Major US corporations like Amazon and Microsoft have been showing for many years how work will change in the future. They have developer teams in the US, marketing think-tanks in Britain and logistics centres in continental Europe. These teams all work together 24/7. When it’s the end of the business day for the marketing team in Britain, the developers in the US are starting work. Using the same data. The finished product then finds its way into production and finally the logistics centre.

This permanent collaboration is Internet-based. Employees are constantly connected via their companies’ own networks and they have secure access to the relevant data and contacts.

However, not all Internet access is the same. If you look at today’s networks in Switzerland or those of its European neighbours, you’ll see that uniform connections are also associated with challenges. Some branch offices have worse Internet access than others. Individual telephone exchanges can break down, and in spite of various service level agreements in the business environment, stability is not usually guaranteed. Added to this, connecting new locations is still relatively labour- and cost-intensive and there are not enough opportunities for quickly scaling up your own network.