Swisscom Appoints CEO, Updates Strategy

BERNE, Switzerland -- The Board of Directors has appointed Urs Schaeppi as Swisscom’s new CEO. To increase the effectiveness of its services for business customers and enable it to offer cloud-based solutions more quickly, Swisscom is bundling its Corporate Business and IT Services activities. From 1 January 2014, all corporate customers will be served by the new Enterprise Customers division, which, with more than 4,500 employees, will become one of Switzerland’s largest integrated ICT providers for corporate customers. “We want to better exploit the growth opportunities in this business and offer our customers one-stop solutions,” says Hansueli Loosli, Chairman of the Board of Directors.

The Board of Directors of Swisscom Ltd have appointed Urs Schaeppi as new CEO with immediate effect. He has been with Swisscom for 15 years, becoming Head of Corporate Business in 2007 and Head of Swisscom Switzerland at the start of 2013. He has been acting CEO since 23 July. “Urs Schaeppi has an in-depth knowledge both of the industry and of Swisscom and boasts an excellent track record,” says Hansueli Loosli, Chairman of the Board of Directors. “He is results-oriented and can ensure the company’s continuity. We are convinced that Urs Schaeppi will lead our company into a successful future.”

“We will continue to pursue our current strategy and further strengthen the core business with top-quality service and simple, compelling offerings on an even more powerful network,” says CEO Urs Schaeppi. “We see opportunities for growth in cloud solutions and related markets such as home networking and eHealth.” The new CEO will also focus on further developing the company’s activities in the business customer market and exploiting the opportunities offered by increasing digitisation.

Changes in the business customer market present new opportunities Business customers are increasingly looking for efficient, one-stop ICT solutions that will simplify their processes and reduce costs. Technological development and increasing mobility are facilitating new business models and processes and fundamentally changing the requirements of business customers. Conventional telephony is being replaced by IP-based services, for example, while mobile working and cross-company solutions are becoming the standard. At the same time, customers are increasingly demanding powerful, permanently available IT and communications solutions. In the case of cloud-based services in particular, the security and storage of data in Switzerland is becoming an ever more important factor in business customers’ decision-making processes. The use of cloud services also creates synergies through previously unheard of flexibility, permits networking of a diverse range of services and represents a further step in the industrialisation of telecoms and IT processes. The changes present new opportunities for Swisscom to use its expertise in telecommunications, IT and connectivity to develop innovative solutions.

Swisscom AG (NYSE: SCM)