Tirsdag, 29 September 2009 07:56

Easy change in group work methods at Atria

The operations of the Finnish food-processing company Atria are spread between offices in the Nordic Countries, Russia, and the Baltic Countries. In order to ensure smooth co-operation, the company relied on extensive travelling, which caused an extra load both for the personnel and the budget. Atria examined several alternatives for efficient group work during 2008.

“There was clear need for a remote conferencing system in our organisation. Constant travelling was arduous and also inefficient. We opted for the Videra Virtual Office solution at the end of 2008, because we wanted to have a group work solution that could be rapidly provided to a number of different locations,” says Group Vice President IT, Steering & Logistics Jukka Mäntykivi of Atria.

The implementation of the new group work method in Atria’s organisation was easy and there was very little resistance to the change. The objective was not to eliminate all travelling by introducing the remote conferencing service. Instead, the objectives were to improve wellbeing at work as well as opportunities for group work, although savings in costs have also been created.

“Decreased travelling has saved Atria’s costs in practice. However, for us the improvement in operating methods is equally important: a well-functioning remote conferencing system has made work group meetings more effective and the arrangement of meetings flexible. The system has made our operations more effective, which is partly reflected in the almost non-stop use of the service,” Mr. Mäntykivi says.

Atria set clear quality goals for the use of the remote conferencing system from the outset. Despite the short monitoring period, the goals have already been achieved, for example, through the improvement in meeting practices and the consequent increase in the efficiency of operations.