December 2015

New role in 2016?

by Christer Nilsson
31st December 201531st March 2020

Image: Adobe stock.

Happy New Year!

We live in a time of rapid change. The main driving forces are globalisation, digitalisation, increased demands on all businesses to become sustainable and, last but not least, a healthy balance between work and private life. More and more jobs are “certified” to include complex tasks and problem-solving with no given work instructions or obvious solution. Abstraction ability and capacity to collect and analyse a variety of different types of material, facts and impressions are becoming increasingly important.

Best wished for Christmas and a relaxing holiday

by Christer Nilsson
23rd December 201531st March 2020

To own a company, operate on a Board of Directors or have a senior position in a business is a complex and exciting task. To… Read More »Best wished for Christmas and a relaxing holiday

Bottom-Up

by Christer Nilsson
20th December 201531st March 2020

Bottom-up. Image Adobe Stock & Vestadil.

Early in my career, as an engineer at Gambro (a Swedish medtech company), I was taught a simple method for expressing the core of the benefits of an offering to a client. The method requires the use of only a verb and a noun to explain what the customer needs.

For example, if you manufacture pencils, the “verb + noun” description is “make mark,” or if you manufacture jewelry and tie clips, the expression is “hold tie.” It is obvious that the business, market, and competitors will be completely different if you provide a solution to “make a mark” or “hold a tie” versus offering a pencil or a tie clip.

Verb plus noun

Attracting talent: One of the Three Key Issues

by Christer Nilsson
11th December 201531st March 2020

Image: Shutterstock & Vestadil AB.

Today, there are three questions that all boards and management must ask themselves. They are:

In what business are we?
Who are our new competitors?
How can we attract and retain talent?

I have in two previous blog posts addressed the first two questions. In this post, I share my views on the challenge of attracting and retaining creative talents.

The ability to attract creative and innovative employees today is as important as access to raw materials is to steelworks or paper mills, for example.

The commercial market battles will be determined by companies that can recruit and retain the very best people in all professional functions. Creativity and innovation are paramount to the success of a company. These companies develop superior and smarter products/services than competitors do.