Deloitte presents Best Managed Companies Award to four firms - first-ever Swiss Gold Standard goes to Capri Sun

Four exceptional Swiss firms in private hands have been recognised by Deloitte and its partners. The Ospelt Group, dss+ Consulting, Revizto and the Sowind Group have received the Best Managed Companies Award 2024 for their exemplary business management in four key areas. They are distinguished by their high degree of agility, their resilience in challenging times and their fierce innovative spirit. Supported by SIX Swiss Exchange and Bank Julius Baer, Deloitte presents the Best Managed Companies Award annually in partnership with an independent judging panel. For the first time ever, a company was awarded the prestigious Gold Standard after Capri Sun passed the gruelling audit for the fourth time in a row.

The ‘Best Managed Companies Award’ competition is run by Deloitte Private in 48 countries. It sees businesses compared against Deloitte’s globally recognised benchmark in a comprehensive assessment. This benchmark has been continuously enhanced in the more than 30 years since the programme was launched. Participating companies receive an independent, in-depth appraisal of their governance methods and overall performance. This shows them where they currently stand in four key areas of business management compared with a global community of over 1,400 of their peers with outstanding management practices.

Four main pillars in the evaluation process

The award is preceded by an intensive, multi-stage coaching and assessment process that all participating companies have to go through. The focus is on evaluating the company’s performance in the four core areas of strategy, productivity and innovation, culture and commitment, and governance and finances. Firms that perform to an above-average level in all four categories have a chance of winning the award.

“The past twelve months have remained difficult for businesses,” says Andreas Bodenmann, Head of Deloitte Private, who is in charge of the programme. “Geopolitical instability, the labour shortage and the stubborn inflation that many countries are grappling with all present extremely challenging business risks that companies have had to react to and then realign themselves with. The four firms that have won the award have been exceptional in how they have mastered these and other challenges. They have responded effectively to change, demonstrated agility and resilience in taxing times and carved out a stable position for themselves in a volatile market,” he says.

Exemplary company management: meet the award-winners of 2024

Four privately or family-owned firms were named the Best Managed Companies:

• As a leading provider of consulting and business management services, dss+ Consulting is committed to bringing about a sustainable future for its customers, its staff and the whole of society. The company helps organisations to improve how they produce their products and provide their services and thereby become more secure, more efficient and more sustainable.
• The Ospelt Group has decades of experience in developing, producing and marketing national and international private-label brands in the food and pet food sectors. The group is also a successful player on the Swiss market through its Malbuner and Le Parfait brands. Based in Bendern in Liechtenstein, the family business has seven manufacturing facilities spread across five sites.
• Revizto offers innovative software solutions for architecture, engineering, construction and other firms, giving them a user-friendly platform for seamless collaboration on 3D and 2D projects. Ensuring easy access to project information streamlines the decision-making process, reducing the amount of reworking required.
• Sowind Group SA brings together the two luxury watch brands Ulysse Nardin and Girard Perregaux, both of which are among the oldest independent high-end watchmakers in the world. They have played a key role in bringing the watch industry forward in terms of both technology and design.

Eleven repeat qualifiers and first Gold Standard awarded

The competition does not end after a year, however, since all of the participating businesses can undergo the same assessment regularly, attend workshops and qualify for the award again. In 2024, eleven companies that had previously received the Best Managed Companies Award succeeded in doing just that:

• Groupe Acrotec SA
• ATP adhesive systems AG
• ECSA Group
• Läderach Schweiz AG
• Precipart SA
• Suhner Group
• Teoxane Laboratories SA
• Variosystems AG
• Vista Group
• Wipf Group
• Capri Sun Group

Worthy of special mention is the Capri Sun Group, which qualified for the Best Managed Companies Award for an impressive fourth year in succession and which was therefore awarded the programme’s Gold Standard in 2024. This marks the first time in the programme’s history that a company has been given this honour.

The prizes were presented at a formal awards gala held at THE HALL Zurich and attended by numerous leading business figures.

Deloitte champions Switzerland as a business location

“The firms that have won the Best Managed Companies Award have every reason to be proud,” says Andreas Bodenmann. “They have made it through a tough assessment process and demonstrated their exemplary business management in impressive fashion. This is why they are leading lights in their industry and have shown an amazing amount of creativity and innovative spirit while staying true to their fundamental values. As a driving force for innovation, privately held companies are crucial to the diversity and strength of Switzerland as a place to do business,” he adds.

In its capacity as an audit and consulting company, Deloitte Private supports firms like these with the challenges that they face in the areas of growth, compliance, reporting and audit. It tailors its wide range of services from the entire Deloitte universe precisely to the companies’ specific needs so that they are able to hold their own and position themselves successfully for the future.

Judging panel made up of business leaders and academics

This year’s panel tasked with assessing the participating companies comprised Jens Breu, CEO of the SFS Group, Tanja Vainio, Country President of Schneider Electric Switzerland, Thorsten Hartmann, Head Location Basel at Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd, and Prof. Thomas Straub, Professor for International Management at the University of Geneva.

About Switzerland’s Best Managed Companies

The Best Managed Companies Award is an awards programme that honours privately owned companies for their organisational success and their achievements. It offers a clear framework for management teams who would like to benchmark themselves against the best privately held companies in the world. Since its launch in Canada in 1993, the Best Managed Companies programme has developed into the most important business award of its kind, which is now presented in 48 countries. The first pictures from the 2024 awards ceremony in Switzerland (if using these, please specify Deloitte as the source) are available here.