Prof. Dr. Rolf Hichert

Creative mind and frequent key-note speaker at international conferences. The visual language of the International Business Communication Standards (IBCS®) is based on his idea of a semantic notation in reports, presentations, and dashboards. He put together the SUCCESS rules of business communication.

„Many management reports should be called data analyses or statistics since they don’t actually report anything.”

After studying mechanical engineering in Stuttgart, Rolf worked for the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology and Automation (IPA). He was a consultant at McKinsey & Co. and afterwards professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Constance. Thereafter he was cofounder of MIK and managing director of MIS Switzerland.

In 2004 he founded HICHERT+PARTNER (today IBCS® Institute).

„The practical thing about maps is that north is always at the top and rivers are always blue. Similar rules could also increase comprehension in business charts.”

 

In 2013 he transferred major parts of his intellectual property to the newly founded IBCS Association in order to discuss it in public forums, disseminate and further develop it under a Creative Commons license.

„If musicians are able to visualize a symphony with the help of sheet music, then businesspeople should be able to find a standard notation for monthly sales in their reports.”