Islet­ter High­light: Kari Leimo­la, Trans­meri Group

THROUGH ISLET BINOC­U­LARS: KARI LEIMO­LA, CEO

What kind of orga­ni­za­tion and role do you work for?

I am Trans­meri Group par­ent company’s CEO. We have a head­count of 17 in the par­ent com­pa­ny, and 6 major sub­sidiary com­pa­nies with a total of 19 small­er sub­sidiaries. Next year I will have spent 10 years at Trans­meri. I am mar­ried and have 3 chil­dren, one of whom has already moved out to study in Joen­suu. I like sail­ing and ultra-run­ning, and all kinds of sports that sup­port it.

What is Trans­meri Group’s core mes­sage to stake­hold­ers and customers?

We are a 90-year-old fam­i­ly busi­ness and the next gen­er­a­tion is com­mit­ted to con­tin­u­ing the busi­ness. We are a reli­able, long-term partner.

How do you see your indus­try evolv­ing? Which mega trends affect most and how?

Our indus­try is evolv­ing to stream­line, accel­er­ate and make dis­tri­b­u­tion chan­nels more effi­cient. Out of mega trends we are now most influ­enced by the envi­ron­men­tal and cli­mate issues and, on the oth­er hand, by the con­tin­u­ous accel­er­a­tion and sub­or­di­na­tion of tech­no­log­i­cal development.

How is respon­si­bil­i­ty reflect­ed in your actions?

Respon­si­bil­i­ty plays an impor­tant role today, start­ing from our own­ers who have strong­ly raised the issue. Of course, respon­si­bil­i­ty has always been impor­tant to us, but late­ly it has been focused on even more. We are in the process of defin­ing com­mon themes across all Group com­pa­nies based on the UN’s 17 Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals. In addi­tion to a few cor­po­rate-lev­el themes, each com­pa­ny picks up key themes relat­ed to its indus­try. As an exam­ple, our most impor­tant goal is car­bon neu­tral­i­ty and we are in the process of map­ping it and count­ing it, and we will be lock­ing our goals in the near future.

The best thing about your job?

The best part of my job is being able to meet many dif­fer­ent types of peo­ple, both inter­nal­ly and across the board.

What are the top three things on your desk­top for next year?

1. Help­ing our affil­i­ates grow and improve prof­itabil­i­ty – a key task from year to year.
2. Sup­port our staff to cope with major projects.
3. ERP project. We cur­rent­ly have sev­er­al ERP sys­tems in use with­in the Group as we have grown through acqui­si­tions. Our main sys­tem is SAP R3, and its prod­uct sup­port will end by 2025, which is why we con­duct­ed a pre­lim­i­nary study last year with a view to achiev­ing a sin­gle sys­tem for the entire Group. As a result of the sur­vey, we end­ed up with one ERP: SAP S/4HANA. After the deci­sion, we explored the part­ner oppor­tu­ni­ties and ISLET Group was select­ed as a part­ner from sev­er­al alternatives.

Embark­ing into the SAP S/4HANA jour­ney, what do you expect from this transformation?

I hope that the change will be as smooth as pos­si­ble, and that in the long run hav­ing all the Group com­pa­nies under the same ERP sys­tem will make our oper­a­tions stream­lined and eas­i­er. I hope the unnec­es­sary rep­e­ti­tion of the same steps with­in the group will be com­plete­ly eliminated.

What are the main cri­te­ria for choos­ing a tech­nol­o­gy part­ner? What do you expect from a tech­nol­o­gy partner?

Reli­a­bil­i­ty and exper­tise, which also means dar­ing to dis­agree, chal­lenge, ques­tion and offer alter­na­tives. We are look­ing for straight­for­ward co-oper­a­tion where promis­es are kept and dead­lines met, and sur­pris­es along the way are report­ed promptly.

How is coop­er­a­tion with ISLET?

Easy and has­sle-free, all of the above points describe ISLET well. ISLET has always respond­ed to all our requests and needs. ISLET Group is able to pro­vide ser­vice accord­ing to our sched­ules and wish­es, even when the need for ser­vice has come as a sur­prise to ourselves.

How do you attract the best tal­ents, what makes your orga­ni­za­tion a good workplace?

It depends on indi­vid­u­als and their moti­va­tion, but at least at Trans­meri we strive to pro­vide our experts with appro­pri­ate chal­lenges, tasks and devel­op­ment paths.

Trans­meri Group’s motto?

Pri­vate equi­ty investor with­out exit strategy

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