topsoft
The topsoft is on business software -oriented Swiss trade fair , which takes place since 1995 at least once per year.
history
In 1995 the fair was initiated by the CIM Center Aargau of what was then the Technical College in Brugg-Windisch . The aim was to support the transfer between the HTL and business. Every year the trade fairs were held in the atrium of the main school building (architect: Fritz Haller ). An attractive point of attraction at that time was a PC with free internet access for visitors. At the same time as the exhibition, an attempt was made to make the features of the software on offer comparable. An overview of providers was published in tabular form in print media. The main focus was on PPS functions.
After the initial success, the fair lost a lot of sympathy among the exhibitors from 1998 due to a lack of support. In 1999 the fair was improved and the exhibitors' confidence built up. From this year on, the number of exhibitors grew steadily.
The comparison of providers and their software in tabular form on paper was replaced in 2000 by an (Access) database, which is available to interested parties for free online inquiries.
Increased sales and risk on the one hand and the changing profile of the school, which developed into a technical college, made the trade fair more and more a foreign body from 2004 onwards. The traditional rooms were insufficient, the expansion into the surrounding school buildings only temporarily satisfied the space requirements of the trade fair. In 2005, schmid + siegenthaler consulting gmbh took over responsibility for the trade fair as a spin-off from FHNW. With around 130 exhibiting companies from the areas of enterprise resource planning, ERP systems and inventory management, CRM , business intelligence and project management , e-commerce and application service providing (ASP), this became the most comprehensive trade fair for business software in Switzerland.
In 2008 the fair took place twice, on March 12th and 13th in Bern and for the first time in Winterthur in the Eulachhalle on March 24th and 25th. September. On April 1st and 2nd, 2009, 143 exhibitors were registered in Bern. With 2300 visitors, the trade fair management drew the following conclusion: “The number of visitors to the topsoft business software trade fair has fallen to 2300. The exhibitors are nevertheless satisfied. The high quality of the contacts typical of topsoft cushions the difficult economic environment. ”After the trade fair on September 23 and 24, 2009 in the Eulachhalle in Winterthur, a small topsoft exhibition was held for the first time in Germany. This action took place as part of the new "IT & Business" trade fair at the New Stuttgart Trade Fair Center from October 6th to 8th. The fair was a sponsor of OpenExpo and enabled the open source movement in Switzerland to use a well-known specialist platform. On September 29th and 30th, 2010 in Winterthur, topsoft was held without OpenExpo . Nevertheless, a total of over 1700 visitors were counted, which is roughly the same as in the previous year.
From May 10 to May 12, 2011, the fair took place for the first time in the halls of the Zurich Exhibition Center for three days with 162 exhibitors, 45 specialist presentations and over 450 offers from business software. The topsoft remained the independent trade fair, but was supplemented by the parts of the former Orbit-iEX , which as aiciti was supposed to form the umbrella organization for various events. The sixth event in Bern on October 5 and 6, 2011, with 2030 registered entries, again reached the number of visitors of previous years. OpenExpo was now fully integrated into topsoft. The roundtables on the political and economic situation of IT in Switzerland met with interest.
On December 1, 2011, the trade fair was held for the first and last time in French-speaking Switzerland. 680 visitors were counted for the topsoft and the partner event "Swiss eCom Conference". The event took place in the main building of the Palais Beaulieu (today MCH Beaulieu ) in Lausanne. The commitment is valued by IT providers in western Switzerland. Due to the small size of the market, the language barrier and the competition from France, the event was not held again.
For the first time, the trade fair took place on May 9 and 10, 2012 in Zurich together with the newly founded "ONE" trade fair, with 2582 visitors counted. New events replace the presentations that have been offered for years. Under the name "Business Software Live Contest", 4 ERP providers and 4 CRM providers each showed how they can carry out the individual steps of a given script from the ERP or CRM topic with their software. The practice forums on BI and cloud computing were also new . The various innovations were very much welcomed by both the visitors and the exhibitors. “We think it's very good that topsoft is relying on new vessels while maintaining the focus on business software. This contributed to the fact that more visitors could be mobilized for the fair ”, judged Urs Beerli, Vertec, the event at that time. Martin Bühler from Actricity sees it similarly: “The trade fair is more alive than before and is characterized by a very positive atmosphere.” The satisfactory number of leads and contacts confirmed the high quality of the trade visitors. Magdalena Duda, DACH Marketing Director at Comarch , made a similar statement: “We want to really accelerate in Switzerland. We meet the right target group at topsoft, so we will definitely be there again next year. "
Instead of a trade fair, a software contest was held in Bern on November 20, 2012, accompanied by a small exhibition by the seven participating providers. This occasion was a further development of the contests from May 2012. In four sessions, important elements of a selection process were compared. After introductory specialist presentations, offer structures were first compared. Based on detailed data, the processes of a model company in production and a fictitious trading company were then compared. The comparison of IT contract elements concluded the intensive knowledge transfer of this day. This was the first event at topsoft that was chargeable for visitors and was equally successful for visitors and providers. During the successful repetition on November 26, 2013, five providers answered questions about service processes and five providers presented their software for project-oriented manufacturing.
Topsoft 2013 took place on May 15 and 16, 2013 in Zurich and, with 2,850 registered trade fair visitors, increased by around 10 percent compared to the strong 2012. 152 exhibitors took part in topsoft 2014, around 15% more than in 2013 with roughly the same number of 2670 visitors.
The software contest took place in Bern on November 25, 2014, services and software were compared live. The event was sold out, which shows that the interaction between e-shops and ERP systems is very current. Since then, the live comparison "Software Contest" with changing topics has taken place every spring in Bern.
On August 25 and 26, 2015, the fair was held for the first time together with the SuisseEMEX marketing fair in Zurich, which led to a flow of around 14,500 people. In 2017, the Digital Summit for SMEs was also held for the first time . This successful collaboration lasted until the 2018 edition.
On August 28 and 29, 2019, the trade fair took place for the first time in the environmental arena in Spreitenbach. 100 providers from home and abroad filled this venue. Numerous workshops and specialist presentations were held parallel to the exhibition.
Today's offer
Brief consultations, specialist presentations, special areas and special theme parks are offered at the fair. Since the beginning and until today, all offers at the fair have been free of charge for visitors (admission, specialist presentations, advice, catering in a separate bistro). The topsoft specialist magazine appears four times a year as a separate production and can be subscribed to free of charge. Topsoft also operates a website with a comprehensive market overview, a blog and social media channels.
outlook
The next fair will take place on 2/3. September 2020 in the environmental arena in Spreitenbach .