IMD published its World Digital Competitiveness Ranking for the first time in 2017. The objective of the ranking is to assess the extent to which a country adopts and explores digital technologies leading to transformation in government practices, business models and society in general. In addition, it provides firms the ability to find better opportunities to strengthen future value creation. This year, the authors studied 63 economies analyzing mainly three factors: Knowledge, Technology and Future Readiness.
Ready for the future
Switzerland moved up three spots in the rankings compared to last year and now ranks 5th, only behind the US, Singapore, Sweden and Denmark. This improvement can be mainly attributed to an increase in the factor of Future Readiness. This factor reflects the level of country preparedness to exploit digital transformation; it is calculated by taking into consideration how adaptive a particular economy is, the level of agility exhibited in the country as well as the level of integration of digital technologies in the economy.
“Compared with a year ago, we have made major progress to better prepare Switzerland for the digital future”, comments Nicolas Bürer, Managing Director of the national initiative digitalswitzerland.
Within the categories, Switzerland scored highest in talent (2nd), attractiveness for highly-skilled staff (1st) as well as in the cooperation and knowledge exchange between business and academia (1st). The country also tops the rankings in scientific research legislation and intellectual property rights. While Switzerland receives top grades for good overall conditions, there is still room of improvement in education and political involvement.
Compared with a year ago, we have made major progress to better prepare Switzerland for the digital future.
