Partnership is a crucial component to finding new business

Beneli Academy, 2016 focusing on smart tags, was a huge success. During the two days (9^th and 10^th May) fifty industry experts came together to discuss the future of the industry, all in the knowledge that embracing new technology and to working in partnership with other stakeholders is key to success.

How can one know whether a vaccine that traveled from one continent to another had an unbroken cold chain, and therefore, wasn’t damaged during transport? It's a multi-million dollar question that, every year, could save thousands of lives and large amounts of money.

During the first day of the conference, humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) spoke about how they are currently developing a solution to this problem, in cooperation with Beneli and innovation actor Acreo.

“Over the two days, we did not discuss labels. Instead, we have focused on how, by working in partnership, you can find solutions to concrete problems in society”, says Robert Östman, CEO of Beneli and initiator of the conference. By combining the expertise of two or more companies, you can gain tremendous competitive advantages.

Cooperation was the focus during the conference.
Never before has competition been so fierce and the individual company is not always able to market their own product well enough on their own. The solution can then lie in combining their product with someone else's technology.

“I believe that with "collaborative development" two or more manufacturers can jointly find a solution. For this to work, companies need to dare to combine measures and have an open mind”, said Robert. During the conference, there was a great atmosphere among the participants. Both customers, and industry competitors have been in the same room and exchanged ideas and thoughts, something that is quite unique.

A company that has chosen to work closely with others is the international construction technology company, Hilti, one of the presenters at the conference. To strengthen their competitiveness, they have developed a complete service that includes hardware, software and customer services. An offer, which, among other things, requires access to smart tags/labels. The product has gained great success and rolled out its platform worldwide.

“For businesses to stay competitive, it is important to understand new technologies and use them to their advantage. Everything is done at a tremendous rate and affects us all”, explains Robert Östman. “Today's smartphones offer innovative solutions, if we don’t exploit that opportunity, our competitors will do it!”

In line with the company’s view on working in partnership, Beneli chose to offer the conference free of charge. All lecturers also work on a voluntary basis. This is a win-win for all of us. To be successful, you have to be a part of a whole.

The next Beneli Academy is scheduled for February, 2017.

For more information please contact:
Robert Östman, CEO
E-mail: robert.ostman@beneli.se
Phone: 0709-89 60 03, 042-25 60 03