The 37-year-old young scientist Ivo Blohm from the Institute of Information Management (IWI-HSG) has won this year’s HSG Latsis Prize. Ivo Blohm is Assistant Professor of Data Science and Management and is being honored for his research in the field of business analytics.

Ivo Blohm received his doctorate in 2013 under Prof. Helmut Krcmar at the Technical University of Munich. Since then, he has been working at the Institute of Information Management (IWI-HSG) at the chair of Prof. Jan Marco Leimeister, first as a postdoc, since 2016 as an assistant professor. He is currently writing his habilitation in the field of advanced business analytics. He is investigating how companies can systematically use data from social media, internet communities and other digital platforms to improve their decision-making and business processes and their innovative power.

The Latsis Prize honors young scientists up to the age of 40 at Swiss universities for outstanding contributions. The prize has been awarded annually since 1983 by the SNSF on behalf of Fondation Latsis, which was founded in Geneva in 1975. The formal presentation ceremony in Geneva is cancelled this year as a result of the Corona situation. Instead, the prize will be handed over on October 12, 2020, during the meeting of the Senate of the HSG in St.Gallen.

Agile and agility is not only about creating great workplaces and empowering people (which is also important), but rather about business outcomes.

Or in other terms: Making money from Agile.

In our next workshop on the 20th and 21st June 2019 in Zurich, we will discuss this topic with you and present our insights afor the following questions:

What is strategic agility (versus operational agility)?

Which capabilities and characteristics determine agility on a strategic level?

We are excited to welcoming our partners,guests and keynote speakers and are looking forward to an interesting two days!

The Competence Center workshop series starts February 12. Following the successful kick-off workshop in December, the workshop series continues with the first workshop in 2019 held on February 12 & 13 at the Institute of Information Management in St.Gallen.

While there were many interesting discussions between our partners, keynote speakers and guests, one topic stood out. Sooner or later, the discussion would circle back to “the value contribution” of agility. Hence, the upcoming workshop will adress this topic in greater detail. We will present insights from academia and practice. Thus, our goal is to develop a measurement tool for determining the value contribution of agility on different units of analysis (e.g., team, function) and for different contribution areas (e.g., time, flexibitliy, quality). On top of that, we will have speakers elaborating on the challenges for HR Management in an agile organized Team or Function by reporting from real-life cases.

We are excited to welcoming our partners,guests and keynote speakers and are looking forward to an interesting two days!

After an eventful summer, including the pre-launch event in June and many more interesting talks with agile transformation experts, the Competence Center Agile Transformation will kick off on Friday, December 7, 2018. The event will take place at the Executive Campus (WBZ Holzweid) of the University of St.Gallen.

The main focus of the workshop will be the setting of a (research) agenda for the next year. In addition, we already want to undertake a first working session towards agile KPIs and an agile benchmark. On top of that, we are looking forward to welcoming four CEOs from startups and SMEs, that already took the bold step towards a more egalitarian and agile organization for a roundtable discussion.

We are excited to welcome our partners (Credit Suisse, Helsana, Zurich Insurance) as well as other selected guests and are looking forward to an exciting and insightful day!

We warmly welcome Helsana as our latest partner and looking forward to an inspiring collaboration! Helsana, alongside Credit Suisse and Zurich Insurance, will push their transformation efforts by becoming a partner in the Competence Center.

We are thrilled to announce that Credit Suisse joined the Competence Center Agile Transformation! Credit Suisse runs one of the largest Agile Transformation programs in Switzerland and we are excited to be a part of this change program.

The Competence Center now cooperates with Zurich Insurance and Credit Suisse – two of the largest and most well-known Swiss companies.

We believe that this is a great sign and that there are many companies more to follow!

On 3 September 2018, the German Federal Government’s “Zukunftsgespräch” on new forms of employment in the age of digitization took place in the baroque Meseberg Castle near Berlin. Also present: Prof. Dr. Jan Marco Leimeister, Director at the Insitute of Information Management of the University of St.Gallen. Jan Marco Leimeister, a crowdsourcing expert recognized throughout Germany, was invited to give a keynote speech and to be available for discussion with the members of the Federal Cabinet including chancellor Angela Merkel.

“Crowd mechanisms are increasingly being incorporated into external and internal business processes and play an important role in the design of new forms of digital work,” says Leimeister. In order not to fall behind leading economies such as the USA in this area, it is necessary to deal with the design of this new form of work organization at an early stage. At the same time, possible risks for society and social systems must be effectively countered in time. “I am very pleased to have made my small contribution to this success by advising the German Government and the social partners at the “Zukunftsgespräche” in Meseberg.

We are excited to announce that the Competence Center Agile Transformation cooperates with Zurich Insurance Group! We are very much looking forward to working with business as well as IT units to push the Agile Transformation at Zurich.