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The global business landscape is evolving rapidly, marked by technological disruptions, geopolitical tensions, and a heightened focus on sustainability. As an independent Management Consulting firm supporting clients with their business transformation initiatives, we at Opticos felt the need to understand how companies, especially global corporates with roots in the Nordics, are navigating through turbulent change.
So, we decided to interview senior executives from four leading companies in their respective industry verticals: Essity, Trioworld, Securitas, and SAS. In these candid conversations, senior leaders shed light on their strategic vision, discuss the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation, their approaches to mitigating risks amid economic and geopolitical uncertainties and various other business aspects.
Expert panel:
The highlights of these discussions, including their insightful perspectives and forward-thinking ideas, are summarised here in this article.
The executives acknowledge the challenging business climate globally and in Sweden over the past few years, citing factors like the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, supply chain disruptions, and changes in consumer behaviour stemming out of these factors. However, the leaders note that signs of economic recovery are showing and highlight their companies’ agility and resilience in navigating these turbulent times.
Ulrika Kolsrud: “Regulatory changes, especially the Medical Device Regulation (MDR) in Europe, have burdened the health sector with significant adaptation costs. Inflationary pressures and rising costs have been especially challenging to manage in the regulated health care sector, characterised by long-term contracts and public funding. Despite these hurdles, Essity is in a better shape than ever, although it contends with customers opting for cheaper, lower-quality alternatives.”
Andrew Lord: “Trioworld is in a great position at the market now, even as it emerges from a dynamic and uncertain business climate, with shocks such as COVID, changes in demand and consumer behaviour, and increased competition from cheap imports. Trioworld has successfully adapted to these challenges by being agile, restructuring, improving margins, and expanding in recycling and North America.”
Martin Althén: “There has been a significant slowdown amidst high inflationary pressure over the past few years, with companies launching cost reduction programmes. However, even as interest rates start to reduce, we are now slowly leaving the high inflationary period into a more stable economy.”
Carina Malmgren Heander:
Organizations around the globe have been facing turbulent situations due to ongoing geopolitical tensions. The executives expressed their concerns regarding this and acknowledged the adverse impact on supply chains, operations, and related risks. At the same time, it presents a timely opportunity to implement strategies to monitor, mitigate, and address these uncertainties.
Ulrika Kolsrud: The growing geopolitical uncertainties and their impact on the business are a critical concern. Additionally, the Russia-Ukraine conflict disrupted supply chains, necessitating a reassessment of the supply chain in line with geographical expansion goals. To address the risks associated with geopolitical uncertainties, the company engages in scenario planning. This involves analysing macro trends and considering them in strategic and tactical decision-making processes.
Andrew Lord:
Martin Althén: “The geopolitical trends involving the rise of nationalist mindset, protectionism and artificial barriers to entry are hard realities that may likely get worse in the near future. In our business, we have actually stopped operations in 11 countries the past 2-3 years where we concluded we could not conduct good business aligned with our values, code of conduct and ethics.”
Carina Malmgren Heander: “Geopolitical tensions primarily affect us through closed borders and overflight permissions. For instance, we currently can’t fly over Russian airspace. However, we haven’t seen a significant increase in fear of travel due to these uncertainties. It’s more about practical considerations. We continuously monitor the situation and make adjustments.”
AI is viewed as a strategic priority for all companies, with roadmaps and initiatives in place to leverage AI for enhancing operations, efficiency, and customer experiences. While traditional AI is being applied primarily for optimization, generative AI presents new, unchartered opportunities. However, risks around AI governance, ethics, and cybersecurity remain primary concerns.
Ulrika Kolsrud: “AI is a high priority for Essity. The company has mapped out where it sees the greatest benefits of AI, whether internal or external, in daily operations or transformative game-changers. Essity views AI more as an opportunity than a threat.”
Andrew Lord: Andrew takes a slightly cautious approach to embracing AI for their business in the short term. “We are not yet fully leveraging AI to improve our business processes but are evaluating various potential solutions”. For example, we have embedded Microsoft Copilot into our business process primarily because of the maturity of the solution.
