Most innovative entrepreneurs will tell you that failure drives success. Olivier Rihs, Managing Director of Scout 24, is no different. “At our Flamatt site, we are constantly putting new services and functionalities to the test. Consumers will never hear of two-thirds of them.” For the boss of this company, which manages the online platforms ImmoScout24, AutoScout24, MotoScout24 and anibis. ch, “New technologies have made it less expensive to fail. You don’t need to have loads of money to launch several versions of the same product. This is why our philosophy is "fail fast, fail cheap!”, jokes Rihs. As a result, his team dares to be creative and explore entirely new avenues. “We plan to develop complete ecosystems around each of our platforms. For example, with AutoScout24, we could expand our services to include things like car insurance and the latest auto industry news.”

Humanizing digitization

“It might seem paradoxical but the key to commercial success in these digital times is making people the center of the company again.” Olivier Rihs, the Managing Director of Scout24, is quick to add that “Thanks to digitization, Switzerland has never had so much work. But the jobs it has generated are totally different and demand flexibility on the part of people working in other sectors of the economy.” During a person’s working life, “you have to be prepared to change jobs at least seven times. Although the Swiss vocational education system offers an array of transfer courses, it is still playing catch-up.” Rihs also believes that the traditional company structure needs shaking up: “It is not by proposing a pyramid hierarchy that you’ll attract the real talent. At Scout24, we prefer a flat structure that centers around projects and small teams.” The boss of the Flamatt-based company urges the young – and the not so young – who are looking to retrain: “to think about technology professions. After all, Switzerland’s most precious natural resource is its brainpower!”

→ www.scout24.ch