Case: Vaasan Sähkö – Strategy implemention

New strategy

The entire energy sector is in a strong transition, and Vaasan Sähkö saw a huge change approaching in energy production, transmission, storage and consumption. In the summer of 2019, the company decided to create a new strategy that would meet the needs of the renewing industry. With the strategy reform, there was a need for change management support in implementing the strategy.

“We set out to find a way in which we could take the strategy into everyday life. What kind of change management does it require – and how will the day change on Monday at 8:00 a.m. when the new strategy is implemented?

We evaluated different options for our strategy and found that Trainers’ House has a versatile way to transform strategy to a story. In our opinion, this was a systematic and fascinating method, which is why we started with Trainers’ House”, says Stefan Damlin, CEO of Vaasan Sähkö.

Trainers’ House and Vaasan Sähkö set out to implement the new strategy through the story. The clarification of the story was born – a person from Vaasa does not look away.

FLEXIBLE COOPERATION

“The goal of our cooperation, i.e. implementing the strategy, has always remained a priority in our cooperation.

Change management is not easy – it is actually quite challenging. Our management team said at the beginning of the process that we don’t know what the situation will be in 2025. We know the direction, but there will certainly be surprises along the way. We have modified the approach along the way, and working with Trainers’ House has been very flexible,” continues Damlin.

OPERATIONS CENTER SUPPORTING SYSTEMATIC MANAGEMENT

With the new strategy, the rhythm of management had to be changed. The operations center became a central management forum for Vaasan Sähkö, where the extended management team could monitor the progress and implementation of the strategy on a weekly basis. Every Monday afternoon, the extended management team gathers in the Operations Center meeting to review the situation for the entire group and to make decisions on common issues.

The operations center has brought clarity to management and decision-making has become easier and faster. Cooperation and transparency across organizational boundaries has improved. Operation centers give the entire organization the opportunity to be involved in influencing the implementation of change. During COVID the operations center has been moved to Teams.

“We have a weekly Operations Center meeting, where we go over last week’s goals and their development as well as next week’s goals and what should be accomplished next. We have got a huge number of development projects through in 2019 and 2020, considering that we are a relatively small organization. I argue that this is because the goals are clear and working together with transparency has improved,” Damlin says.

THE ENTIRE STAFF KNOWS THE STRATEGY

“The transparency of the organization, what we do and what we aim for, has increased enormously. I claim that our whole organization knows our strategy and our goals. 

At the end of 2020, we received the results of the EPSI survey, which ranked Vaasa Sähkö at the top. We have the most satisfied customers in Finland – both consumer and business customers. According to EPSI, it is exceptional that we are number one in both categories.

Another clear result is the results of the personnel satisfaction survey. The effectiveness of managerial work and satisfaction with managerial work had increased by 0.3 index points. The improvement comes from our collaboration with Trainers’ House,” concludes Damlin.

Shall we do the same trick with your strategy?