“The era of the ‘next big thing’ has gone”

Mr. Wüthrich, Swisscom has been working with start-ups for years, investing in start-ups and organising the Startup Challenge. What is the reason for these intense activities?
Roger Wüthrich-Hasenböhler: We are forced to constantly innovate. This is reflected in the fact that we generate 75% of our sales with products that didn't exist 10 years ago. A good example is Swisscom TV: we started in 2006 and today we are the market leader in television over the internet. However, this business is already threatened by global streaming providers. Innovation is a match decider and collaboration with start-ups is important.

What can start-ups do that Swisscom can not do for themselves?
Start-ups are faster, so collaboration helps us to shorten the time to market. In addition, as Swisscom, we are not able to attract the talents who work in start-ups.

Can you give an example of a successful cooperation?
Take KeyLemon: Swisscom Ventures invested in the Valais-based company for the first time in 2013. We then integrated the KeyLemon speech recognition solution for Swiss dialects into Swisscom TV’s remote control.

Today, Proof of Concept (PoC) projects are the instrument through which such collaborations are initiated. What are the success criteria for Swisscom?
A PoC is used to check in a short time whether a start-up’s technology or product is relevant to us. For this, the technology and the market must be interesting,. But the projects also have the objective of bringing cultures together, so it is absolutely imperative that the teams can work together. On the basis of this experience, we decide whether we will deepen the collaboration or not pursue it. That’s why PoCs are very important.

Start-ups can be sceptical about PoCs, because they say they rarely lead to sustainable collaboration. What do you think?
A fundamental scepticism towards PoCs is certainly the wrong mindset. The projects today are paid for by the corporates – which I think is absolutely right – but that also means that it’s up to the start-ups to demonstrate the value of their solution or technology to the big business. In addition, PoCs offer start-ups the opportunity to expand their network within a group. Even if the specific project is not continued, it can lead to connecting points for further collaboration.

Given the great importance that PoCs play today, and not only at Swisscom, it seems important that start-ups should be able to handle this instrument well.
Absolutely. Start-ups need to be able to use this tool. Handling PoCs successfully is now a core competence.

Swisscom has changed in recent years. How will it develop? Which fields will become more important?
Let me say first that the era of the ‘next big thing’ is gone. Today you can not just design something, roll it out and then achieve high sales. That’s why I can not give any conclusive information. "For the time being, we can identify three fields of activities which are a natural fit to our aspiration to constantly innovate. First, financial services; second, the new opportunities that 5G creates for both individuals and businesses, such as the Internet of Things; and third, the blockchain theme in which we are already very active.

The breadth of activities in the blockchain area is remarkable. Swisscom Blockchain AG offers services, there is a pilot project with a private Swiss blockchain called Swisschain, and Swisscom is setting up several new offers from the tokenisation of shares to digital land registers and mobile ID. That means you believe in the potential of blockchain.
Absolutely. If blockchain prevails, it will bring massive changes that are not yet foreseeable, just as it was not foreseeable in 1990 that the internet would bring email.

Bild: Swisscom