Going Digital

Interview: Anne Markku, Chief Digital Officer

“We continuously aspire towards better services and shared data that all our stakeholders can take advantage of for the betterment of their business.”

As part of Saga Furs commitment to transparency throughout the value chain, Chief Digital Officer, Anne Markku with her IT-team and together with business units is opening the way for faster and more effective information sharing with stakeholders across the board.

In describing the company processes, Markku says “Digitalisation is changing our processes and way of working faster than ever.” At the time of this interview she’s in the middle of renewing manual processes and systems.

Faster and better data

“We are aiming to have services to the level that 100% of farmers and customers are eager to use digital services by 2021.” According to Markku, currently most farmers fluently use extranet and only few have paper management. Many farmers are keen to enter the digital world and be seen as technology savvy, but they just need a bit more help to get there.

Anne’s team is therefore focusing on enhanced usability and must-have services: “We want to make our online services so reliable, quick and easy and compelling for every partner and customer that they won’t every think of going back to pen and paper!”

Digitalization from skin sorting to sales information

With our production functions, Markku says, software and solutions are being developed to open up faster, better data for farmer suppliers and auction preparations. Digital technology with our high automated skin sorting means the company can have product data available earlier. This makes good business sense: “The earlier we have the product data and the possibility to share it, the sooner we can get together with our suppliers to ensure we’re developing the right product for the right market.”

“Saga Furs is really making an effort in many areas to better serve farmer supplier needs, customer needs, our own needs and those of our wider stakeholder group.”