Martin Althén: “We use traditional AI quite extensively, alongside deploying generative AI models. We have a very clear AI strategy and roadmap for what to do, how to do it, and how to implement and scale AI workflows through federated teams and ambassador roles across the organization to accelerate our business transformation with AI’s help.”
Carina Malmgren Heander: “AI is primarily being used to enhance customer experiences, personalization, and internal efficiencies. At SAS, we’re using AI in areas like customer service, communication, and developing customized offers for our loyalty program members based on their preferences and travel history.”
Sustainability is a core priority that is deeply ingrained in decision-making processes of these companies. Efforts include environmental goals such as emissions reduction and waste management, social responsibility through ethical employment practices, and robust governance. Executives highlight sustainability as a competitive differentiator.
Ulrika Kolsrud:
Andrew Lord: “Trioworld has a strong position in the market for circular solutions, as the EU legislation and the ESG agenda of the investors are driving the demand for recycled and low-carbon plastics. Trioworld has invested in innovation and technology to produce high-quality products from recycled materials and reduce its environmental impact.”
Martin Althén: “Sustainability has long been part of Securitas’ core values with demanding standards. More recently, we have expanded into areas like actively promoting diversity and inclusion as our industry has been historically male-dominated. Securitas was the first worldwide security company to sign the Science Based Targets initiative commitments.”
Carina Malmgren Heander: “Sustainability has been a priority for SAS for over 15 years. We’ve focused on optimizing flight routes, investing in more fuel-efficient aircraft, and participating in programs for developing electric and hydrogen-powered aircraft. We’re working with governments to incentivize sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production and make it more accessible.”
Global talent dynamics has taken a shift after the pandemic and when asked about the same Carina said, “During the pandemic, we had to furlough up to 90% of our workforce and lay off 5,000 employees. As demand rebounded, we faced challenges attracting and retaining talent, as many had left the industry. We’ve worked on enhancing our employee value proposition, offering remote and flexible working arrangements, and expanding our talent pool globally for specialized roles.”
Adding to this, Carina also spoke on how they are taking advantage of the AI boom to their advantage at SAS. “Leveraging AI to better match employee skills with assignments and create an internal talent marketplace” is listed as a key opportunity and challenge.
Securitas identifies several significant opportunities and risks that will shape their strategy in the coming years. Speaking about the top technological opportunities Martin said, “There are three key technology areas I see intersecting for us over the next 5 years – digital, AI and robotics. We are capturing more and more information delivery digitally. We will automate insights and response actions from that digital data through AI analytics. And we will increasingly deploy the appropriate robotic response option.”
One notable application is the use of AI as a verbal chat interface for security officers’ shift reporting. Guards can now report verbally in their natural language, increasing report frequency and detail. The AI then refines these reports, adjusting length, removing inappropriate content and sensitive information, and ensuring GDPR compliance. This system improves both the quantity and quality of reports, demonstrating the company’s commitment to leveraging AI’s potential across its operations.
Andrew talks about the leadership traits that are important for the businesses, and believes Trioworld excels at fine-tuning successful operations but acknowledges that addressing more challenging issues requires a different approach.
Adding to this he said, “Drawing from my own experience, I can assert that achieving turnarounds involves a hands-on approach. You need to identify and address problems swiftly. I value starting each year by clearly outlining goals and targets on a whiteboard to effectively communicate my vision to my finance team. This ensures everyone is aligned, inspired, and forward-thinking about the company’s direction and adaptability.”
Healthcare Industry: Navigating Turbulent Waters
When we asked about the state of the healthcare industry, “It’s been a rough ride”, Ulrika told us. She went on to explain that it wasn’t just COVID-19 causing headaches. ‘You know, we’ve had these new regulations come in – the Medical Device Regulation in Europe. It’s been a real challenge to keep up our ambitious innovation agenda, when we’ve had to invest a lot of time and money to secure compliance.’
‘Then there’s inflation. Costs are going up, and when you’re dealing with long-term contracts like we are, that really squeezes you.’ Despite all this, Essity has emerged from this testing period stronger, with a sense of greater internal stability and looking to improve its position in the market for the longer run.
While many interesting aspects about business and leadership were highlighted and discussed, three things clearly stood out for us:
