Huge potential in responsibility

Monday 3/26/12 - Ilkka Töyrylä and Mikael Niskala

	Mikael Niskala and Ilkka Töyrylä

The global retailer Walmart in 2009 reduced its packaging and rationalised its delivery routes. As a result, the distances covered by trucks were cut by 100 million miles, related carbon emissions were reduced, and Walmart saved more than 150 million dollars.

The British retailer Marks & Spencer is also in the process of overhauling its supply chain. For example, in the future, their choice of suppliers will be based on not having to ship supplies from one hemisphere to another. This will considerably reduce the carbon emissions caused by the company’s operations, and this is expected to save the retailer some 200 million euros annually. (Source: Harvard Business Review 2011)

“There is huge business potential in responsibility when viewed as an investment and not as an expense. One can only wonder why so few companies have managed to transform the challenges related to sustainable development into a genuine competitive advantage,” say Midagon’s Ilkka Töyrylä and Tofuture’s Mikael Niskala.

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Change Culture as a success factor

Wednesday 2/29/12 - Tarja Leikas ja Ari-Pekka Pekari

	Ari-Pekka Pekari and Tarja Leikas

A positive change culture is more central than ever to the success of businesses: the world changes and businesses must change accordingly. What does a change culture mean? What is it built on? What are its threats?

Tarja Leikas, CFO at TeliaSonera Finland, and Midagon’s Ari-Pekka Pekari list the key elements of a positive change culture. At the same time, the duo discusses the roles that financial management, the management team and the coach play in successfully following through major change projects.

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The Project is Complete, But Nothing Has Changed? Three Steps to a Successful Change

Thursday 10/27/11 - Ari-Pekka Pekari

	Ari-Pekka Pekari Managing Consultant

Although business changes have become commonplace in companies, most of the strategic change projects are unsuccessful.

– The approach to managing change is not always comprehensive enough, a leading consultant, Ari-Pekka Pekari observes.

– The company might focus too much on sketching organisational boxes while forgetting other perspectives, such as the search for new practices.  Correspondingly, processes might be tightened without fixing the ineffective or haphazard decision-making guiding the processes.

In his article, Mr Pekari presents a comprehensive, three-stage approach, which helps a business of any size or in any industry to drive through a strategic change project with success.

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