Spring 2018 venture client cycle 28.02.2018

4 Ways Startups Can Co-Create Digitalization Solutions with Stora Enso

Stora Enso's first venture client opportunities covered the entire range of their strategic goals. The topics included improving forest ownership, purchasing solutions of timber, market intelligence, and upgrading customer experience.

Changing The Forest Ownership Experience

Only in Finland, around 60% of the forests are owned by private individuals and families. However, a higher and higher number of them live in towns and cities. In addition, not all of them are professional forest owners. When asked, most of these landowners said they would like their assets to be well-managed and economically viable.

But how should this property be handled and what tools are out there that could assist forest owners in the decision process, management, and maintenance of their lands while increasing sales?

We believe that with the help of the right technologies and tools a higher level of efficiency and convenience can be brought to the forest ownership experience. Because in the end, It is about finding rational and functional service models in a commercially viable way.

To make this happen we are seeking startup teams working in digitalization, analytics, visualization, big data, AI, sensors, machine learning, market data, automation and IoT to name a few.

Smart Sales & Purchasing Solutions for Timber

Almost one generation’s lifetime. That is the time that takes for timber to be ready for sale from its plantation to the harvesting stage.

Some of the most common questions from both buyers and sellers when preparing and making decisions for the timber trade are:  

  • What type of timber is available, how much and in what quantities?

  • What is the market situation? For what type of timber there is demand and where?

  • Where to find the right places where buyers and sellers meet?

  • How could all this process be made easier and faster?

Technological innovations have streamlined timber trade to some degree, but we believe that with the right technology there’s potential to do so much more. AI-based digital assistants, big data, analytics, data visualization, tracing and tracking, sensors or 3-D modelling are just some of the technical solutions that will be utilized in a near future for the benefit of both sellers and buyers. And we want to be at the front-line of these innovations.

Information Flow & Market Intelligence

Like any other company, we are always interested in new business development opportunities. Sometimes these opportunities will be new services and in some other cases, implementation of innovations into the already existing ones. However, to make meaningful decisions a wide range of data, insights, and information is needed.

We are looking for technologies that could assist us with the collection and analysis of market trends and data, competition analysis, identification of new products and services in the market as well as changes in human and customer behavior.

Superior Customer Experience

When speaking about customer experience many people think about marketing but in reality, this term means much more than that. Customer experience happens across different stages. This includes customer relationship with a company and all the type of different interactions conducted between the customer and the supplier expanding from a few seconds (like visiting a website for a search or a call to the customer service) to several weeks or months projects.

At Stora Enso, we believe that people matter and therefore we want to make a step-change in the efficiency of the cooperation between our customers and our organization.

We seek for startup teams working on digital tools and services that could provide continuous and easy communication between us and our customers while increasing the efficiency and saving-costs for both parties involved. Areas of interest for us stretches from order handling via supply chain monitoring to sustainability performance and customer operational fulfilment.

These opportunities are no longer open. See out active opportunities on our here.