Deep Lead Digital Academy

Deep Lead is a Finnish company founded in 2002, specializing in management, executive coaching, and goal-oriented interaction coaching. The company’s mission is to coach clients to develop leadership and goal-oriented interaction into a measurable success factor. The coaching is based on the Deep Leadership® coaching methods, which have become widely known through Deep Lead’s coaching and training events. More than 30 000 people have been trained in these coaching sessions and the number of respondents for Deep Leadership® profiles has already exceeded 400 000.

Digitizing a traditional coaching program

Deep Lead’s coaching has a background of 25 years of scientific research and 20 years of active practical development. The aim was to deliver a 9-month coaching program in a fully digital format to achieve profitable growth, new customers and scalable business.

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The Digital Deep Lead Academy

Intolead helped conceptualize the digital coaching program. Ease of use, perceptiveness, inclusiveness and insight are at the heart of the implementation. Crucially, the process requires virtually no input from personal coaches. Intolead was responsible for the selection, set-up, learning design and content production of the digital learning environment. Intolead also sparred with Deep Lead’s key stakeholders in building the Academy’s sales and marketing strategy.

An effective digital coaching program to support skills development and culture change

Through an automated, 9-month coaching process, the entire staff of even a large organisation can be coached in about a year, achieving maximum impact on the culture of the whole organisation at minimum cost compared to the work done by personal coaches. Another interesting feature is the AI-based virtual coach who spars with participants along the learning journey.

Inspiring and pedagogically high-quality tasks and interactions, a downloadable workbook and communities support assimilation of knowledge and peer learning. The digital coaching program was implemented simultaneously in both Finnish and English, allowing for immediate international scalability.

Intolead’s strong expertise in digital learning solutions and content as well as growth and internationalization has brought clear added value to the development of the Deep Lead Digital Academy and has helped us build an effective digital coaching package. Our cooperation has been smooth and effective from the very beginning!

Vesa Nissinen,
President / Deep Lead

Vision 2030 for Finnish Music Education

Finnish music education is an internationally recognised success story. It fosters musical diversity and individual learning paths at different stages of life. Education not only ensures a lifelong hobby, but it also provides the opportunity to develop into a top musical professional.

How might we ensure that goal-oriented and high-quality music study and hobby is possible everywhere in Finland also in the future?

Over the last decades, the music education system has experienced various structural changes and budget cuts. As a result of this, the decision-making and resource allocation in the field have lacked solid centralised coordination. At the same time, people have an increasingly better understanding of the role of music in the wellbeing of individuals and communities, and new expectations and opportunities have emerged for music education to make an even greater impact in the society.

Co-creating a shared vision for the field together with the key stakeholders

In order for the Finnnish music education system to maintain its unique qualities also in the future, the goal was to establish a joint vision and an overall understanding of shared goals. The aim was to implement the vision process as an extensive network collaboration that brings together all levels of education and actors in the field.

Together with the steering group, Intolead designed a series of seminars and workshops and facilitated the co-creation process. The vision work involved nearly 1,500 people, who represented professionals and students as well as the most important stakeholder groups in music education. The process included three seminars, three webinars and an online survey. Based on the co-creation workshops, survey and research material, the steering group of the project compiled a shared vision for the field towards 2030. The vision work was facilitated and sparred throughout the 18-month journey by Intolead.

Vision, goals and actions that everyone can stand behind

The vision takes a stand on the shared value base and accessibility of music education as well as its practices in teaching and leadership. It also outlines the framework for the cooperation, structural development, and more efficient use of resources in the field. The changes that need to be made have been summed up in 25 action proposals. Learn more about the vision here.

As a result of the process the Finnish music education now has for the first time a common direction for its future. The field has now a shared set goals that everyone can stand behind and contribute to. This makes the vision and the whole process ground-breaking not only in Finland but also internationally.

Petri Home from Intolead brought significant added value to the planning and implementation of the vision work. Petri’s knowledge of co-creation and foresight methods, facilitation expertise and experience in strategy development brought structure, rhythm and discipline to the entire process, and greatly helped the steering group with the successful execution of the whole process.

