Keep Driving Business Innovation in Hong Kong

Hong Kong remains a fast-growing powerhouse for Zühlke to realise market potential in Asia.

With a history of over 50 years of engineering excellence, Switzerland-headquartered Zühlke is a global innovation solution service provider that helps businesses transform smart ideas to market success. Zühlke came to Hong Kong in 2018 following a substantial digital project with a major bank in the city. In just three years, the company has already built its rapport in the city in the field of digital transformation for banking and financial services, and eyes diversifying its portfolio and expansion in Hong Kong and Asia.

Luca Cacchiani, Business Solution Manager of Zühlke Hong Kong, believes that the vast development of wealth and private banking has provided a bright path for the company to expand their verticals. “A lot of large financial institutions in Hong Kong are diving into digitalisation. With Zühlke being locally present in a strategic location here in Hong Kong, we can support these institutions and capitalise this rising trend.”

Meeting surge of digital demand after pandemic

Despite the global economic slowdown in 2020, it has been a progressive year for Zühlke. The group has seen a nine percent increase in their net revenue globally, thanks to the surging demand on digital initiatives and transformation projects. “We have been growing rapidly in the last two quarters, and also expanding to serve other market verticals at the moment. We’ve doubled our team size since 2020 and expect to double again by the end of 2021.” said Julie Pourtois, Business Development Director.

In Hong Kong, Zühlke recently worked with one of the new virtual banks to launch their core banking services. The team has also been supporting the development and launch of the new NHS COVID-19 application now used by over 2.7 million users in UK for contact tracing and alert functions. As a cross-regional project led by the London office, the Hong Kong team played a key role in driving the app’s user experience design.

A high-calibre local and international talent pool

Zühlke Hong Kong sees their global workforce and its cultural diversity as their core asset. “We are now running projects with talent of over 12 nationalities,” Cacchiani said, “This brings fresh perspectives to our work. With their multidisciplinary background and work experiences around the world, they bring a dynamic approach towards the work we do. This diversity allows us to see problems in different dimensions, and offer better solutions to tackle clients’ challenges.”

“As an employer, we put a lot of focus on bringing onboard excellent local talent with the right skillsets. Tech talent is scarce everywhere around the world, but the high-calibre talent we can find here is truly valuable,” Pourtois added.

While its Hong Kong division is still young, they have a great ambition to enhance their capabilities and clientele. “Hong Kong sits at the heart of Asia, and is a region of strategic importance for many global companies like us to connect between the East and the West. We will continue to strengthen our foothold here in Hong Kong and progressively scale up,” said Pourtois. “We are also going to expand and diversify our portfolio following our team growth in Hong Kong. There are several fast-developing fields that we want to tap into, such as IoT and data science. In Europe, Zühlke is very strong as well in the healthcare technology and medtech sectors. So, there are definitely a lot for us to explore in Hong Kong.”