Day 2 @ Kunstenniemi

Today we have continued working with our project and it is going really well. We have many ideas to present tomorrow for our client, Raisio. Hopefully they will like them.

Guess what we ate for breakfast? ;)

WE <3 PORRIDGE!

On our mind: enjoying Elovena snacks!

Even during our breaks we can't stay away from Elovena! We have come up with promising ideas and we are continuing with brainstorming! Still, stay tuned, this is going to be awesome! :D

On our mind: So excited about Kunstenniemi!

This morning Marie-Sophie, Rita, Maria and Anna took the bus to Raisio Group and got our exciting final task! For the moment we are drinking glögg and eating "joulutorttuja" and planning on our project, stay tuned!

Mind about a book: Spreading good ideas for better healthcare

I’ve read ”Spreading good ideas for better healthcare – A practical toolkit” written by Paul Plsek. We got a clue that our final task will be about promoting and spreading health products and that’s why I chose to read these toolkit. Even though it is about healthcare, the focus is on how to spread ideas overall and that’s why I thought it could maybe be helpful for our project.

The toolkit mentions five factors that ideas that spread quickly have in common; they are advantageous, compatible, simple, triable and observable. This is something we should think about when working on our task in Kunstenniemi. Many tools were used in the guide, but even though some of them were only meant for healthcare, some of them can also be used for spreading any new idea. Many good points were mentioned such as ideas spread really fast if consumers can see the benefit and utility from it when other consumers use it.

The toolkit mentions the importance of finding the right target group for your idea and think what the group has in common. Maybe they are all using some specific social media or have an opinion leader? And who in that group are most likely to be early adopters? These are some questions we should think about and search information about when we know the target group.  Further, it is easier  to make specific plans around other aspects of spread when you have found the right group. It is challenging to find the right persons who will tell about your idea further, but once the early and late majority starts to hear about your idea from the early adopters the spreading is on a good way.

The toolkit has several points that are good to think about when you really want to get your idea spread and I’m really looking forward to meet Raisio Group tomorrow and to start working with our task in Kunstenniemi!

  

Mind about a book: Sales promotion

I've read the book "Sales Promotion" written by Roddy Mullin and Julian Cummins.
The book tells about how to promote your product in a better way so you could get more customers to buy it. The writers say it is one of the marketer's most tested and most effective tool. You can read about different stages of creating and implementing innovative and succesful sales promotion in the book and it will help you to understand how to promote your product better.

Some companies use the same way to promote their products year after year and they probably do it because it has worked fine. Anyhow, it may work even better if you slightly change your ways of promoting. You can read about many different ways to change your promotion and you can also read about resaults how these different ways have worked. The little change you do, can give you an massive raise in sales. Some of the things the writers focused on are off-the-self offers, joint promotions, price promotions and premium promotions. You can also read about how a price-cutting promotion can be dangerous to your business. 

I recommend you to read this book if you want to learn more about what sales promotion is, what the benefits of sales promotion is and how to implement a sales promotion program.I think this will help us with our project, since we are working with the Raisio Group and they have many different product it is important to promote in the right way. We can think about the right ways to promote the health products, since they are our task.

Mind about a book: “Friends with Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook”

I read "Friends with Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook" because it could be very useful to know why companies can profit from this marketing channel and therefore be able to use it ourselves for our project with Raisio. 

Social media marketing is using social media channels to promote a company and its products. This type of marketing is a subset of the company’s online marketing activities, combining traditional web-based promotional strategies like email newsletters and online advertising campaigns. Social media marketing qualifies as a form of viral or word-of-mouth marketing. Viral marketing is a marketing strategy which focuses on spreading information and opinions about a product or service from person to person by using the internet. So if I tell my sister about a restaurant I really like, only she hears about it. Maybe she tells her boyfriend or some friend about that restaurant, but my opinion doesn’t spread further than that and it moves slowly. But if I have a restaurant review podcast with 500 listeners, my opinion spreads much fasters and reaches many people. If a company is already taking advantage of marketing actions like trade shows, media relations, direct mail, and telemarketing, trying social media marketing is a logical addition to the marketing tactics. The primary goal of every social media marketing campaign should be a stronger web presence. Concrete metrics for an increased online visibility are: more visitors and more incoming links to the company’s website, better search engine optimization and an improved Google ranking. I think it is obvious that social media marketing is a useful instrument for a company to attract potential customers. But new site visitors are not buying customers yet. So a company needs to have a strategy how to convert the visitors into customers. 

