EPEA Switzerland uses TimeTrack to document projects, send reports to customers and manage confidential information.
Albin Kälin is the founder and managing director of EPEA Switzerland GmbH. He has already received a number of awards, including the CEO Today Europe Award 2021. His company, EPEA Switzerland GmbH, was founded in 2009 and supports the development and implementation of the Cradle to Cradle design concept in companies across a wide range of activities worldwide. EPEA Switzerland GmbH is an accredited assessor of the Cradle to Cradle Certified® certification.
Yes, I would be happy to. We at EPEA Switzerland are an accredited assessor for Cradle to Cradle certification. We are a team of 24 people and operate globally through our supply chains. We are about redesigning products. This is because society has been educated to think linearly. At our company, we have a different mindset – we focus on cradle to cradle rather than cradle to grave as linear thinking dictates. We redefine products and help companies make them circular. Simply put, we help our customers take out toxic substances that are inside products and achieve cradle-to-cradle certification.
Our goals are very clear: we want to pave the way for companies to create the circular economy and take toxic substances out of products. We need to create systems in society that can keep raw materials in the cycle. We have a responsibility – not just as a company, but more importantly as people – to make sure that we provide future generations with enough raw materials that are good quality, that are non-toxic, so that they can then make their own products that meet their expectations.
We are doing well in pursuing these goals. 6 projects of ours, from a wide range of industries, were nominated for the German Sustainability Award and 2 of them also won the prize. Last year, we also worked with the Frosch brand, with whom we have been collaborating for 11 years, to design an innovative or the only recyclable packaging. Frosch also received the German Packaging Award 2021 for this.
“We set very clear conditions here, and TimeTrack was flexible enough, and also very professional, to implement these special wishes or requirements. We are extremely satisfied.”
We work on a lot of different projects – we take the consulting role in some cases, but also the reviewer role. We also have freelancers with us who contribute to the individual projects. These different roles must be clearly separated and accurately represented. We also need to be able to map and manage confidentiality well – this is where TimeTrack has been a good alternative for us.
We have tested the software very thoroughly and made sure that it meets our requirements, which are very high. We are an international company and have to manage a lot of confidential data. We had to make sure that the software provider would guarantee this security for us. We set very clear conditions and TimeTrack was flexible enough and at the same time very professional to implement these special wishes or requirements. We are very satisfied. For example, we needed multiple currencies within the software – again, TimeTrack was very open and allowed us to find a good solution relatively quickly and at an affordable price, which we are very happy with today.
In our decision-making process, it was important to create concrete IT solutions for our projects. TimeTrack understood this quickly and implemented it quickly. Trust was also created quickly. We were able to work out really good solutions here with TimeTrack on a technical level, which could be implemented immediately and are now also very satisfactory in use. The operation now runs flawlessly, as we were well instructed. We had a 2-hour training session, which is not long – TimeTrack did that very well. We are very satisfied and felt well supported.
It should also be said that using software is only half the battle. Creating all the data structures or getting the organizational layout of a new system right often leads to problems in businesses. I would like to say that I am really very happy with how it worked for us.
There are various additional values. The biggest additional value for us is certainly the possibility to prepare the data very quickly and send it to the customer in PDF format. Another important issue for us was the quick introduction of international currencies. This has created another additional value for us. We had other special wishes and requirements for TimeTrack that were directly related to our company and our customers. We work with very confidential and protected data and TimeTrack easily added features to the software that were important for our projects.
Our customers are also satisfied with this format. TimeTrack was able to implement it perfectly. I really have to stress this because it was not an easy constellation, as confidentiality plays a very important role in our projects.
Yes, you have an insanely charming sales person, among other things. Of course, sales and PR play a big role, but the most important thing about a software is of course that it works. It’s also important that certain criteria are met and that the service is not only fast, but also accurate. I really tested TimeTrack thoroughly to see if the software fit our company. We had to have specific customizations made for our application and this customization has been done excellently. The whole thing works and is very easy to use.
I’m usually the first to complain if something gets too complicated – and I have to be honest, the software does that pretty well. Many of our team come from industry and are a bit older, so we don’t necessarily have the speed to use these tools. TimeTrack solves this issue in a very age-appropriate way.
I would definitely recommend TimeTrack. EPEA Switzerland is not necessarily a big organization, as we are 24 people in our team. However, we have thousands of companies in the supply chain that we deal with. And that’s where TimeTrack comes in well. The software is well suited for individualized solutions. You can represent different fields of activities and projects with different companies very well. Therefore, I can say yes, TimeTrack has passed the test. And I would like to add – I am Swiss. And the Neue Zürcher Zeitung once wrote that I am very strict.
I think it’s also important to address the topic of internationalization again. The project with TimeTrack has definitely helped us here. In a modern world, there are more and more global networks and teams that have to work together remotely and in different time zones – and I think you have a good solution. TimeTrack is very networkable – that’s a strong asset, because that was my biggest bellyache.
By digitizing the project documentation, TimeTrack was able to support EPEA Switzerland in its technical development. As the company works with a lot of confidential information, it had high requirements to ensure that the data was also protected within the system. The cooperation has worked flawlessly so far, so that all employees can use the system without any problems and EPEA Switzerland’s customers are also satisfied with the project time reports.
