Raisio plc is a Finnish company established in 1939, whose shares are listed on NASDAQ OMX Helsinki Ltd. The company has over 35,000 shareholders. It employs some 1,900 people and operates in 9 countries. Group’s net sales in 2013 were EUR 557.6 million and EBIT was EUR 39.3 million.
Raisio is known for its innovations, of which cholesterol-lowering Benecol is one good example and Benemilk, with its ability to increase milk yield and improve contents of milk, another.
Thinking Portfolio impressed at first sight
Sami Halinen
Raisio’s Data Administration utilises Thinking Portfolio for managing project operations. Currently, the company has around 80 IT-related projects in the portfolio. The company aims to expand the use of the application to other projects at a later stage. The Data Administration unit manages the partially outsourced IT services and IT projects carried out in various business units, describes Raisio’s IT Manager, Sami Halinen, and the administrator of Thinking Portfolio, Merja Lamponen.
The company decided to procure the project portfolio application during a recent reorganisation of project-related processes. The previous, Excel-based project monitoring tool had become laborious to use. The company needed a tool that would provide an overview and status of various on-going IT projects in different business units in the company. A tool for facilitating the prioritisation of the projects was also needed.
Merja Lamponen
Merja Lamponen says she first stumbled upon Thinking Portfolio on the Internet. After reading more about the application, she found it to be very suitable to the company’s needs.
“Our needs had evolved throughout the years, and when Thinking Portfolio came along, we had a fairly clear picture of what we wanted.”
Sami Halinen was also convinced from the very beginning that Raisio made the correct choice in Thinking Portfolio. Halinen had previous experience in working with several project portfolio applications, which is why he felt that Thinking Portfolio would be the best fit for managing Raisio’s project portfolio.
Quick benefits were a positive surprise
Raisio’s primary needs in procuring the project portfolio application was to gain a better overview and facilitate project prioritisation. Raisio has had Thinking Portfolio in production use for only two months, but it is clear that goals are being reached.
Currently, the main user group consists of project managers, but there are some project owners and control group members among the users as well. The aim is to expand the user groups once the company has accumulated more experience in using the application and the implementation of related processes has advanced further.
“We have established an in-house procedure for reviewing the project portfolio with Thinking Portfolio on a weekly basis. After two months, we are happy to say that we have gained the overview of our projects, and prioritisation has become easier as well.
Most of the challenges have been related to learning the new rules and developing our processes further. The user-friendly application, however, has ensured that the emphasis remains in the correct areas.
We were positively surprised about how thoughtfully the application was designed. We were able to implement functions without adapting them at all.
Very smooth implementation
The application delivery receives high marks from Raisio. Both Lamponen and Halinen were pleased with the timely implementation project and user support following the implementation.
Thinking Portfolio’s Administrator event, which enables client companies to share ideas, has been viewed as a very beneficial event.
“The implementation project went extremely well. We were very pleased. Everything worked like a charm.
We have not needed much assistance, but whenever we have had questions, the replies have arrived almost instantaneously.
Overall, we are really happy with the procurement, and simply happy to have Thinking Portfolio.
Contact information
Merja Lamponen
merja.lamponen@raisio.com
Sami Halinen
sami.halinen@raisio.com
