The fact that our managing director Christian Burkhardt is a fan of the Swiss national sport of wrestling can be seen in practically every sentence of the following lines. He is not the only one. More and more Swiss people are becoming enthusiastic about the proud sport of sawdust. Which values remind him of Bubu and why, you can find out in the blog.
Noe van Messel is and remains one of the greatest promises in Swiss wrestling. Because of this, but also because of a personal relationship, we decided three years ago to support him in his sporting development.
Since then, the sport of swinging has come closer and closer to us and we are pleased to see that the parallels to us are manifold – and yet they can be reduced to a common denominator: Swiss Made! There is not much more typical for Switzerland than the sport of Schwingsport. It unites very Swiss characteristics, which we also like to put on our banner. While our history dates back some 80 years, that of the sport of wrestling was first recorded around the time Johannes Gutenberg invented printing. So we still have some catching up to do…
The numerous similarities between Schwingsport and Bubu in terms of their Swissness can be reduced to three pairs of characteristics: Tradition and change, mentality and pride, and diversity and quality.
Tradition and change
The sport of Schwingsport thrives on traditions and tradition. Our work also has its origins in traditional craftsmanship, which has shaped our business since the days of my grandfather. To this day, bookmaking remains our kingpin and forms the basis for innovation and new things.
Change is closely linked to tradition, as it is the often unmentioned essence of being able to continue traditions at all. While the sport of swinging is making its transition to commercialism under the guise of the tried and true, we are very transparently focusing our business development not on the tried and true, but on digital connections, networking and automation. However, we can only make this change because we are aware of our foundation, traditional bookbinding.
What Noe and we have in common are traditional Swiss values: down-to-earthness, fairness, honesty
Mentality and pride
Swingers exude down-to-earthness, a sense of honor and solidarity. They are mentality monsters” in the sawdust and always remain close, or rather do not take off. I was particularly impressed by the realistic, sober and self-confident view of Noe van Messel when he told us about his training for his comeback after an injury.
We bookbinders are also very proud of our work and our skills – the numerous bookbinding artists in our ranks make us incomparable to other businesses! As a manufacturing business, we focus on our skills and know our strengths and weaknesses. In addition, as a Swiss family business, values such as honesty, loyalty and commitment are a matter of course for us. Sustainable work has accompanied us since my grandfather founded the company and not just since the media, NGOs and society have demanded it.
Diversity and quality
What the «Übersprung», «Brienzer» or «Gammen» are for swinging, the thread stitching, adhesive or flatbook binding are for us: as a Swiss producer, we live from variety at the highest quality. Swiss Made also means to stand out from the crowd and not to offer “the same”, but to surprise our customers and our environment with something new, fresh, high quality, personal or unique. The diversity of Switzerland, of the swings in the sport of wrestling or of the products of Bookfactory / Bubu may not always be entirely comprehensible to outsiders, but all in all it leads to unique solutions which – in the case of Bookfactory / Bubu – make us stand out from the market.
So there is a lot that connects Schwingsport and Bookfactory. So not only do we keep our fingers crossed for Noe van Messel for the upcoming swing season, but we will continue to do everything we can on a daily basis to stand up for the aforementioned characteristics!
Blog post by Christian Burkhardt,
CEO Bookfactory
