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

The minds of our group: Anna

Hi everyone!

My name is Anna and I study International marketing at Åbo Akademi University. Last year I did an exchange in France in Grenoble and learned a lot about their culture and their univeristy system, met a a lot of new people and learned a lot about myself as well.

I want to experience new stuff all the time and that’s why I chose to attend this course as well, it seems to be something different compared to the other courses. I prefer to attend workshops and study in teams, rather than sitting and listening to teachers. I heard that this course has got a lot of positive feedback and that especially the Kunstenniemi camp is really rewarding! I’m really looking forward for this course, even though I have a lot of other courses going on for the moment. As our group is a mix of both Hanken, Turun Ammattikorkeakoulu and an exchange student I think it’s gonna be both challenging timewise but educative as well to work as a group and get our task ”idea creation” for Raisio started.

With organizing our time and co-working as a team I think and hope we can manage to come up with something innovative to present for Raisio! :)

/Anna

The minds of our group: Marie-Sophie

Hej!
I'm from Germany and I'm 21 years old. I used to live in a village close to Tübingen, in Southern Germany until I moved out of my parents house to study in Landshut, Bavaria. There I studied International Business for two years and now I finish my Bachelor's degree here in Turku at the Novia University of Applied Sciences with a double degree. Finland was my first choice for this year abroad and I am really glad to be here.
I never participated in a project like INNO58 before, but the description of this project was very interesting and therefore I decided to take part in it. 
I am also very excited to be a part of our "Raisio in my mind"-team and I am looking forward to work with the girls on our project. I am sure, we will have a good and productive time together :)

//Marie-Sophie