Investment in digital service production brings customers closer

A growing challenge for Stora Enso Wood Supply Finland was to reach the forest-owners better and ensure the supply of wood needed for the forest industry. The company decided to seek the answer with new digital services in collaboration with Tieto.

A direct channel to forest-owners

The ownership of Finnish forests is becoming highly fragmented. The number of forest owners is continuously growing, individual forest properties are getting smaller, and more and more of the owners are city-dwellers.  Reaching the forest owners has become a key question. For years Stora Enso has had the digital eMetsä (“eForest” in English) service, where various personal forest services related to selling wood, making forestry plans, and handling forest tax bookkeeping are offered. 
“However, we lacked a channel open for everybody. With Tieto we decided to create a service directed specifically at Finnish forest-owners with adequately detailed information,” explains IT Manager Ilkka Liukkonen, from Stora Enso Wood Supply Finland.

As a result of the co-operation, the Web site www.storaensometsa.fi, implemented by Tieto as a service to Stora Enso, was launched spring 2010. The site gives guidance to forest-owners for various forest-related matters, making it easier to contact wood-buyers and lead the owners toward selling wood.
‘The aim of the site is to activate passive forest-owners to think about what to do with their forest. The idea is that this open section already provides a lot of information about how to utilise forests, what services Stora Enso offers, and how to contact us easily. Then, possibly, a customer relationship is created and the customer moves on to use eMetsä,” Liukkonen says.

The solution from a business point of view

The selection of digital services was broadened jointly with Tieto, from designing a strategy level concept all the way to carrying out the practical implementation.
“Instead of an IT solution, we offered Stora Enso a value promise that the new channel will increase wood sales. We did not look at the challenge from an IT perspective but approached it from the business point of view, stage by stage, from strategy to implementation, “ Account Manager Antti Salo from Tieto explains.

When Stora Enso’s service concept had been created, composing a more detailed solution concept continued the work.  The solution concept was offered to the customer as an overall service including implementation, rollout and continuous maintenance.
“It is a clear trend that customers want overall service and want us to take care of the implementation of the solution from vision to rollout. In addition, the supplier is responsible for ensuring the data system’s performance and securing its continuity. Outsourcing the overall solution is a significant opportunity to shift costs from fixed to variable,” Salo believes.

From a vision to use, overnight

Instead of a typical IT project model, the concept is based on software as a service model, in which Tieto is responsible for the implementation, technological solutions, and continuous availability of the service in exchange for a monthly payment. Buying a data system and solution via the software as a service (SaaS) concept enables rapid implementation, and it is easy to buy.
“This was no “eternity project”: the realisation, from creation of a concept all the way to the service, was done according to a strict schedule. Project management worked well, and all parties wanted to complete the project successfully,” Liukkonen explains.“Buying the solution with the SaaS approach was a “first time” for us. Usually, we have implemented solutions on our own platforms. Now the responsibility lies with the service provider. This simplifies the realisation and reduces our input, which can now be directed at matters that are more important for the business.”

Challenge

The ownership of Finnish forests is becoming highly fragmented. A growing challenge for Stora Enso Wood Supply Finland was to reach the forest-owners better and ensure the supply of wood needed for the forest industry.

Solution

The digital service concept was created starting from the business point of view in collaboration with Tieto. As a result of the co-operation, the Web site www.storaensometsa.fi, was launched spring 2010. The implementation was done using SaaS-model (software as a service). Tieto is responsible for the implementation, technological solutions, and continuous availability of the service in exchange for a monthly payment. Compared to a traditional IT project, the implementation is faster, fixed costs become variable, and buyer’s resources become available for other tasks.

Results

The digital channel has increased the number of contacts to Stora Enso as well as lead to new wood sales.  The channel is well functioning and does not demand any resources from Stora Enso to its technical maintenance.