Will Management Restructuring and AI Focus Transform ALSO Holding's (SWX:ALSN) Investment Narrative?
ALSO Holding AG cut its Group Management Board from eight to four and appointed Wolfgang Krainz as CEO. The goal: faster decisions, leaner execution, and more autonomy for local subsidiaries. The company is also leaning harder into AI and platform-led services.
What Changed
A smaller leadership team is meant to reduce friction and clarify accountability. Local markets get more authority to respond quickly, which can improve customer outcomes and sales velocity. The company is prioritizing AI-enabled efficiency and digital platform expansion across its distribution and services stack.
Why This Could Work
Fewer decision-makers often means less delay and clearer ownership of outcomes. Local empowerment can align actions with on-the-ground demand, improving win rates and partner retention. AI can compress cost-to-serve, improve forecasting, and streamline procurement, fulfillment, and support.
Past concerns around management inexperience and limited board refreshment have been noted. A reset at the top can directly address both issues-if execution matches intent.
Where It Can Miss
- Transition risk: restructuring can distract teams and slow delivery in the short term.
- AI integration risk: tools without process change won't move margins or cycle times.
- Culture and clarity: local autonomy needs tight guardrails, or you get inconsistent customer experience.
Signals to Watch Over the Next 12 Months
- Decision speed: time-to-approve and time-to-launch for key initiatives trending down.
- Efficiency: SG&A as a percentage of revenue and EBITDA margin moving in the right direction.
- Revenue mix: higher share from cloud, managed services, and platform subscriptions.
- Customer health: churn, NPS, and partner retention holding or improving during the transition.
- Operational quality: order-to-cash cycle, inventory turns, and cash conversion improving.
- AI impact: measurable reductions in ticket handling time, forecast accuracy gains, and productivity per FTE.
What Managers Can Do Now
- Set a clear operating cadence: monthly KPI reviews with owners, targets, and actions-no slide theater.
- Tie autonomy to metrics: give local teams P&L levers with defined thresholds for margin, churn, and SLA.
- Deploy AI where impact is provable: demand planning, pricing guardrails, ticket triage, and sales enablement.
- Standardize playbooks: one way to quote, fulfill, and support-local nuance sits on top, not beside.
- Publish a 90/180-day change log: decisions made, tools shipped, processes retired-build trust and momentum.
Given recent price weakness, the upside case rests on faster execution and visible efficiency wins. The risk case is integration drag and diluted focus. The next few quarters will show which path dominates.
About ALSO Holding (SWX:ALSN)
ALSO Holding operates as a technology services provider for the ICT industry in Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and internationally. The company's portfolio spans distribution, solutions, and as-a-service offerings across hardware, software, and cloud.
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This is general commentary for information purposes only and is not financial advice.
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