Lindström aims for the fastest processes in the sector

“The fastest and most reliable processes in the sector” is one of the central issues of Lindström’s vision. The same ambitious approach also describes Lindström’s strategy process.

Lindström prepares its strategy more thoroughly for five years at a time, and updates it annually. For the strategy period 2016-2020, there was a need to find partners who could bring in the whole organisation’s views and facilitate the whole process, while actual expertise came from Lindström’s personnel. The task was not very simple in a company that operates in 25 countries, being a market leader in most of them. The group has three main business areas, and the service portfolio provided varies in different countries due to the market development phase. There are, therefore, plenty of competence and different views.

A strategy that is as good as our own wisdom can achieve, was Managing Director Juha Laurio’s view of the mission. Preparing the strategy had to be thorough in order for the end result to be simple, comprehensible and well justified. The process also had to produce clear priorities as a basis for the implementation.

Fountain Park and Capful planned a strategy process for Lindström in cooperation, where all the views were taken into consideration but also the necessary selections were made.

At first, Fountain Park’s virtual brainstorming was used to map the change trends in the operating environment, as well as the company’s strengths and areas for improvement. When these central themes for the strategy had been processed further in the workshops and the most essential ones in terms of the strategy had been selected, the next online phase focused on looking for means: Which measures should be implemented in each area? At the same time, strategic themes were introduced more widely in the organisation, i.e. the implementation of the strategy was initiated.

The company wanted to make the strategy process as open as possible, and therefore any employee, in addition to those assigned to the process, was able to register on the intranet for the online phases. All in all, nearly 300 employees from many different countries participated in the process.

The results of each online phase were processed in market-specific workshops facilitated by experts from Capful, as well as in the strategy-drafting project group that made the final suggestions for formulating the strategy. In a global organisation, gathering all participants in the same room is difficult, and therefore video conferencing possibilities were naturally utilised in the workshops.

The core of the new strategy is a clear set of priorities that are already rapidly being developed further. According to Managing Director Laurio, launching the implementation of the strategy was very fast, as the open process and the communication supporting it had already helped introduce the justifications and alternatives in the organisation.

We have had to hit the breaks in order not to launch all the development projects at the same time and thereby risking their success. We can save something for next year.

Further information: Teppo Nieminen