its EU and trade analyst, advises them to ask “the appropriate Swiss regulator or chamber of commerce about any authorisations or licences required to continue trading. In the meantime, UK firms would benefit from some clarity from the British government on how it plans to work with Switzerland to address post-Brexit barriers to bilateral trade in services.”
TALENT TIPS
Attracting Swiss recruits, meanwhile, can be tough, as they prefer established local employers to foreign newcomers. So says Davies, who admits “hiring has been the most difficult aspect of doing business here. It was initially hard to sell them the Ebury story.” Cheatle agrees. “There’s almost full employment here, so the ‘hey, come join us!’ approach can put off the Swiss. It helped us to have well-respected blue-chip global clients already. If Ten were a start-up, it would have been harder for us,” he says, adding that it’s important for any British firm with a presence in Switzerland to recruit a local to lead the operation. “Sending out someone from your head office to do the job won’t work.” The good news for newcomers to Switzerland is that it isn’t particularly bureaucratic, according to Hood, who says: “Setting up here is quick and easy. In most cases it takes two to four weeks and costs about £4,000.” Geodesic uses a treuhand – a local service that helps with registrations, VAT calculations and other accounting processes, says Gledhill, who notes that it’s worth playing “the canton game” to control your operational costs. All of Switzerland’s 26 semi- autonomous member states have the power to set their own tax rates. These can vary widely. The effective corporate tax rate in the canton of Geneva is 24.2 per cent, for instance, but it’s 12.3 per cent in Lucerne. As he notes: “Moving 50 yards down the road can significantly change your tax burden.” Gledhill also highlights a potentially frustrating facet of Swiss culture: the need for consensus, which can delay decision-making. “You don’t just need to convince the boss; you have to get everyone else on board too,” he says. “Once a decision is made, though, things tend to run much more quickly.”
SWISS WATCH
How to avoid a chilly reception from
clients in Switzerland
DON’T GO OFF PISTE
“The Swiss sometimes suspect that Brits (and Americans) might play a little fast and loose with the detail,” says Alex Cheatle. “The ‘shiny suit and grin’ approach won’t win you contracts here. They have highly
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tuned BS detectors and will look under the bonnet of any firm they deal with. If you go to a meeting and say: ‘Let’s figure this out as we go along,’ they’ll bid you goodbye.”
MIND YOUR LANGUAGE
“Francophone Switzerland can lull you into a false sense of security. If you start thinking: ‘Hey, I’m in
France,’ you could be in for a rough time,” warns Richard Gledhill. “For one thing, ensure that all of your marketing materials are multilingual.”
CLOCK ON TO CLOCKING OFF
“Forget about running a 24/7 business here,” Cheatle says. “The Swiss are focused on quality of life and prefer to work normal
office hours. The British culture of ‘let’s work at the weekend or late tonight’ is considered unprofessional and an intrusion into people’s personal lives. That said, the Swiss are super-efficient when they are at work.”
WHEY TO GO “On your first trip here, try
drinking some Rivella,”
Cheatle advises. “This is a Swiss soft drink, similar to what Irn-Bru is for Scotland. It’s made from milk whey but it tastes less disgusting than that sounds. Order one and the Swiss will like you that little bit more.”
JOIN THE FIRE CREW
“If you move to Switzerland, it’s easy to join an expatriate
community and have nothing to do with the Swiss outside work, but you’ll find it harder to connect with local clients,” Gledhill says. “The best way to engage with the Swiss is to join local organisations. Most towns have a volunteer fire brigade, for instance. Sign up – it’s a great way to build relationships.”
Switzerland has four national languages.
4
In descending order of usage, they are German,
French, Italian and Romansh. Only 0.5 per cent of the population
have Romansh as their native tongue, which means that it’s spoken far less widely than English in
Switzerland
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This consultative culture is perhaps no surprise in a country famed for holding referendums. Since the UK put Brexit to the electorate in June 2016, Switzerland has held more than 20 plebiscites on issues ranging from gun control to the dehorning of livestock. April 2019 saw a first in Swiss law when the supreme court ordered that a referendum (on whether the same income tax rates should apply to married couples and cohabiting partners) be rerun, because the government had published false data. While German economist Klaus Schwab was planning the inaugural Davos summit in 1971, the UK was applying to enter the European Economic Community, which would ultimately become the EU. As it prepares to leave nearly half a century later, it faces the prospect of having insular and idiosyncratic Switzerland as, some might argue, its closest continental partner.
“Having never been part of the EU, the Swiss have a level of understanding when looking at the UK’s decision to go,” McEvoy says. “They’re absolutely not judgemental from a business perspective. Many Swiss firms would like to access the British market. It’s in Switzerland’s interests to keep an eye on whatever we do next.”
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