Jouni Auramo,
Chair of the Vision 2030 Steering Group, Principal of the Pirkanmaa Music Institute and Chair of the Association of Finnish Music Schools

Innofactor Case Study

Innofactor is the leading promoter of modern digital organization in the Nordic countries. Innofactor helps its customers digitize their business, promotes a social way of working, and develops business processes through secure cloud services.

How to assess and develop team-level future skills needs in a sales team?

Innofactor seeks to develop sales competence levels proactively to meet the changing needs of the future. Innofactor has renewed its sales strategy and started to develop its own sales culture to be more market and customer oriented. As part of the sales reformation project, Innofactor wanted to create a clear common vision of the necessary sales skills, which will then be developed. The aim was to find a model that could also be easily updated in the future if necessary.

Future Skills service for participatory and systematic competence development

As part of other sales development projects, Innofactor implemented the Future Skills service, conceptualized by Intolead. The implementation began by identifying key competencies for the future through a discussion within the team. Next, the team evaluates the target status and the current level of competencies for the identified competencies. In this way, the concrete themes for competence development were made visible and it was possible to make both team-level and individual-level development plans for competence development. The five-point service was implemented as a workshop facilitated by Intolead.

Actions are guided by identification of competencies and making development areas visible

With the help of the implemented service, an operating model was created for Innofactor, through which it will be possible also in the future to assess the changing sales competence needs. The competence development model involves the members of the sales team in actively thinking about new competence needs arising from the customer base and the market. In this way, competence development becomes proactive. At the same time, the culture of continuous learning that is needed to build a successful sales team in the future is also strengthened.

“Intolead’s well-conceptualized service provided a good foundation for building a systematic and flexible process and model for competence development. The process will help us build within the team operations that are customer-oriented and the highest available quality on the market also in the future.”

Jarkko Lindroos,
Vice President,
Innofactor

Gravicon Case Study

Gravicon is a Finnish based software and service company specialising in Building Information Management (BIM) services. In Finland, Gravicon services have been widely used in prominent and complex construction projects to support efficient and predictable construction processes.

Gravicon has developed SaaS-based Modelspace software to support information, task and project management of demanding construction projects e.g. in hospitals, schools and shopping centres. Information management in planning and construction phases have improved significantly, especially in hospital and public sector projects.

How to enter new markets successfully

After achieving a stable market position in Finland, Gravicon decided to set up international sales operations and chose Africa for its focus market. The main reason for choosing Africa as a target market was its huge potential with large number of hospitals, airports and other complex public construction projects in planning.

SaaS-based Modelspace software can be used from anywhere in the world. However, entering certain markets is as challenging for SaaS business as it is for other businesses. Market dynamics need to be understood, sales messages need to be formulated according to local market environments, sales capabilities need to be improved and local partners need to be identified. Intolead supported Gravicons’ expansion into Africa with its internationalisation consulting and growth services. In the first phase, a strategy was developed for South Africa, one of the Africa’s biggest markets.

From research to action in three steps

In the first phase, Intolead looked at the South African construction industry and compiled a market evaluation including maturity level, market potential as well as a competitor and partner analysis. Based on the market research, Gravicon evaluated the local construction industry markets as lucrative and the company launched a search for potential consulting partners.

Intolead produced communication material to support the search and conducted in-depth interviews of potential partners. At the same time, in order to get a better understanding of the dynamics of this market, Gravicon participated in a few industry events and trade shows.

The next phase involved setting up the sales operations and implementing Modelspace piloting projects. With the help of Intolead, Gravicon hired and trained a country manager to support sales and new business development.

Head start for new business opportunities

Internationalisation is the championship sport of commercialisation. To properly understand new markets, cultural considerations specifically in sales and marketing is vitally important. With careful preparation, an accurate sales strategy, realistic goals and commitment makes it possible to succeed in these markets. The amount of preparation often comes as a surprise to companies exploring the process of internationalisation. Additionally, any sales strategy should be agile enough to adjust to any market related changes if need be.

“Intolead’s experience in developing international business and sales operations has been a valuable addition to this project. Intoleads’ knowledge of African markets has helped us to recognise and anticipate market risks well in advance and to react quickly when changes are needed to execute our go-to-market strategy. Intolead consultants have committed to the objectives that were set together and their co-operation has been flexible, goal oriented and dynamic.”

