Team Piteå on Gothenburg, Volvo and Mölnlycke Health Care

Tuesday morning 06.03.2014: As we prepare to leave the city of Götborg we reflect on everything we were able to see and experience in this wonderful city. Having been here during one of the busiest weekends of the year that included different festivals of music and celebration of human rights, we were able to get a great understanding of the culture and people of this city. Very friendly, warm, inviting and accepting are few key characteristics that stood out for me as I look back over the past three days. During our stay here we had the pleasure of visiting some of the leading businesses that operate in this fantastic city which also happens to be the second largest city of Sweden and home to many world class firms such as Volvo and Mölnlycke Health Care. Both of these companies have been around in their respective industries for many many years. However as mentioned by representatives of both of these firms both companies have been going through major changes in order to move towards the future and be able to compete with major players within their industries on the international level. Swedish companies specially the two that we visited in Götborg rely majorly on the international markets due to the small market size that is in Sweden. And that is why they must produce products that could competed with major competitors world wide. Volvo has been focusing on its marketing efforts and transforming the company strategy since the new Chinese ownership took over back in 2010. They started by setting a new strategic direction for where the ownership group envisioned the company heading towards. Since the purchase the company has set new targets as far as product development process, profit sustainability, organizational alignments and culture improvements. Going from a slow bureaucratic engineering driven humble and Sweden centric company to a speedy and flexible reacting to the market company that is customer driven, self confident and competing on a global scale.IMG_2067 As mentioned before Mölnlycke health care is also working similar characteristic as Volvo. This company has become very Customer centric and taking excellent ideas directly from their own customers by consulting them on what products they could come up with that could be useful in everyday operations. Example of this is the BARRIER EasyWarm which is a self warming blanket that requires 0 watts of power and helps reduce hypothermia. This idea was came from Dr. Mark Kyker who was dealing with this issue with his patients during long surgeries.