Towards sustainable development with Neste Oil

On Tuesday 19th March, our Stratos group met in Keilaranta, Neste Oil´s headquarter. We had a warm welcome with coffee and veggie pie, which was actually praised to taste pretty good. The excursion consisted of 3 presentations from different persons and with different subjects. But we could definitely find the common thread of those presentations:  Neste Oil's core competence is in sustainability and renewable diesel.

Osmo Kammonen, Senior Vice President, Communications, Marketing and Public Affairs, started “ the presentation spell” by telling us about the company´s history and briefly about their business areas and future plans. We learned that Neste Oil was established in 1948 as the state petrol company, to secure Finland’s oil supply and now it is categorized as a refining and marketing company. Anyhow, the most amazing thing to hear was that an airline is testing Neste Oil´s renewable diesel as a flying fuel. Go Lufhansa! Though is still quite expensive we hope more airlines turning towards a greener future.

After Osmo´s introduction lecture, Henrik Erämetsä, Head of Market Development, Renewable Fuels, continued telling some more interesting points about ecological diesel. “It´s 2 to 3 times more expensive but it can be used in the engine of a normal car as it is”. So no matter which car you have you could use renewable fuel? If we understood it right, it sounds easy.

Last speaker, Risto Heikkala, working as a logistics manager in Renewable Fuels, spoke about the importance of supply chain management. All of us have probably heard a term “offshoring”, but what is “nearshoring” though? It is a derivative of offshoring - transferring task and business back close to companies. Neste Oil seems to push a lot into sustainability, but how does sustainability show in logistics strategy though? “Of course it shows, heavy vessel with tanks full of oil and raw materials are tried to transfer during as favorable wind circumstances as possible. Let the wind blow! We thank Neste Oil for their hospitality and interesting presentations.

-Jenni Räihä

Fazer company day & seminar

We started our day with a bus ride towards Vantaa. Maybe it was because of the excessive studying from previous night (for real?) or due to the excitement that was silently growing inside, but the atmosphere in the bus was unusually quiet as we were on our way to every child’s fantasyland. Once we got to the entrance hall of Fazer, the students gathered around the sofas where huge bowls were filled with chocolates. At the latest this point everyone knew that most likely we would exit the building with sore stomachs - and this time it would not be because of the usual reason for university students.

After the formalities we gathered in an auditorium. Once again, we were offered a bowl full of chocolates to keep us awake during the presentation. However, this was unnecessary as it turned out, since the presentations were getting our full attention on their own right.

At first Maija Hellman, Manager in Business Development, gave a few introductory words about Fazer and told us what our day was going to include. Then the board was given to Mika Sarimo, VP of Fazer Bakeries & Confectionery Marketing, who shared to us bits of Fazer’s current strategy. Sarimo informed about the Fazer’s position in the Nordic and the Baltic markets, and how Fazer was beginning to enter new foreign markets while also maintaining and even improving their already strong position in Finland and the other core markets. We were provided with insights on Fazer’s way of utilizing its focus brands for expanding to new product categories and bringing out new varieties. Sarimo also presented us the Cookie challenge, Fazer’s present mission in the cookie sector.

Next Heli Arantola, Senior Vice President in Fazer Mill BU and Business Development, gave us a presentation of the Fazer strategy and especially the strategy development within the company. We watched a video about Fazer’s new strategy called “Our Journey to New Places” and Arantola explained how the strategy was developed and communicated internally. After Arantola’s presentation we were treated with lunch; have to tell you, once again our stomachs were singing with joy.

After our bellies were full, we were ready to continue munching some more chocolates while Antti Tapiolinna, VP of Fresh Bakery Business and Head of Go-to-market activities, told us how Fazer was seeking growth in a declining market. Tapiolinna explained that traditionally the bakery market has been very different from how Fazer sees it today, with fresh lunch and snack products and suchlike.

Next up was Heli Holttinen, the director of Shops & Cafes Business Unit. She offered us a sneak peak into a new café concept Fazer is launching during the upcoming summer. The valuable lesson of the presentation was about how Fazer is making their in-depth ground research through multiple method research from benchmarking to netnographic studies.

The last presenter was Kirsi Puoliväli, HR Manager, who told us about careers and employee management at Fazer. The most exciting fact was Fazer’s strategy as a responsible employer, and how the company translates its corporate values into practice. We were happy to hear about Fazer’s family-like focus, since it seems rare in today’s corporate world, where market forces and efficiency dominate.

After presentations, the fun part was beginning. Before our actual tour in the factory, we were taken to another auditorium where we were shown a video about Fazer’s history, cocoa and CSR. After this we were truly excited of the opportunity to taste different kinds of chocolates and to see how those small beans that used to be treated as currency were turned into something so much sweeter. Hence, we were given a tour through various production lines where the chocolate mass was turned into all those familiar products we can find in our next-door markets. It was amazing to see the amount of automated power as well as handcraft skills required to produce the variety of products – all this so that we could have something sweet in our mouths!