If we decide to use social media for our project, we need to figure out a strategy to get these new site visitors to buy Raisio's products. I'm looking forward to  Kunstenniemi and then finally be able to present all we have figured out during the last few weeks :)

//Marie-Sophie

Mind about a book: Kotlerin kanta

Hey!

I red about marketing and I got good ideas and tips from the book which is called Kotlerin kanta- markkinoinnin maailmanauktoriteetti vastaa kysymyksiin (According to Kotler- the world's foremost authority on marketing answers your questions).

The main idea of the marketing is the way of thinking. You have to understand customers needs, the service and the manner how you will fill the customers needs. Mainly people think that marketing is just advertising and increasing the consumption. But these are only the tips of the iceberg. Strategic marketing is less visible but much more convincing.

Traditionally marketing is constructed with four parts; selling organisation, advertising, increasing consumption and marketing research. With these four areas you need new skills. Example; building the brand, customer relationship marketing, database mining, profitability analysis of the products and customers.

You should be able to think how to make the customers react positive way with the product, not only concentrating to selling. When the customer is interested of the product, after that you start to work with customer loyalty. When you want to have regular customers you have to create a regular customers program. You will award the customers who are loyal for the products.

Nowadays people are using internet more than ever. You should also concentrate to internet marketing. The company needs website which include the main goal of the action, history, products, visions and other things. It should be easy for the customer to take contact to the company. The website should be well designed and the graphic should be good. Customer friendly website includes also possibility to order the products online.

Marketing is really large area but I think the book gave good information, ideas and tips for the project with Raisio Group! Ready for the Kunstenniemi! :)

Rita

Working day 3 @Hanken

Hello!

Today was the last working day and it was held at Hanken. Rita and Maria were present and we worked on what has to be done before Kunstenniemi. We wrote a mindmap about important things that we have to do before the meeting with Raisio Group and Kunstenniemi. Examples of things that has to be done are:
- everybody writes a blog post about the books we've read.
- everybody has to come up with different questions to ask on Monday, when we meet Raisio.

Rita holding our mindmap

A close up of our mind map

 

Looking forward our meeting with Raisio Group and everybody is really excited about the camp at Kunstenniemi!! :)

 

 

On our minds: meeting at "school" aka Panimoravintola Koulu

Today we had a meeting at Panimoravintola Koulu in Turku. Our meeting consisted of planning what we have to do before Kunstenniemi and present were Minna, Maria, Rita and Anna. We talked about Raisio groups possible strengths, values, target groups and brainstormed about books we could read. For the moment we are looking forward to meet someone from Raisio Group and trying to search for more information

!

Mind about a book: Uusi näkökulma asiakkaaseen

I read this book: Risto Havunen - Uusi näkökulma asiakkaaseen ("A new point of view to customer")

This book didn't tell as much about customer as I wished. It's more about how to do business with customer; what are usually faced situations at sales negotiation and how to get through them without failing.

My job was to figure out some insights about customer. This far we don't know what is our final task so here is something that I found out and hope it helps us!

- When trying to sell something, always prepare youself and you notes well.
- Remeber that customer probably doesn't think just the way you do.
- You might appreciate different values than you do.
- Always look like a salesman is expected. Otherwise it will take too much attention out of the sales themselves.

- What a customer values most are: expertice (21%), seller understands buyer needs (15%), well prepared seller (13%), compromise (13%), the abality to listen (12%) and others.
- Customer is not buying bacause the product. He has a problem and he wants solution.
- It matters how you act.
- Be ready to listen! Make questions. Find out what is customer's actual problem.
- Focus on situation. Don't think what to tell next.
- Make sure that customer has enough information about your company.

