Op-Ed: Let’s Make 2026 the Year of Face‑to‑Face.

Are you still going into the office? Then apparently you’re the odd one out. Somewhere along the way, the five‑day office week – once the unquestioned norm – has turned into a curiosity. Have we quietly transformed into a leisure society?

A fitting metaphor: right next to our new Munich office stands a giant Ferris wheel, spinning day and night. A symbol of what? Balance? Escapism? Or simply the fact that our cities – and many of our work habits – have changed dramatically?

I just returned from a trip to the US, meeting dozens of business leaders on both sides of the Atlantic. Despite differences in industry, geography, and culture, one theme came up again and again: How do you build strong, successful organisations in times as volatile as these?

Geopolitical tensions, AI disruption at breathtaking speed, collapsing and re-emerging value chains – every business is being forced to rethink itself from the ground up.

Yet the leaders who still succeed share a common denominator: great teams, high competence, ownership, and a shared mission.

Remote works – until it suddenly doesn’t.

In stable years with predictable challenges, working from home functions (reasonably) well. We’ve all seen that. But these are not stable years – and 2026 will be no exception. When fundamentals shift almost weekly, when critical decisions must be made with incomplete information and considerable urgency, something changes:

The quality of decision-making improves dramatically when people sit in the same room.

Twenty years of advising clients on strategy, M&A, crisis navigation, and transformation has taught us a simple truth: the toughest, most consequential decisions are better handled face‑to‑face.

And it’s not just board-level strategy. Meeting new prospects, engaging existing clients, deepening industry relationships – all benefit from the immediacy and trust that digital meetings still struggle to replicate.

We need more resilience. More alignment. More presence.

If 2025 has shown us anything, it’s that organisations without cohesion struggle to stay agile. Teams that rarely meet struggle to build loyalty. And leaders who aren’t visible struggle to inspire.

It’s time to recalibrate.

Let’s make 2026 the year of face‑to‑face.

Not a nostalgic return to the past – but a conscious investment in what makes organisations strong.

So let’s commit to meeting again:

ISE in Barcelona
Infocomm Asia events in Beijing, Bangkok, Mumbai
Infocomm Las Vegas and Mexico,
and of course at our DSS events around the world.

We’ll be there – to meet, discuss, network, learn and share in person.

See you in Barcelona.

Florian