STENA DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION LAB

“The winners in the future will be the companies that are nimble and good at seizing new opportunities when they appear, but at the same time have a stable and efficient business with a customer focus. With an increased rate of change and greater uncertainty in the world around us, we need to be receptive and pay attention at an early stage to signals about things that could provide us with future business advantages. To be able to exploit these new opportunities, Stena needs somewhere that does not disturb its core activities and in the case of digital innovations, this is our newly started Digital Transformation Lab”, says Annika Elfström, who, together with Ida Lööv, comprises the lab’s small core team.

The lab’s task is to find future business advantages for Stena by means of digital technology and new business models and support their development with new ways of working. This work is being done in a network format and, today, the majority of the Stena companies are linked to the lab. The lab opened on 1 November and now has links to Stena Bulk, Stena RoRo, Stena Line and Business Administration. Stena Fastigheter and Envac are also interested in being linked to the lab.

“We can see different ways of being linked to the lab. Either you participate and listen to what is happening and are inspired or you work together in a project or on a concept. Our focus is on developing and creating future value for Stena, which is why it’s so important that we work together with all the companies. Working with a business focus creates relevance but it’s also important to develop new ways of working and to work with a leadership and culture that make a transformation possible”, says Annika.

We talk about digital transformation, what, then, should we transform ourselves into? “As I see it, what we should create is an ability to be prepared for the future and whatever we may face. We will create more paths and new collaboration – both internally and externally – to continue successful innovation work”, says Annika, Head of the Digital Transformation Lab.

“When the Stena Leadership program was created two years ago, we did not even talk about digitalization and now we meet it everywhere. This shows how rapidly it is developing and for Stena it means that we need to learn to master and handle something new – and in a new way. With our Digital Transformation Lab, we are creating a place where new ideas, concepts and prototypes to ensure that we are better equipped to meet the future can be developed. Since the work in the lab will take place in a network organization – which is new for us – it will also be a test of whether we have the ability to do just that, to lead and create value via the network! Leading in a hierarchy can be straightforward but also has its limitations and in a network organization it is a question of working with inspiration, ambition and relevance. This, in turn, places new demands on how we lead and work together at Stena, and the development of the next level programs and initiatives to support this are in full swing. ”

Eva Hansdotter, HR Director, People, Soft Values and Organizational Excellence

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, AI:

Refers to programs that, with the help of algorithms and machine learning, create new information and new insights that can be used to create new offers to customers and make better decisions based on facts. What, for example, would happen if all the data from ships, properties and wind farms were gathered and combined with data from Stena’s systems and customer portals?

CHAT BOTS, VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS:

Refer to text-based communication with an AI which learns as it answers questions. At Stena, there are currently two chat bots, Stina for Stena Line and Hom-E for Stena Fastigheter, which is a demo chat bot. These represent the first step towards virtual assistants, which will replace today’s apps in the future. Together with customer portals, it should be possible to create a new type of customer service that is always open – 24/7, all the year round.

AUGUMENTED REALITY AND VIRTUAL REALITY:

AR means that you combine the virtual world with the physical world. VR means that you can experience a virtual world through a pair of special glasses. See the invitation here to the left for the first VR event where ways in which VR can develop and improve business activities will be explored. It is claimed that VR technology education/training and experiences are being revolutionised with the help of VR technology. We also hope to find interesting solutions in sales and, for example, use Stena Fastigheter VR to show new apartments to their customers before they begin to build them.

BLOCKCHAIN:

Blockchain is the world’s first platform for handling values, contracts and immaterial rights over the Internet. In the lab, we are looking at how Stena can benefit from Blockchain and how we can create something to learn more about the Blockchain platform.

SMART SENSORS:

New sensors provide us with new solutions but above all more data to feed our future AI solutions with. More data, more insights and better decisions and a way of getting closer to our customers. Today, there is a new generation of sensors, which are cheaper, smaller and battery-powered, with greater potential. If you fill a tanker, ferry or building with this type of sensor, what could you learn? In what way can we develop better services and solutions for our customers?