These are some keys to better inteaction with customer. When someone is more into negotiation, is this quit good book for you. It got's bacis and tells you how to avoid them.

Minna

Portfolio_Rita

               Portfolio              

                              Raisio Group / Rita Aaltolahti

1) Spreading ideas & health promoting food

How to make a phenomenon of your product and to spread it?

Our project group is innovative, energy and hard working group with new ideas. We have been working in meetings face to face and through the social media in facebook. Using blog is also really good way to work. For us working as a group it’s easy and versatile.

Action plan! 

We have blog posts in our blog and we are using tags so it’s easy to see with one click what you have already done and what you have learned during this project.
We have collected links about promotion, how to spread ideas and how to promote healthy food. These links help us to find the right key elements and we can get different views and opinions if we first research the subject.

2) Raisio Group

1. What do you know about the theme of your project?

Client of our project is Raisio Group. Main point is to make a phenomenon of the product and to spread it. Spreading ideas and health promoting food are the first steps to do!

For the project our group members have to be innovative and very creative and hopefully we will end up with amazing ideas! Marketing, communication, social media, customers and promotion are important areas.

2. What do you know about your company?

When you enter to website of Raisio Group you will find out that they produce cereal products and animal feeds. The whole website is almost covered with green color and that’s their way to show to the customers that they respect "green" and ecologic values. Some of their products are very famous and there is few famous brands; Benecol, Sunnuntai, Elovena, Torino and Nalle. Those are the brands what I already knew but they have more brands and those weren't that common for me.

Their products are very healthy and value of the products is high. I’m big fan of Elovena products!

3. What do you know about the company’s customers?

Customers are interested about healthy and good tasting food. All age groups are target groups and customers of the company because their products are well-made and well-known so customers appreciate the brand image and of course the product itself.

I interviewed two persons about the company and it's products. I asked if they know which company manufacturer products such as Elovena and Benecol?

Other person (65 years old) new the Raisio Group and those products but other person (19 years old) didn’t know the Raisio Group. In this case I think the older people have more knowledge of the company and the younger people are more focused to the products.


4. What do you know about the industry of the company?

Raisio Group is an international expert in plant-based nutrition. Raisio’s strategic target is to grow organically and through acquisitions. Raisio’s operations are divided into two divisions:

• ·         Brands
• ·         Raisioagro

Raisio’s best-known brands are Benecol, Honey Monster, Elovena, Fox’s, Dormen, Juicee Gummee and Nordic. Raisio’s activities are focused on tasty, ecological, healthy and safe products. With those areas they want to meet customer’s needs. Company’s all operations are placed on sustainable development and continuous improvement.

“Raisio is a forerunner in healthy, ecological snacks with leading brands and an active developer of the sustainable food chain.”

http://www.raisio.com/www/page/Group                                          

5. What do you know about the competitors of the company?

There is few competitors of the Raisio Group. Competitors are also making healthy food and same kind of food. Other big companies are Danone and Myllyn paras. They have well-known brands and I think they all three are competing of the ideal marketing and the customers. When you make better research you also find companies Greencore and Danisco.

3) Tools

Using specific tools it makes the working easier. I have already used some tools before so working with them it’s not a problem. When you use a tool it makes your thoughts more “clear” and most important is to do brainstorms! When you have your ideas on paper you can discover some new ideas more easily.

                                                 

                       

Systematic thinking, innovative ideas and new visions come up after using good tools. I’m more creative and more open for new ideas when I’m working with people from different studies. They come with fresh ideas and with the different experiences than I so this is the best environment to make this project!

                                                                      Rita Aaltolahti                                            

On our mind: meeting day 13.11.2013

 

Today we were creating ideas about ways of spreading them. We designed an action plan for the next two and a half weeks until Kunstenniemi. The team members who couldn't attend the meeting can check there what has to be done. We also decided to create an Twitter account and will now start tweeting :)

During the working day we mixed the different groups and that way we got some new and innovative ideas from the other teams. 