Pauli Jantunen,
CEO

HNMKY Basketball Case Study

HNMKY (Helsinki YMCA) is an organization that is part of the worldwide YMCA movement based in Helsinki, Finland. HNMKY was founded in 1889 and is known for its pioneering youth work. Throughout the years, HNMKY has been launching many significant new activities in Finland, of which one of the most well-known is introducing basketball to Finland back in 1927.

How to support the independent training activities of basketball players during the Corona outbreak induced standstill?

Amongst other things, HNMKY is running one of the largest and most successful basketball clubs in Finland with approximately 1200 players. As all the training activities came to a halt because of the Corona restrictions, the coaches were facing an acute challenge. How to support and encourage the players in their independent training? How to take the training online and retain visibility to the independent activities of the players.

Digital platform supports coaching and training

We at Intolead wanted to do our part to help mitigate the crisis and offered our help to HNMKY on a pro bono basis. Together with the HNMKY coaches, we co-created a solution in an agile way. Within two weeks we had the first prototype of the concept including a digital training diary for the athletes and a dashboard for the coaches to follow up the activities on a team level. After initial testing, the concept was taken into use by all of the HNMKY Basketball’s 10 varsity teams with approximately 400 players.

The next iteration was a lightweight app-like interface for the players with enhanced features, such as a dashboard, plus feedback channel for the coaches. This was taken into use within 6 weeks from the get-go.

With a wealth of positive feedback from both the players and the coaches, we then proceeded to brainstorm new features together with HNMKY coaches.

Mobile Training app for the players and coaches

The result of our joint effort is a native mobile Training app tailored to suit the needs of both coaches and players. New features include e.g. a possibility for the coaches to add and share training plans, set goals and send push notifications for the players. Players have also a possibility to set goals for themselves. We are currently testing the app and deploying it shortly.

“The path from idea to prototype and an implemented solution has been fast, iterative, co-creative, and user-centered. For HNMKY Basketball teams, players and coaches the digital training platform has offered new possibilities. Not only it enhances the coaching and training activities off-court and between the breaks, but also provides a powerful tool for boosting team practices during the season.”

Juuso Milén,
Head of Coaching

Polar Partners Case Study

Polar Partners is an expert company specialising in export of education. The company’s school concept covers a child’s school path from early childhood education and care to the end of upper secondary education. The school concept developed by the company includes the design of learning environments, the curriculum, teacher and management training, and learning materials. Polar Partners’ school concept is based on the Finnish education model and suits as an alternative for instance schools in developing countries.

How to support global growth with sales

Polar Partners aims for global growth, supported by a clear sales strategy to guide growth and choices that support growth. The aim was to create an easily updatable sales strategy that serves as an agile sales management tool.

Effective sales built upon an agile strategy model

The sales strategy was built through five sparring meetings and supporting tasks during spring and summer 2020. The process utilized Intolead’s Insight architecture model, where the sales strategy is built through areas that have a major impact on sales. These include the company itself, customers, ecosystems and partners, as well as the market conditions and competitors. In the light of the information gathered from the various areas, the final strategy was created and documented. The strategy was also visualized to make it more illustrative.

The sales strategy highlighted Polar Partners’ strengths, attractiveness and winning themes, as well as the value proposition to which the partners also wanted to commit. The value proposition created through strategy work emerged to communicate in an understandable way the benefits that the customer derives from cooperation with Polar Partners.

Strategy helped to identify right focus areas, partners and customer profiles

Polar Partners’ sales strategy was documented in an easy-to-understand format and supported by an OKR model utilizing agile strategy implementation methods. With the OKR model (Objectives and Key Results) the results of the strategy are monitored systematically and regularly. The strategy was implemented immediately as part of sales and partner recruitment and has been used to guide the focus of sales to the agreed geographical areas and buyer personalities. The sales strategy has been integrated as an important part of the practical implementation of sales.

“The collaboration with Intolead was straightforward and clear. The work progressed according to the agreed schedule and the sales strategy resulting from the cooperation was exactly what we ordered and needed.”

Maria Haapaniemi
CEO
Polar Partners Oy