A professional builder’s reliable partner Naulankanta Oy has been in rapid growth in Finland, and is now about to expand also into international markets. The developing business activities of the enterprise have imposed a challenge to change old working methods and information systems to fit in the new situation. Innoman has helped Naulankanta to develop the business strategy and productization, and also to design an internationalization plan.
A professional builder’s reliable partner Naulankanta Oy has been in rapid growth in Finland, and is now about to expand also into international markets. The developing business activities of the enterprise have imposed a challenge to change old working methods and information systems to fit in the new situation. Innoman has helped Naulankanta to develop the business strategy and productization, and also to design an internationalization plan.
In the business activities of Naulankanta, we have now arrived at a development stage where, along with rapid growth and ambitious development targets, we have realized that we need an experienced outside expert to help us to lead our business to the next level. At the strategic level we would like to develop both productization and revenue logic, and at the same time we have examined the possibilities of future growth and challenges imposed by it.
–Innoman’s Pekka asked us the right questions such as ”Have you notice what will happen, if …” Thanks to Innoman’s process, we were able to plan in a new way what is needed to build growth in the future, and which factors we should at least be prepared for. This way we have now been able to prepare systematically for the future growth. Innoman helped us so to say to calm down to focus on the matter and to find new approaches as a team, Naulankanta partner Aki Kinnunen explained us.
–You could say that our entire business has now become more clearly goal-oriented, and there is less hustle around things. The predictability of our business has improved, planning manager Henri Huoso says.
An ambitious aim: to develop simultaneously operations and to launch international activities
The development target of Naulankanta was extremely ambitious. At the same time both the basic business processes were developed and rapid growth was built on the domestic market and also expansion to international markets, in particular to Sweden.
–Yes, in the beginning I did ask myself, are we biting now more than we can chew, and on the other hand, can an outside expert help us in such a complex situation – are we getting value for our money? Now, when we examine the case afterwards, we must say that our cooperation with Innoman has been a very good investment in the future. Within a year, the number of our personnel has doubled from 15 to 30, and this year we’ll hire 17 persons more to Sweden. Such a rapid growth requires the support of an excellent team to do the job, Kinnunen says.
–The committed core team of Naulankanta reserved time for the development work in their calendars, even though there were several other things competing over their time and attention. Decision-making was rapid when all the key persons participated in the process, and the decisions made were implemented at once. This is the most dynamic way to proceed in development projects, and Naulankanta could act as an example to many companies in this matter, tells us Innoman’s Pekka Berg.
An ERP project must be based on the target state of an enterprise
Besides strategy and internationalization, there was a need to develop the information systems of Naulankanta to meet the challenges of the developing business. The operations of Naulankanta combine the characteristics of both project business and product sales. For this reason, the new ERP system will have to support both functions effectively. Innoman’s Venla Berg helped to recognize the development needs of the existing processes and to define the target processes which will enable us to grow and become international.
–For example in project business it is possible to build real-time monitoring of costs, when both tasks, purchases, sales and extra tasks are located in the same system. On the other hand, with regard to product business, the storage efficiency for example can be improved by making the rotation of products more effective with the new system, tells us Venla Berg.
In addition to the definition work, Innoman helped in the ERP project also in the actual tender procedures and in the comparison of candidates.
–Even that was a big help for us, when we got all the parties involved to participate in the defining of the new processes. Along with new operating modes and the information system, the approach and the division of tasks have become clear, and information can be found quickly. Already this has improved our efficiency in a significant manner, and it will make our business even more effective in the future, Kinnunen says.