Case study based strategy course taught to students @ Aalto university as joint effort by faculty and PALMU

1. peter.barkman@palmu.fi | PALMU
PALMU’s biz-planning philosophy
Service design, lean & uncompromising customer focus

2. Facts about PALMU
Avg. growth
rate +20%
From start-ups to
mul8na8onals as
clients
Revenue € 6,2 mio in
2014 and profitable
100% employee
owned
50+ employees
ACADEMIC BACKGROUNDS: anthropologist, engineer, economist, cultural researcher,
micro-mechanic, psychologist, sociologist, industrial designer, visual designer

3. Finance
Food
Media
Travel & Logistics
ICT
Healthcare
Retail
Forestry
Energy
Engineering
Startups
Web services
Public sector
Telecom
Real estate
Chemical

4. Terminology
MISSION
Why do we exist
– what are we needed for?
VISION
What do we want to achieve,
where do we want to end up?

5. They call it
enablement
A new business model
emerges in consulting
The Finnish company Faros sets the
new standard for helping companies
succeed

6. Epic affordable cruises
on the Baltic sea!
Finnish cruise-line Viking Line has set
the gold standard for week-end escapes
in northern Europe.
May-June 2014, € 15,-

7. Terminology
STRATEGY
Resurce allocation decisions tp achieve
a defined goal –the vision.
= Project list
= Verb!

8. Customer behaviour and compe88ve landscape chages
are geUng faster and are more disrup8ve. The strategy
planning cycle must follow and be nimble and fast!
STRATEGY STRATEGY
STRATEGY

9. Tests and trials help us understand especially changes
in the customer interface. Some of these trials give use
UNIQUE insight of the direc8on of the market
STRATEGY
STRATEGY
STRATEGY

10. We believe that strategy is a verb:
Ac8on!
Con8nuous change can be probed and explored
by doing constant light market tests which
outside of ones own business model

11. Large corpora*ons maximise profits
Development of exis8ng biz-model by
quarterly results
New challengers take market share
Development of challenging biz-model
through itera8on and customer focus
How can companies escape the
shackles of the old biz-model?
Customer expecta8ons
and demand
Source: Innovator’s Dilemma
When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
Clayton Christensen
Classic service design
New service design
Design
thinking
Disrup8v
innova8on/
megatrend
Agile
Development
The innovators dilemma

12. DESIGN THINKING
Design thinking is generally considered the ability to combine
Empathy for the context of the problem,
creativity in the generation of insights and solutions and
rationality to analyze and fit solutions to the context.*
*Wikipedia

14. Relentless customer focus

15. Makro-data
Trend-data
Industry insight
Competitor benchmarking
“Off the shelf”
Combine market data with customer proven empiric experience
Sustainable competitive advantage
comes from insight
Unique empiric insight
Real empiric insight

16. DO YOU SEE THE
WHOLE PICTURE

18. 95%
CUSTOMER ORIENTED?
OF COURSE, EVERYONE IS!
Bain & Company

19. 80%
Management Customers
8%
We have experienced
a SUPERRIOR
customer experience
We deliver a
SUPERRIOR
customer
experience

20. Customer
journey
New products
Online- UI/UX
Business- kriiMset
palveluprosessit
Organisoituminen
ja prosessit
Osaaminen ja
lähijohtaminen
Suhtautuminen
asiakkaisiin
Suhtautuminen
omiin työntekijöihin
Visio tulevasta ja
palvelustrategia
The goal for Strategy
work is a resource
alloca*on map and
scenarios to reach the
future
Jatkuva
miTaaminen ja
kehiTäminen
Menestysennuste
ja taserakenne
Kulut ja investoinnit
MUTTA MYÖS
KANNATTAVAMPI
LIIKETOIMINTA
New markets

21. Vision and service
strategy KPI’s
Roles and processes
Middle management
AUtude towards clients
AUtude towards employees
Balance sheet structure
Costs/investments
Customer
journey
Customer encounter
Online- UI/UX
But more importantly
a raod to more
profitable and
produc*ve business

22. Customer focus is often superficial
PALMU’s finding
We asked our clients in which business areas
they are customer focused
GAP

23. -Committees
-Fixed policies
-Marketing
-Brändguidelines
-Back-end IT renewal
-Uuden johtajan
uudet ideat
-New planning teams
-Not invented here syndrome
-Defensiveness of IT
department
-Tech challenges
-Shortsighted Quarter
based decisions
-Random
opinions&comments
Fantastic concept,
and our customer
insight and test
support it!!

24. Always start with a goals &
measures Work-shop
Cultural and large scale
operational change requires
new goals and measures.
You get what you measure!

25. Service vision
Goals, customer value crea8on and a conceptual
understanding behind the new services and service
changes. Link to corporate strategy and the surrounding
world.
Customer understanding
Who are the services for what services will
customers recommend and what are they
willing to pay for
Service produc8on
What changes are required to processes,
resourcing, work-roles and systems
Success forecast
Costs of service produc8on, revenue,
investment requirements all modelled through
tested client behaviour analysis

26. Small Big
Poor Great
Customer value
Business value