While touring in the factory, we stopped at tasting points were mountains of chocolate were waiting to be “tasted”. Once we bravely finished the tour, we were taken to a final chocolate eating point where - as if we had not had enough - we were once more offered more chocolate. “Eat as much as you want, this is the final stop” the tour guide said. Oh, and did we listen to her.

-          Lasse and Elina

ABB company day & seminar

On February 14th, we at the Stratos group 2013 had a great opportunity to familiarize ourselves with the leading company in power and automation technologies, ABB, and visit their Helsinki office in Pitäjänmäki. The theme of the day seminar was to introduce Stratos students with the wide operations and functions that ABB has. In addition to Tero Manner, the Vice President, we had Mika Erkkilä, Janne Nieminen as well as Esa Loukola, the heads of several different functions, as our hosts.



Tero Manner giving us an overview on the company

After Tero had welcomed everyone and introduced the agenda of the day, he gave a comprehensive company introduction. He provided numbers and figures to build a wide picture about ABB’s business and the various industries where their products and services are utilized. As the knowledge about ABB’s business in general seems often to be on the level of “something to do with motors and electrics”, we believe all of us learned a lot of new about the company. We also learned that ABB’s equipment is often indirectly connected to our daily life because they stand as the largest supplier of industrial motors and drives, the largest provider of generators to the wind industry, and the largest supplier of power grids worldwide.
Tero pointed out clearly how ABB’s role is underestimated in the media. In the newspapers, only the fancy “start-ups” are stressed. ABB has actually a great success story and they were highly profitable also last year. ABB is a global leader in many areas by operating in approximately 100 countries. Furthermore, they are one of the biggest industrial employers in Finland, operating in over 30 localities. Besides the company introduction, it was really nice that Tero shared us also about his personal background. Surprisingly, Tero was a previous Stratos student from the 90s and thus it was fascinating to hear about his career path.
After hearing about ABB’s business in general, Mika took a deep dive into ABB’s drive business and the recent project they had been dealing with. Mika presented a highly interesting real-time case of how they were able to enhance their service levels. By using a fundamental quality-enhancement mindset, they were able to cut their lead times significantly and hence make their customers even more satisfied. After hearing about the successful “lead-time project”, it was time for a coffee break and excellent shrove buns (laskiaspulla) – yummy!




After the break it was Janne’s turn to give us insight about the Systematic model and toolbox for Product Transfer Projects. During his presentation he showed us how the these projects are planned and followed, what is the role of communication by project leaders and how to optimize the time use of the specialists. Then, it was time for the last presentation of the day: Esa taught us a lot about planning of IT projects and how to evaluate the profitability of these projects. Like all the previous presentations, we perceived the information as very interesting, and again lots of questions and comments were raised during and after the presentation.
After all the presentations, we were unfortunately quite behind with the time schedule and thus there wasn’t a lot of time for an overall discussion at the end. Instead, the ABB team decided to start heading for the last part of the excursion – the factory tour.
First Tero took us to see the facilities where ABB manufactures engines. We saw a lot of impressive machinery and complicated generators etc. Interesting was that ABB rotates some tasks of the workers at the factory, this is done to keep everyone motivated and to avoid too long routines. After Tero’s guided tour it was Janne’s turn. He took us to a building where ABB manufactures drives. First he gave us an interesting demonstration of how a drive works with a simple example that involved an electronic motor and a small red balloon. In the factory we saw some assembly lines and Janne told us about the products, warehouse control and how different jobs are organized.



All in all, we are pretty sure that we can speak for all of us when saying that we enjoyed the visit a lot and it reminded us of the opportunities that ABB, as a truly global company, can offer for ambitious university graduates with technical or business backgrounds. We would all like to thank ABB for offering us the opportunity to learn more about businesses related to power and automation technologies and your way of doing business.

- Lauri, Miina & Joni

Kick-off event at Finpro

Our excited group gathered for the first time at the kick-off event, which was hosted at Finpro's corporate headquarters in Ruoholahti. The event started with everyone introducing themselves and telling a bit about their expectations for the upcoming spring. We have got quite a diverse group of students this year as each of the participants is from a different major at Aalto. Three different Aalto Schools are represented- the schools of  Business, Science and Electrical Engineering! The first Stratos session continued with a brief introduction from the coordinators. Outi Torniainen, the SVP of Communications and Marketing at Finpro, followed with a presentation on the work of Finpro and how they are assisting Finnish companies in their internationalization goals. The interesting presentation raised a lot of discussion about the most common problems or concerns Finnish companies face when entering new markets.

We were also extremely glad to to welcome representatives from Fazer, Maija Hellman and Gaia consulting, Laura Hakala, to our kick off session. They gave us a quick overview on their companies and what kinds of projects students will be working on in their companies. After the successful event at Finpro our group continued to Baana to get to know each other a bit better while sipping some sparkling wine. 

Afterwork at Baana