Why have a digitalization strategy?

Digitalization. What is it actually? And why have a digitalization strategy? Digitalization is about using all thinkable digital tools to develop activities and new ways to do business. An inflated definition you might think, and yes, it is a bit difficult to grasp what digitalization is. But SSAB has developed a digitalization strategy and our three divisions and two subsidiaries are now doing the same. 

Last summer, Tibnor approached Business Development and asked for help to develop their strategy and I was tasked with assisting them during the fall. Those of us in Business Development are tasked with assisting all divisions and group functions in strategy and development projects which either require further resources or need an objective person who has overall grasp of the question.
The first challenge for me with Tibnor was to define what digitalization involves. I soon realized that everyone I asked had a different idea of what digitalization was. Some people thought it was about e-commerce, others about automated invoice processing. Some people thought that IT should be responsible for digitalization, whereas others considered it was Sales’ responsibility. One of the most important observations we made already at the start of the work was that digitalization is everyone’s responsibility and that if we begin to shift it to a part of the organization, we will fail. Since digitalization is about e-commerce and invoice processing and Facebook, we must all work actively to digitalize our operations to improve our business, however that may be.

Having reached this point, we began to consider which digital solutions we thought Tibnor’s stakeholders would like to have. What are their needs and how can we meet them with new solutions? We brainstormed over 100 ideas of varying quality and then choose five for inclusion in our strategy. We worked each idea into a business case to understand what further business could be generated during the strategy period 2017-2020. Activity lists were set up for each area and persons in line activities were given responsibility for the five different solutions.

Tibnor has now started work on these five ideas and during the year will follow up all projects on a monthly basis. I hope you, too, will enthusiastically follow their work!

Sara Valentin Eklöw
Strategy & Business Development