Integrating a Finnish acquisition into a Belgian group

A Belgian group had acquired a company in Finland and wanted to integrate the local organisation into its existing processes, systems and corporate culture. The challenge was to realise economies of scale without losing the local expertise and strengths.

Together with a team of five colleagues, Erik travelled from Belgium to Finland. For months they stayed on site to quickly understand the new environment, the habits and the way of working, because real collaboration with local teams starts with listening. Whenever people come in from the outside, there is always resistance. By taking a very human approach and clearly defining the scope every time, they were not seen as outsiders coming to intervene, but as partners who genuinely wanted to help the local team. From that trust, they analysed the existing processes, tools and ways of working together, mapped the differences and similarities with the group, and determined which processes could be harmonised, where optimisations were possible and which local practices should be retained. At the same time, employees were trained in lean management, including huddles, SOPs and structured problem solving, so that the improvements continued to be carried by the local team after the project.

Within six months, the main improvement projects had been identified, designed and launched. The local team could then continue independently with the implementation and embedding of the improvements. The focus was not only on efficiency and cost optimisation, but also on creating more room for customer-focused work and a better work-life balance for employees.