Our Scandinavian travel course started from visiting Stockholm, the capital city in Sweden. On the first day, we visited three companies; Dangens Samhalle, Northvolt, and H&M.
Dagens Samhalle is a public media company that takes advantage of digital platform. There we had a chance to learn deeply about interesting Swedish culture. Although Swedish think that they are not much different from American, they are actually quite different for having the highest scores both in self-expression value and secular-rational value. Also, people have a flat relationship and to be equal and dislike hierarchy. Swedish put a lot of values in childcare and taking a break from working for their children is quite common. We also learned about the app KRY, which is people can connect with doctors online without actually visiting them. This is an innovative idea but at the same time has some difficulty with how to protect the private health information.
Northvolt is a European transformation which focuses on energy saving. Its purpose is that green energy us making forward. The reason Northvolt chose Europe to become its target is that it is a better option than China to develop the industry in the near term. What made us surprise is that it predicted that electronic vehicle would take the lead in 2025 and 2040 is the end of carbohydrate engines since customers’ behavior is changing. In addition, it gave a forecast that total demand for lithium on batteries in Europe anticipates increasing to 416 gwh from 5 gwh. The lesson we learned from this company is: Never assume what is practical today or yesterday, always giving assumption.
H&M is a sustainable and innovative company which is expanding globally. Their slogan is “Fashion and quality at the best price in a sustainable way”. It aims to use only recycle or other sustainable source of material for products in 2030. They have a program called conscious collections which is done by collecting used clothes from customers at the stores for recycling.
At the H&M Stockholm store, they use interesting resource to identify the customer flow and the trends which is a crucial part for the success of their business. There is a coffee shop at the location and they collect information about the inflow and the outflow of the customers, and use this big data to identify their customer demography.
Moreover, H&M is huge in online shopping and they are trying to enhance customers’ experience. Online shopping brings benefits for gathering customers at their actual store locations as well because they are offering free returning for the products that customers purchase online. When they come to stores to return, there will be another chance for them to purchase another product. That made H&M have lots of loyal customers around the world.
The first night we gathered in Noel’s and enjoyed the food. David Myhr is a good singer and just launched his album couple of weeks ago. Furthermore, karaoke was the most memorable part. It was a great night to get know each classmate more at this moment.