 

 

 

 

 

The minds of our group: Rita

Hey!

I'm 26 years old student from Turku and I'm studying beauty business and management in Turku University of applied sciences. Last year I was doing my student exchange year in France in École supérieure de commerce de Troyes. In France I studied business, marketing and management. I fell in love with France!

I got many friends and it was a good experience to study in international atmosphere. I'm going back to France in January to do my internship.

This project will be interesting and I think it will be really awarding to work with different people from different studies and environments. I have been already in Kunstenniemi so I'm waiting to go there again. I hope our group will succeed and we will have amazing and innovative ideas! This is my last school year so I try to enjoy the last moments and do my best for Inno58!

-Rita-

On our minds: spreading ideas & health promoting food

For the moment we know this about our task: spreading ideas & health promoting food. Here we have gathered things that could inspire us!

Here are some ideas how to market new products:

10 tips for successful product promotion

http://supportawahp.com/competitions/mothersdaycomp/10-tips-product-promotion/

How to spread your ideas

http://writetodone.com/how-to-spread-your-ideas/

We found a book about spreading ideas for better health care

http://www.chcanys.org/clientuploads/downloads/Clinical_resources/Leadership%20Articles/GoodIdeas.pdf

What is the deal about spreading ideas?

If everyone shares a little, everyone will get a lot. The one who shares his ideas can have feeling about not losing anything. That’s the power of Internet and blog writing. People agree that sharing is a good idea, but it hardly happens. It’s more common in hobbies and free time than in work. One reason is that we are not allowed to use so much Facebook, Twitter, blogs during workdays.

Spreading ideas makes development easier and faster. It also increases the community thinking. Workers have more motivation and are more committed to their work.

Ideas to promote healthy eating

http://www.wechealthunit.org/workplace-health/initiatives/ideas-to-promote-2/ideas-to-promote-healthy-eating

Diffusion of Innovations

Here is a pic that you may have seen somewhere before. For me it's familiar from business marketing and how to find the right group, the buyers. I find it really interesting and usefull information about how do consumers work. This theory, Diffusion Of Innovations (DIO), is developed by Everett Rogers in 1962.

It's about different groups of people. In the middle are the "normal/mass"-people (inc. Early Majority & Late Majority). They are consumers who go wiht the flow. They hear some good experiences from someone they know and then they are ready to give a shot for a new thing. Laggards are stuck with old habits and they hardly make a move to be interest in new things.

What we are interested in are eager consumers (inc. Innovators & Early Adopters). They are constanly looking for new solutions. They can easily notice if something doesn't work and they are willing to tell about it and also be a part of change (especially the Innovators are). Early Adopters are more eager to be first ones to try a new product.

Here are some links you can find more about subject:

Boston University School of Public Health article (from where I took picture).
Wikipedia link about E. M. Rogers.

// Minna

On our mind: Working day 1!

Training session 23.10.213:

We started to discuss about the design tools and focused on the User persona tool. The user persona tool is about grouping individuals together according to their similarities. This is useful for a company to be able to adjust their strategies according to their target customers. 

We had the idea to use this tool to put our customers into personas, but that was harder than expected. Raisio operates in many different markets in different countries. We designed a mindmap to visualise their different product ranges. This mindmap also shows the key markets of Raisio, all their products are available in the following countries: Finland and the Baltic countries (except of milk products and farming supplies). 

We took a look the other design-tools and thought that for our task the design-tool Design brief could be useful for us later in our project. When we have discovered what we want to achieve with our project this tool will help us to define possible risks and challenges. Service safari was a tool that we liked, but for us it's not that useful but for Raisio itself it might. This tool is more for companies providing services.

Today one of the coaches took a photo of us three who were present, hopefully we'll be more next time! :)

//Maria, Marie-Sophie & Anna

On our mind: general information about Raisio Group

Here we have gathered together everything we found about Raisio to make it easier for us to start our task “Idea creation”.

