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!

  

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

!

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. 

 

 

 

 

 

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

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