Customising the future
Custo the fu
Written by Nell Walker Pro
omising uture
oduced by James Pepper
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Zinnovate’s CEO Håkan Nilsson describes how a tiny IT services company has become so enormously successful and well-trusted in its industry
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ince 2013, Zinnovate has provided management, consultancy and IT services with a particular focus on the global transport and logistics industry, allowing businesses to fulfil the potential of their IT portfolios. The company’s Founder, Owner and CEO Håkan Nilsson has utilised his 23 years of experience as a CIO in the global forwarding industry to become a trusted strategic advisor to a number of other companies in the business. “Particularly I’m involved when companies are going through some sort of change,” Nilsson explains. “Or rather when the
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change is of such a magnitude that it’s not simply called change – it’s called transformation, and it cuts across systems, processes and organisations. Many global transport and logistics companies go through changes that weren’t intended to be transformations, but it turns out to be the vehicle for changing their systems and processes for the better.” Zinnovate has the competence to support such large transformations in a technology-focussed way, it is able to deal with infrastructure and systems applications, software elements, core structures, and more. It also concentrates intensely
on integration and business intelligence, believing that even if companies are buying the best standard package available, they require a level of customisation in these two areas especially. “Whatever the system, it’s not an island – it needs to interact with other systems either in the company’s internal landscape or externally with customers, vendors, carriers, and legal authorities. That’s where
we can help with building those interfaces in the area,” Nilsson says. Zinnovate prides itself on its level of customisation and, as Nilsson explains, it is a vastly important fraction of the bigger picture: “Customisation is such a small part of the total application. It might amount to five percent on top of a standard system, but the value of that five percent has the potential to be quite dramatic.
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WE DELIVER There are many challenges in IT. We promise no miracle cure, but we do believe in the power of hard work. Our philosophy is simple: the more responsibility we take, the greater our ability to deliver. In projects, development, operation, and training.
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It needs to be structured in that business intelligence layer.” accordance with the needs Zinnovate knows that customers of the customer. have their own preferences and “Our customers are so important should have perfect visibility to us. If you are a logistics provider of their processes. Whether and you have a system in place, producing status event messages, that system is there to freight documents, deliver value to your orders, or invoices, customers. Sizeable customisation is customers will important. Nilsson have some says that the pretty strong small but valuable customisation degree of system requirements. customisation Annual So even if you Zinnovate provides revenue have a system that raises customer is producing a lot of appreciation by 100 reports, for instance, if percent, and has led the you don’t customise that report, company to achieve some very the customer will be unhappy. forward-thinking customers: That’s one thing we do, meaning “We start by giving advice,” we can help the logistics provider he says. “We conduct customer give a much better information meetings, they pick my brain, service to its customer by creating and it’s a fantastic opportunity
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Hükan Nilsson - CEO Nilsson’s unique IT expertise stems from more than three decades of IT focus with senior management roles in three different industries: Manufacturing, Finance and for the last 26 years, Transport & Logistics. He is devoted to building and delivering Customer Value and Shareholder Value through Innovation and Optimization of processes and system solutions. Nilsson is instrumental in creating a world-leading global operator in the freight forwarding industry through mergers and acquisitions, and by delivering cutting edge IT solutions and processes. He introduced and led the global deployment of an industry-changing global freight forwarding system based on single-file concept and end-to-end network process. This has resulted in impressive productivity improvements whilst replacing a myriad of legacy systems. Nilsson is a renowned and sought-after speaker at international conferences on the subjects of IT, Processes, Change and Logistics.
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Julia Dunder - PA to CEO and Sales Manager Dunder is results-orientated with a can-do attitude. She is service-minded with a willingness to go the extra mile when supporting customers.
for me to do the same to them. “Recently I was in Amsterdam where 45 of the top IT managers from all over the world were gathered, and I was the only external guy there as a speaker. I was there to share my views on the future and for them to ask me questions, but of course I learned a lot from them too. Things like this are our biggest force for ensuring we stay ahead. “We look at the opportunities technology provides, but if you
don’t have a solid understanding of the underlying business, you’ll waste your time on technologies that are great, but not specific for your company or industry. That’s an area on which we pride ourselves. We have very good technical people who have a solid background in the transport and logistics industry, and that combination is important.” Nilsson says that the entire reason the company began was due to his annoyance regarding the IT services available at the time. He decided that being irritated was not productive, and chose to
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do something about the situation. “If you believe you can do better, do it yourself,” he says. “Many other companies aren’t so flexible or customer-centric, but we’re able to be flexible thanks in part to our small team. We only have four members of staff and some very closelyconnected subcontractors and partners. A big factor in this is building layers of partnerships in a win-win way. “I’ve developed a lot of contacts in 23 years, and I approached the ones I thought to be the best, which are now my partners in Zinnovate. WiseTech Global in Australia is a successful provider of software, and partnering with it allows me to tap into a big global customer base. They have an extreme focus on product development, but how could customers make use of it? That’s where we can come in and close that gap with a level of customisation and support that actually makes best use
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Raffael Dessi - System development consultant Dessi is a highly resourceful, innovative and competent senior consultant with over a decade’s experience from the IT field in a number of different roles spanning from programmer, system architect, technical project leader, team leader and BI developer. He possesses excellent technical skills in .NET, database technology, business intelligence and system integration, coupled with in-depth global forwarding know-how.
of the system from WiseTech Global.” All of Zinnovate’s growth is thanks to its reputation. The company only accepts projects where it believes it can make an impressive difference for customers, and where it will have a successful outcome. It makes choices strategically, and expects customers to do the same. Zinnovate’s highly personalised brand of conducting business has allowed it to develop at an astonishing rate for its size, and Nilsson insists
that his company does not simply offer IT and business transformations for the sake of throwing out an old system: “It is usually a major change from local optimisation to global optimisation,” he concludes. “We’re selling an end-to-end service so we need to address all elements of a system process, people, and organisation. The industry is slowly changing, but people are still not looking holistically at transformations. That’s where we can help.”
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Svärdvägen 21 Danderyd, Stockholm Sweden, 182 33 T +46 70 555 32 41 F +46 08-755 23 68 www.zinnovate.se