Institute St. Gallen we develop solutions for relevant problems from practice. For this purpose, we use scientific methods within the framework of a consortium research project. This paper gives an insight into the current research project in the research area Busi-ness Ecosystems. Here, a framework for conceptualizing the accumulation of value (value capture) is developed.

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The potential and development of data spaces

Today, companies and individuals alike generate, process and use an immense amount of data, which, according to estimates, will continue to grow worldwide from 64.2 zettabytes in 2020 to an estimated 180 zettabytes in 2025. However, then as now, the global data economy is dominated by individual companies, the so-called BigTechs such as Alphabet, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft. One way to realize data exchange and use apart from the monopolistic BigTechs is based on the concept of trusted data spaces. But what exactly are data spaces and how do they work? This blog post addresses this question and shows a possible target picture for data spaces in Switzerland from the Business Engineering Institute St. Gallen.

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Trends, trends, trends – nothing is as constant as change

The world is shaped by various trends, first and foremost megatrends. Megatrends describe complex dynamics of change that shape society for more than ten years. They can be used to make the complexity of change more understandable. Megatrends affect all levels of society and thus influence companies, institutions and individuals. It is essential for companies to analyze the opportunities & risks associated with the trends at an early stage. This blog post presents the selected megatrends of health and sustainability as well as the associated macro and micro trends.

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Collaborative value creation in digital ecosystems: Success factors using the example of a blockchain-based tokenization platform 

Nearly all companies today operate in ecosystems. Traditional business networks are giving way to this new value creation model, in which multiple organizations collaborate to more effectively meet the needs of customers. This shift to ecosystem-based value creation requires efficient coordination and the use of technology. In this regard, an innovative enabler for the establishment of digital ecosystems is blockchain. But what are the capabilities to participate as an actor in these new platforms? In this paper, we will take a closer look at these platforms using an existing example and derive initial insights for success factors in shared value creation.

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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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Tokenization – Potentials, Challenges and Use Cases in the Environment of the Financial Industry – Part 2

Tokens describe digital representations of rights and obligations associated with valuable assets. For financial institutions, tokenization of value offers promising use cases starting with direct investment in SMEs, access to emotional assets, and expanding their own service delivery to customers. These use cases demonstrate that the use of blockchain technology to map tokenized value can open up new investment opportunities for customers, increase customer loyalty, or jointly exploit additional opportunities.

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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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Business Ecosystems – Overrated or a real opportunity for financial services providers?

A few years ago, the topic of “business ecosystems” seemed to be the panacea for financial services institutions – everything “HAD” to be or become an ecosystem. Now, the yield curve is turning and earnings from maturity transformation are bubbling up again. So, all over with the “ecosystem”? In addition to answering this question, this blog post highlights aspects to be considered by organizations to successfully leverage the Business Ecosystems phenomenon.

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Development of core banking systems in Switzerland  

In 2017/2018, the Core Banking Radar examined the eight most relevant core banking systems for Switzerland using a comprehensive methodology. In 2022/2023, the interviews with representatives of these established systems in Switzerland were repeated in order to find out how the systems have developed. This blog post highlights the four overarching activities that core banking systems have been engaged in over the past few years.

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Asymmetric cryptography and digital signatures – Part 2

The first part of this blog series introduced the concept of symmetric cryptography, which can en-sure the confidentiality of data to be exchanged. Symmetric cryptography is based on the funda-mental assumption that the key used, which is to be kept secret, must be transmitted between the communication partners via a secure channel, since otherwise third parties with knowledge of the key can access the ciphertext. Accordingly, with the help of symmetric cryptography, the problem of secret message transmission is reduced to secret key transmission only. To get around this prob-lem, this second part of the blog series presents an introduction to the concept of asymmetric cryp-tography.

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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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Tokenization – Potentials, Challenges and Use Cases in the Financial Industry Environment

In connection with blockchain technology, the financial industry often talks about the tokenization of assets and attributes enormous potential to it. In the context of the supposed potential of tokenized assets, it is worthwhile to start by taking a more detailed look at the definition of the term. In the first part of this series of articles, potentials and challenges of tokenization in the context of the financial industry are discussed. Selected use cases are presented in the second part and positioning opportunities for financial institutions are outlined in the third part.

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Distributed Ledger Technology for the Real Estate Market – A Meaningful Synthesis?

The global financial crisis is a prime example of the real estate industry’s relevance to and close interconnectedness with the financial industry. To prevent the real estate market from negatively impacting the financial industry, different challenges need to be solved. Technological innovations such as distributed ledger technology (DLT), especially blockchain technology, have opened up new opportunities for addressing these challenges in recent years. This post analyzes the impact of DLT on each step of the real estate acquisition process (particularly the mortgage process).

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Applying Reference Models – From Bank Model to Core Banking Radar

Reference models are, as the name suggests, models that can be used as a reference when creating a company-specific model. In order to show how the use of a reference model can look like, this article describes how the so-called functional model specific to the Core Banking Radar was derived from the bank model, which queries the coverage of functionalities in core banking systems.

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Exemplary Measures & Key Takeaways for Banks in the Context of Launching a Digital Assets Offering

The first part of this two-part blog post outlined challenges for a bank launching a digital asset offering. As a starting point, a financial institution was outlined which, in a first step, would like to enable wealthy private clients to trade selected digital assets (e.g. Bitcoin and Ethereum) in cooperation with an external partner. In the second part, selected measures are presented, success factors are described and key takeaways for the launch of such an offering are highlighted. The contents are based on experiences from projects and discussions with experts.

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Selected Challenges & Success Factors for Banks in the Context of Launching a Digital Assets Offering

Various banks have opened up more to the topic of digital assets in recent months and are actively driving forward concept and implementation projects for a digital asset offering or are already offering one. For a successful launch, various fields of action need to be addressed. The basis for the conception, operational implementation and launch of a digital asset offering is to ensure the relevant expertise in the appropriate depth and breadth both in the project team and in the specialist departments involved during the conception and implementation phase, the leap from a project-oriented way of working (Change the Bank, CtB) to operation (Run the Bank, RtB), and anchoring in the corporate culture.
This blog post will outline selected challenges in these three areas of action, present exemplary measures, describe success factors, and highlight key takeaways.

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