Departure to a new working culture

How collaboration creates room to act - for people and machines.

collaboration.ch helps leaders turn human-machine collaboration into an AI-native operating model: one that expands room to act, not one that shrinks it.

Why now

Work is changing faster than structures can keep up

Since the 1960s, the average tenure of a company in the S&P 500 has fallen from 50 years to 18 today. Whoever fails to reorganise how people, machines and processes work together loses room to act before they notice.

AI is accelerating this further. The gap to the best is widening faster.

01

Distributed work

Work is distributed globally whenever it stays part of the same process. Location matters less, coordination matters more.

02

Human-machine collaboration

We increasingly work with AI and AI agents - fundamentally changing how work gets done and how people work together.

03

Decentralisation

Rigid, one- or two-dimensional org charts give way to flexible process chains and teams that assemble themselves.

04

Acceleration

Whoever loses margin and buffer loses the ability to act. Room to act becomes the real currency of change.

50 → 18 years average S&P 500 company tenure, 1960s to today - still falling.
The approach

Imagine clients, employees, partners and machines collaborating as one

When human-machine collaboration truly works, value compounds across every relationship in your business - that was the starting thesis back in 1987, long before the first chatbot: structures that raise profit and quality of life at the same time.

Perceived value for clients

Seamless collaboration between people and machines that clients actually feel - not friction they have to work around.

Satisfied employees and partners

Next-generation tools that help people get the job done - with noticeably more room to act, not more screen time.

Solid cash flows and enterprise value

When collaboration works end to end, the result is durable performance: stable cash flows and lasting enterprise value.

Self-assessment

What's your Collaboration Index?

A short, concrete check across four dimensions: trust, decentralisation, human-machine balance, and room to act. In a few minutes you get a first read on where your organisation stands today.

Start the Collaboration Index
Trust
Decentralisation & room to act
Human-machine balance
Distributed collaboration
Operating model

An AI-native operating model - with humanism built in

An AI-native operating model

Next-generation software is no longer a headache to work around - it is real help to get the job done. We design the operating model so information turns into tangible action, with minimal screen time. This is what real digitisation looks like today.

Humanism at the core

As ABB chairman Peter Voser puts it: "Trust your people - when there is trust, performance follows." Technology only creates value when people stay at the centre: AI augments human judgment and meaning rather than replacing what makes teams effective.

"Technology used to be operational. In the last 10 years something decisive has changed: technology is now strategic."

Peter Voser, Chairman of the Board, ABB AG - UZH Alumni Lunch, 4 June 2026
The project

Departure to a new working culture

The title is no coincidence. In 1992, Prof. Dr. Bruno Krapf wrote "Aufbruch zu einer neuen Lernkultur" ("Departure to a new learning culture"), on new patterns of thinking in teaching and learning.

Almost four decades ago, in 1987, Eric Krapf wrote a school essay at the Kantonsschule Büelrain in Switzerland about his professional future: he wanted to develop and implement organisational structures that raise profit and quality of life at the same time.

Since then, Eric Krapf has pursued the same question for the world of work: how do we build structures in which people - and now machines too - can genuinely collaborate with joy, purpose and success?

That pursuit took him through a wide range of companies. During seven years in Germany he founded two companies himself and became one of the youngest board members of a German public company. Back in Switzerland, he served as Vice President, CEO and Head of Sales at companies large and small - among them board member of TSI Software AG, CEO of Atos AG, Head of Engineering Services Europe at Tata Consultancy Services, and VP Europe and Head of Digital at Quest Global.

Today, Eric Krapf is the driving force behind the PROFITABLEGROWTH Group, which builds AI-native growth systems with and for companies - grounded in the principles of "Departure to a new working culture": humanism, respect for the individual, democracy, freedom, constructivism, creativity and reciprocity.

1987

Kantonsschule Büelrain

School essay on his professional future: organisational structures that raise profit and quality of life at once.

2013

Research

Collaboration capital, distributed work, and the economics behind global collaboration.

2018

"Spielräume" address

University of Zurich graduation ceremony: collaboration and the ability to act become more important than obedience.

2026

PROFITABLEGROWTH Group

Departure to a new working culture, put into practice - AI-native growth systems for companies.

Today

The PROFITABLEGROWTH Group is this thinking put into practice - for companies convinced that profitable growth, humanity and high job satisfaction don't just belong together, but actually depend on one another.

Visit profitablegrowth.ch
Offering

How we work together

A focused engagement that moves from clarity to a working AI-native operating model.

01

Assess

We find where human-machine collaboration can add real, perceived value in your specific context - not generic transformation.

02

Design

We shape an AI-native operating model around your people and outcomes, keeping humanism and judgment integral throughout.

03

Activate

We turn information into tangible action with minimal screen time, so the new way of working sticks and compounds.

Grounded in research

A point of view built on evidence, not hype

The thinking behind collaboration.ch draws on dedicated research alongside work from McKinsey and the University of Zurich, plus behavioural-science studies on trust and cooperation - among them David Rand (Harvard) and Joachim Bauer (University of Freiburg). Cooperation, research shows, is intuitive to humans - not the exception.

Contact

Let's have a first conversation

A short conversation to explore how human-machine collaboration can add value in your context - no obligation.

Eric Krapf