Entrepreneurship in Switzerland

On the basis of a survey involving a representative sample of 2’000 adults, and face-to-face interviews with 36 experts in 2002 , the following conclusions can be drawn about the current level of entrepreneurial activity in Switzerland:

With a Total Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) of 7, 13%, Switzerland is very close to the average (7,15%) of the OECD countries; it is considerably behind the USA (10,51%), but ahead of most EU countries, except Ireland (9, 14%).

Only 12% of entrepreneurs in Switzerland launch their firms out of necessity.

Most of them are motivated by an opportunity they perceive.
According to this survey, the typical Swiss entrepreneur is male, between 25 and 34 years old, with a higher education, employed at the time of creating his firm and someone who knows at least another entrepreneur.

Switzerland presents a number of positive elements, which make the country generally favourable to business: a disciplined, well-educated labour force with high work ethics, a strong free-market policy and abundant financial resources as well as excellent infrastructures. Other aspects, however, hinder the country from deriving optimal benefits from the creation of new firms. These are mainly linked to socio-cultural norms, governmental policy and education: entrepreneurs are misunderstood and negatively perceived, schools fail to stimulate would-be entrepreneurs, economic policy take for ever to adapt itself and investors are reluctant to finance start-ups – Switzerland is underdeveloped when it comes to the venture-capital industry. Moreover the number of female entrepreneurs is particularly low (4,8%).

In Switzerland, four in five new enterprises come from the services sector .

Real estate and business services are the most prevalent (30%), following by informatic (12%) and trade (20%). In the secondary sector, building industry provides nearly 60% of new enterprises. Finally, more than 95% of the new enterprises start their business with less than five employees. These are small to very small enterprises.

In terms of geographical distribution, the percentage of new enterprises is highest in the Zurich region followed by the region around Lake Geneva, the Central Plain and North West Switzerland.

SwissParks.ch , the club of Swiss Technology parks and business incubators, aims to promote technological advance and strategic positioning of new and emerging businesses all over Switzerland. It consists of fourteen members, which are mainly located right next to a University campus. Most of them are open to any corporation or entrepreneur, beginner or seasoned, willing to gain access, in the context of a scientific collaboration, to the University institutes. They offer to all partners the variety of latest technologies developed inside the University or the University laboratories. Locating a company at a technology park is often conditioned by the existence of strong synergies with the University laboratories, another University or other companies located in the same park. Companies have normally six months once they are located on site to concretely develop such synergies.

Description of two best practices

The OpportunityBooster Program (www.managementbyopportunity.com)

The Opportunity Booster Program, designed and managed by Raphael Cohen, serial-entrepreneur and business booster in Geneva, provides customized training sessions to meet participants’ objectives in the following areas: entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship, strategy, marketing, business and competitive intelligence, negotiation, creativity and innovation, coaching and leadership, change management, project management and business plan.

On the basis of a new management approach – the Management by Opportunity – it brings to potential entrepreneurs the necessary tools to seize opportunities and analyse potential risks and obstacles. Participants also learn to identify the constraints as well as the critical success factors of their future enterprise. The program promotes initiative, encourages innovation (products, services as well as management techniques), empowers participants with real tools to turn their ideas into action, and finally stimulates motivation and effectiveness

Apprendre à Entreprendre (AàE) Project

How to encourage entrepreneurship from the earliest years ? An original experience has been launched in Sion (Valais), aiming at stimulating would-be entrepreneurs aged between 15 and 19 years (lower secondary, vocational training schools).
Based on a close partnership between schools, economic development organisations and local authorities, AàE project pursues an ambitious program :

• awake perception of corporate culture at school and within involved circles
• develop a know-how as well as the ability to turn an idea into action
• root this process in an interdisciplinary approach and through practical activities, closed to young people

Through the common setting up of a real business project, supported by teachers and entrepreneurs, students get acquainted with business environment and improve the abilities of the potential entrepreneurs of taking decisions in concrete situations of an everyday business. In the same time, students get feedback from their trainer / teacher on their decisions, actions and behaviours. At the end of the project, students can sell their product on the market. In 2001, it was a fragrance and last year a guide for extreme and risky sports. This successful approach is going now to be generalized in other schools all over Switzerland.