Management & Administration
Running a small or medium-sized business requires a connected view of strategy, money, customers and people. This programme brings those perspectives together in a practical approach to managing the business. Work through your company's challenges, examine assumptions and establish achievable priorities. Swiss institutional references provide context, while exercises reflect your sector, resources and stage of development.
Request informationYOUR PROGRAMME AT A GLANCE
For individuals & organisationsWe agree a start that fits your professional and personal commitments.
OSAM certificates: according to your starting level and learning goals. Company group programmes are usually planned in days or half-days.
Federal preparation: see pathway durations belowSynchronous teaching. Both formats include the OSAM platform for course materials and organisational information.
From an eduQua-certified institution.
Related federal examination pathwaysAn individual quotation confirms the programme, delivery format and applicable fees.
Highly personalised teaching with experienced practitioners working at a high professional level.
FROM KNOWLEDGE TO CAPABILITY
For business owners, management team members, successors and professionals coordinating several functions within a small or medium-sized enterprise.
YOUR LEARNING JOURNEY
These modules form the core programme. Where useful, we refine the emphasis, examples and learning activities to reflect your professional context, starting point and objectives.
Describe your customer proposition, target groups and principal sources of income. Use structured analysis to identify opportunities, constraints and dependencies. Develop a short set of testable priorities and examine the resources, relationships and decisions needed to move the business towards its next stage.
Read basic financial information and distinguish profit, cash availability and funding needs. Simplified cases cover cost structures, budgets and cash planning. Develop useful questions for the accountant or fiduciary adviser and establish a clear basis for regular financial reviews and discussion of variances.
Review customers, offers and important interactions from first contact to ongoing service. Exercises help you explain value clearly and prioritise commercial activities. Connect customer needs with profitability and a realistic assessment of the time, skills and financial resources available to the business.
Clarify roles, expectations and essential personnel processes for an organisation with limited resources. Plan recruitment, onboarding and employee development. Position Swiss employment and social insurance questions within these processes and prepare complex issues for discussion with appropriately qualified specialists when necessary.
Map a significant workflow and identify handovers, sources of error and unnecessary delays. Define simple quality checks and clear responsibilities. Explore operational risks through prioritisation, preventive measures and the practical question of maintaining essential services when normal working arrangements are disrupted.
Assess digital tools against a specific business need, rather than a feature list alone. Consider expected benefit, effort, information and adoption together. Your final implementation plan connects the programme's themes with owners, milestones and a small set of meaningful review criteria.
THE PEOPLE BEHIND YOUR PROGRESS
Educational direction, subject expertise and adult learning support. Your final trainer assignment is confirmed in your proposal.
DIRECTOR’S PERSPECTIVE
Managing Director
Simon Pawolleck provides OSAM’s overall direction. The focus is on relevant skills, a clear learning structure and personal support that connects professional ambitions with practical progress.
EXPERT’S PERSPECTIVE
Programme Director · SME Management
Dr. Alec Corthay brings the programme’s subject expertise into focus. The educational approach connects a structured foundation with practical situations, relevant exercises and feedback aligned with your professional objectives.
ADULT LEARNING & ANDRAGOGY
Head of Adult Learning
Federal Diploma of Higher Education in Adult Education
Sandrine Mélé oversees the adult learning approach: coherent progression, active participation and learning methods that take account of prior experience. She supports a structured, practical and human approach to developing competence.
SWISS FEDERAL QUALIFICATION PATHWAYS
OSAM offers the following examination preparation in related fields. An OSAM certificate course in this topic is not automatically the complete federal preparation programme. We confirm the appropriate pathway, scope and admission requirements with you before enrolment.
BFG Schweiz / FEP Suisse — Bildung Führungskräfte Gewerbe Schweiz
A vocational qualification or equivalent and at least two years in an SME leadership role; alternatively eight years of SME leadership experience. All six required module certificates or equivalences must be held and be no more than five years old.
Admission to OSAM preparation and admission to the federal examination are separate decisions. The responsible examination committee assesses your individual evidence.
A practice-based federal professional examination assessing the integrated application of the six modules in the candidate’s own professional work.
The examination organisation decides on admission. Its current examination regulations and deadlines take precedence; preparation and examination registration are separate steps. We confirm the preparation language separately from the examination language: an English-language information page does not mean the federal examination is offered in English.
Federal professional qualifications are awarded through the relevant federal examination. eduQua certifies the continuing education institution; it does not itself award a federal qualification.
SBFI / SERI — official professional qualifications registerActive at a high professional level, selected against demanding criteria.
Developing the skills of their employees with OSAM.
An experience centred on the people who learn with us.
Personal career goals. Shared organisational priorities.
SERI / SEFRIeduQua-certified institution. Federal qualifications listed by SERI in selected pathways.
TRUST, BUILT THROUGH EXPERIENCE
From ambitious individuals to established organisations. Discover some of the companies that work with OSAM.
LEARNERS’ VOICES
OSAM Google review rating
As displayed on the OSAM website, 4 November 2026.View Google reviews“Patient teaching and very engaging lessons.”
“Excellent quality and personalised practical scenarios.”
GOOD TO KNOW
For business owners, management team members, successors and professionals coordinating several functions within a small or medium-sized enterprise. The programme is available to private individuals and organisations, including company teams. OSAM welcomes learners living or working in Switzerland as well as international participants joining live online.
OSAM is an eduQua-certified continuing education institution. An OSAM certificate documents the learning agreed for your programme; eduQua is a quality label for the institution, not federal recognition of every individual course.
The related federal qualifications listed on this page are recognised Swiss qualifications, recorded in the official SERI register. They require the prescribed federal examination and admission conditions.
SERI / SEFRI official registerOSAM’s work connects individual professional development with the needs of companies in Switzerland and internationally. Client references and learner reviews below offer a practical view of that work.
You develop skills you can apply in real situations, with guidance from experienced practitioners and access to learning materials on the OSAM platform. The programme focuses on these outcomes:
Yes. We start with the established programme and refine the emphasis, practical cases and learning support where useful. Adjustments take account of the individual or company’s professional context, existing skills and goals. The agreed programme is confirmed before enrolment; federal examination requirements remain binding where applicable.
For the OSAM certificate, contact us to review your current level, prior experience and objectives. We will confirm the appropriate entry requirements and any recommended preparation.
A vocational qualification or equivalent and at least two years in an SME leadership role; alternatively eight years of SME leadership experience. All six required module certificates or equivalences must be held and be no more than five years old.
Examination details & official sourcesYes. Foundations can be adapted to a proposed venture and used to test assumptions and planning steps. Individual legal, tax and financing advice remains a separate responsibility for appropriately qualified advisers.
No. The management foundations apply across industries. Your processes, customers and operating context guide the case selection and the depth of particular modules.
Yes. A project can provide a common thread throughout the programme. Scope, delivery and fees are agreed after a needs discussion, and confidential material is used only within an agreed framework.
YOUR CAREER, IN PERSPECTIVE
Depending on your experience and qualifications, this subject can support development in the following professional directions.
Explore Swiss salaries on SalariostatYOUR NEXT STEP
Tell us where you want to go. Together, we will define the learning journey that gets you there.
info@osam-academy.com+41 31 528 01 28