Transforming a company through vision and innovation : A forest company case study

Abstract

Change is always present in the current business world and it has very differing impacts. It can be characterised as a force that causes pressure for companies to transform their services and products to correspond to the market demand. Megatrends represent a change that has a wide impact in society. Consequently, large companies from different industries are transforming their businesses to correspond to the changing markets to sustain in the fierce competition and to be able to cater for the altering markets and consumer demands. In comparison to large companies, startups are able to innovate, find new business opportunities and introduce innovative solutions fast in the constantly changing business environment. Collaboration between different size companies has been a popular strategy to achieve competitive advantage. In today’s setting large companies need startups more than before to come up with new business ideas and to transform faster to keep up with the change. Open innovation is a collaboration form that benefits both parties involved, however, it also has barriers that overshadows successful collaboration between large companies and startups.

The aim of this thesis was to find out how Stora Enso, a renewable materials company, could build a more successful ecosystem to foster open innovation with startups in the future. Another aim was to find out what will the future collaboration between startups and large corporations look like. This thesis approached the aims from large company and futures perspectives by applying the visionary leadership approach. Qualitative data was collected by conducting interviews within the target company and by utilizing publicly available sources such as published reports, press releases and the company web site. As an outcome a 2025 vision for Stora Enso and a comprehensive view of the present state of the company were composed. This was followed by conducting a comparison between the present and the future state. The differences of the future and present states were then utilized to construct a roadmap for the company to achieve the determined future state – the 2025 vision.

The results indicate that the company should concentrate on three different topics to create an innovation ecosystem to foster successful open innovation with startups. These topics are intensifying and increasing collaboration with startups and different stakeholders. Also concentrating on new product development is important. Lastly, transforming the existing organizational culture towards being more open towards experimentation and learning contribute in constructing a successful innovation ecosystem. Furthermore, this research indicates that future collaboration with startups will be more open and bilateral. Moreover, the results indicate that in addition to startups, also other stakeholders, such as customers and suppliers along the company’s value chain belong to an innovation ecosystem. Therefore the intentions to build an innovation ecosystem to foster open innovation should also extend to those stakeholders.