Discussion with Anders Stenbäck

Anders Stenbäck has built a long career in the digital transformation of public companies. He helped to establish HS.fi and saw the media industry being disrupted during his time at Sanoma Corporation. After that, he worked as a Digital Director in the financial services industry at If P&C Insurance Nordics and OP Financial Group followed by the urban development and construction company YIT. Currently, Anders works as a senior advisor and board member for multiple organisations such as Yliopiston Apteekki, Granlund, and many others. In this interview, Anders will discuss why it’s crucial for the management and the board of directors to understand digital efficiency.

Watch highlights from the discussion in the video below.

You’ve recently interviewed dozens of board members across the Nordics, how do the owners and boards of companies currently see the rapidly changing business environment? The risks, but also the opportunities? 

We’ve all gone through the pandemic, and big changes are happening in companies due to hybrid work. Now, looking forward, we see that the supply chains that had a lot of problems due to covid or the war in Ukraine are now picking up speed again. We see that companies are getting good at finding new suppliers, and finding ways to build new supply chains.

Today, the question is about energy sufficiency and how Europe will fare over the winter. I see it as a big opportunity to drive forward digitalisation, from property automation to driving demand and supply in electricity production. These are the things boards are thinking about. 

In addition, the regulation around ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria) is now pushing for a lot of changes in companies; on financing, reporting on their CO2 footprint but also on the subcontractors' use of carbon.

I think that all of these create a lot of business opportunities, so naturally what many leaders are thinking is my company future-proof with these coming regulation changes? And can we actually have a green future and can we make our companies more agile in becoming leaner because it will impact the financing as well. It’s a lot about how your company utilises sustainability and Green Wave, where digitalisation is a tool on that road map.

ESG is also other things than CO2, such as good governance and supply chain management. How do you see the investments in this area?

If I look at my colleagues across the Nordics, the biggest strategic investments are around ESG and corporate responsibility. It’s about how you keep your current customers and make them happy, it’s about your investors, and a way to attract talent. In Sweden, for example, you need to have an ESG strategy with today’s values and actually execute them in the company’s daily actions. In Finland, we are following the EU taxonomy and trying to fulfil all the criteria such as carbon footprint calculations and reporting practices, but we’re not building a story around it; Who are we as a company and how do we attract talent? There’s a lot of opportunity here, building companies where people can find purpose. And this is something we can learn from Sweden, and to utilise it to combat the attrition we’re now seeing. 

How does all this show in the digital strategies? 

To me it seems like the time where, for example, a lot of the budgets that have gone into big IT system renewal projects is now over. Companies don’t want to spend a lot of money on huge projects with a lot of risks, as many have moved to agile practices and also agile budgeting. So it’s more about “run and maintain”. For everyone planning those budgets, the focus should be on operational efficiency and concrete business value. And if we’re now going towards an economic recession, it’s more about how you can get more out of the employees and the infrastructure you already have in place. How can we automate? How can we reduce waste? How can we use new digital tools in a more open architecture way? 

Do you have any concrete examples from the companies you have been working with?

Recently, I’ve been working a lot with real estate, property owners, and builders. They want to understand what is happening in the buildings, so it's a discussion around IoT, sensors, and how to organise the data you get, how to build the architecture and the ontology. In order to make things that help you drive the efficiency of your portfolio. Once you have the data, you can start looking at automation, AI, and algorithms. I believe that the energy crisis will accelerate these types of innovations and investments.

What’s going to be the biggest difference between last year and next year?

I’m seeing many types of process automation from car dealerships to online travel booking, where bits and pieces of existing processes are being automated and the companies are getting great results with small tweaks. I think digitalising customer service will be one area, for example automating your marketing with more advanced CRM systems, including robotics.

You can say that there are three types of innovation: Transformative business models, maintaining innovation and efficiency innovation. It seems that the efficiency part has been forgotten lately. What do you think?

A lot of big corporations are struggling with innovation, largely due to the everchanging organisation. What I’m trying to do in the boards where I sit is to build bridges between the large players and the smaller innovative companies to find points of integration. How to combine the speed of innovation that is happening in these smaller companies with the scale and reach of larger companies. 

What kind of companies are the next generation when it comes to automation and process efficiency, and how do they operate?

It will be a lot about how to utilise business agility, speed, and open architectures with limited investments and knowhow of streamlining processes. Inherently in large companies there is not a real sense of urgency to develop processes and find efficiencies even though there is so much to improve. Ask questions such as can we do this smarter, or faster or in a better way?

What are the themes that boards and owners should understand when it comes to efficiency?

Previously a lot of boards and leadership teams didn’t have very sound technology understanding, but that is now changing. We still have room to improve, so I’m trying to help companies understand enterprise architecture to make informed decisions on where to invest first in order to build more efficient processes, better UI, or better customer experience. It’s important to create a roadmap of investable pieces so that it does not become overwhelming. AI or RPA are just tools to build efficient processes, but you need to have a sound business case to back up the investments and explain the desired outcomes.