Digital Governance

Corporate governance in a digital world

Articles

The cognitive shipping company

To secure its future, family-owned Stena Line in Gothenburg has chosen to take digitalization seriously. Backed by the owner and supported by an active board, Stena Line strives constantly to become a “cognitive shipping company”, powered by AI. “Today we talk less about “digital transformation” and more about just “transformation”, says Jari Virtanen, Chief Transformation Officer, (CTO). “Vision in 2015: Fully AI assisted freight”  The call for change came when … Read more

“Digital transformation is about people, not technology”

Swedish investment firm EQT has a team of 60 digital accelerators, catalysing the transformation of their 70 independent portfolio companies. When digital transformation is made positive for both staff and customers – that’s when it becomes effective”, says Sven Törnkvist, head of the group. Pilots have been used to trigger curiosity and engagement, and are viewed as investments in learning. Now the portfolio companies queue up for support in their digital transformation. … Read more

Vital that company boards actively engage with digital transformation

If digital transformation is strategically critical, it should be at the top of the agenda. Boards should have continuously updated business intelligence, follow the actions of the CEO and the executive management closely and take every opportunity for insight and influence. This is the advice of Helena Levander, chair and board member of a number of companies. She believes that boards in recent years have gone from exaggerated respect to … Read more

“Grundfos’ digital transformation may be the smartest ever”

In May 2017, Fredrik Östbye accepted an assignment: carry out the smartest and most intelligently executed digital transformation of any industrial company. The challenge came from world leading Danish pump-maker Grundfos – looking to shift from selling pumps to providing water-as-a-service. Three years later, the transformation is complete. When Fredrik Östbye accepted the assignment as Group Vice President and Head of digital transformation at Grundfos, he was given a time … Read more

SKF’s bearings go digital

SKF has reached a point where digitalization brings both challenges and opportunities. The key question is how to maintain growth when ball bearings can be bought in bulk via e-retailers such as Amazon or Alibaba and competition from China is growing. At the same time, demand for components for the mechanical industry as a whole – and thus also the need for ball bearings – is expected to fall. SKF’s … Read more

Spendrups – a family business with a head-on approach to digitalization

Digitalization is an opportunity for our company. A new governance group with a mission to increase the competency of the board – and a digital review of all processes. Those are two major focus areas for Fredrik Spendrup, CEO of the market leading Swedish brewery Spendrups. “We need more people on our board with experience of leadership and digitalization”, he says … Read more

When digitalization moves to the top of the agenda

The role of the board is to signal to the management that digitalization is something they need to look at. “We should not tell them how to do it, just tell them to look into it.” Those are the words of veteran chair Sören Mellstig. In his view, the board only needs to have sufficient knowledge of digitalization to be able to ask the right questions. … Read more

Digitalization in tune with customers

Digitalization should not be given special treatment – it needs to be integrated into the company’s ongoing operations. That’s the opinion of Anna Benjamin, board member and one of the main owners of Swedish shop equipment company ITAB Shop Concept. Digital support for shopping is evolving rapidly, and Benjamin views digitalization as business development. No more, no less. … Read more