Raisio presents themselves on their homepage (http://www.raisio.com/www/page/mainpage) like this:

The Raisio Group is an innovative expert in plant-based nutrition. Raisio is known worldwide for Benecol products that effectively lower cholesterol. In different market areas, the company is known for its strong brands that include, e.g., Elovena, Honey Monster, Sunnuntai, Nordic, Fox's and Juicee Gummee. Moreover, farmers and livestock producers in Finland also recognise Raisio as a modern agricultural trader, Raisioagro. Our key market areas are Finland, the UK, Sweden, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Estonia and the Czech Republic.

Raisio’s activities are based on tasty, ecological, healthy and safe products that meet the customer need. In all our operations, the emphasis is placed on sustainable development and continuous improvement. We actively participate in the development of the Finnish grain chain and provide our customers with tools to improve their own operations including environmental aspects.

Raisio plc is a Finnish company established in 1939, whose shares are listed on NASDAQ OMX Helsinki Ltd. The company has over 35,000 shareholders. It employs some 1,900 people and operates in 9 countries. Group's net sales in 2012 were EUR 584.1 million and EBIT was EUR 34.6 million.

Raisios contact information

http://www.raisio.com/www/page/4548 here are Raisio’s contact information in Finland. We can call some of them if we want to get answers to our questions.

Videos connected to Raisio

Here is a video where Raisio presents themselves. There is an English subtitle to this video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqa66-mMbUE

Here’s another video about the Raisio group in English with finnish subtitles where you can see a lot of Raisio’s products and you also get to know the company better: http://vimeo.com/48735015

Publications by Raisio

Raisio also publishes an Annual Report every year which contains a review of the last year and information about Raisio’s strategy, sustainability, corporate governance and financial statements. The Annual Report of  2012 you can find here:

http://www.raisio.com/www/page/8233

Raisio also has a news site where you can follow how Raisio is expanding for example. The latest news are that the Benecol products was launched in the Philippines on Monday this week (21.10.2013). http://www.raisio.com/www/page/4430

Raisio’s vision and values

Raisio’s vision is to be a forerunner in ecological and healthy snacks with leading brands as well as an active developer of sustainable food chain.

Raisio is a forerunner in healthy, ecological snacks with leading brands and an active developer of the sustainable food chain.

Company values are tools that help Raisio’s employees to reach the targets defined in the Group’s strategy. A developing, competent and motivated staff is in a good position to achieve its goals. 

Raisio’s growth strategy

Raisio aims at growth through acquisitions and through organic growth in the company’s domestic markets. Raisio’s strong balance sheet and cash flow provide a good basis to continue implementation of the growth phase. Raisio continues to be active on the acquisition front.

Growth through acquisitions:

Globalisation of the trade and its distribution channels requires additional structural arrangements, which means that the food industry also has to become more international. Acquisitions provide the fastest way to internationalise and Raisio has excellent opportunities for this. The company is small and flexible with an ability to make quick decisions. Additionally, Raisio has strong balance sheet and cash flow.

Strong balance sheet results from the divestments carried out during the last few years. Raisio divested potato and diagnostics businesses in 2007,  sold its margarine business to Bunge Limited in 2009, malt business in 2011 and non-dairy business in the spring 2013. During the growth phase, Raisio acquired two UK companies producing breakfast and snack products, Polish pasta company and a confectionery company in Czech Republic. Raisio’s strategic focus is still on ecological and healthy snacks.

Acquisitions based on strict criteria

Raisio is interested in companies that comply with its strategy and represent small and growing product segments as well as new market areas.

Raisio has defined strict criteria that potential acquisition targets need to meet. These four criteria are related to product applications, consumer brands, customer base and purchase price.

Raisio consists of two divisions: Brands and Raisioagro

These are the competitors of the Raisio Group we found so far:

Myllyn Paras (http://www.myllynparas.fi/suomi/)

Danisco A/S (http://www.danisco.com/food-beverages/)

Danone (http://www.danone.com/?lang=en)

Greencore (http://www.greencore.ie/)

//Anna, Maria & Marie-Sophie