Some of you reading this are enjoying your well-deserved vacations. The rest of us are doing our best to make sure we do not have to bother you while you are sipping lemonade in the sun.
I would like to take this opportunity to share something that has great strategic value for Studentwork. It’s something that was best described in a single sentence that decorated the late Jan Stenbeck’s wall in Kinnevik’s headquarters in the heart of Stockholm. The saying goes like this: It’s not the big that eat the small. It’s the fast that eat the slow.
This is something that we at Studentwork have learned to be true throughout the years. Conventional wisdom and logic says that big organisations eat smaller ones. That was probably part of the reason why we wanted to get big quickly when we started back in 2004. We wanted to be able to put up a fair fight against our giant competitors before they crushed us. And we were pretty successful in our goal. We have grown to Finland’s largest supplier of young talents and expanded to all Nordic countries as well as to Germany. We are now one of only four suppliers with that vast geographical coverage.
However, what we realised in our expansion was that success it’s not as much about size as it is about speed and flexibility. In many industries bigger companies get crushed by smaller and quicker companies all the time. Our biggest strength is not our geographical coverage or size. Our biggest competition advantage has always been speed and the ability to be flexible towards our customers, candidates and employees.
We have made velocity and agility a competitive advantage. We strive to make quick decisions and always delivering faster than our competitors. That means more individual responsibility to all of my great colleagues on all levels and less bureaucracy. We have made sure that we are communicating two ways with customers, employees and candidates, as well as throughout the entire organisation (through monthly individual development discussions), so our organisation can remain flexible and agile no matter how big we become or what happens in the world around us.
With the market's most talented colleagues we have succeeded in building a culture that listens to our customers and employees, anticipates what is coming ahead, and welcomes change. It has made us a high velocity company despite tough times and intense competition.
For you enjoying the sun; I hope your lemonade tastes great. And for the rest of us; work hard and have fun!
Yours sincerely,
Lucas
Lucas Geisler, Group executive, Studentwork
