Just over six years ago, Stora, Enso and Holzindustrie Scweighofer merged, creating the second largest global timber company, with the strongest balance sheet in the industry, producing about 7.4 million m3 of solid wood products, working around the world to develop business solutions for its customers.
Getting that message across to key decision makers in any market sector is difficult, especially when many people do not necessarily see ‘big as beautiful’. Stora Enso tackled both of these issues in one by inviting existing and potential Irish and UK customers to its Timber Trends Day, at The Belfry, near Birmingham. Around 100 delegates attended the day which was presided over by Arno Pelkonen, Stora Enso’s senior executive vice-president.
Through a mixture of external specialists and speakers from within Stora Enso business sectors, the delegates received information about the entire group, interspersed by informative talks on many other relevant topics. This allowed delegates to see clearly each strand of Stora Enso as a separate opportunity, rather than a huge group.
Virtually the entire top team of Stora Enso’s timber businesses was available throughout the day, with many giving brief talks on their particular sector. Through the keynote speech by John Stewart, director of economic affairs at the Housebuilders Federation, delegates gained an insight into many of the issues affecting the UK housing market, with particular focus on where existing and ongoing legislation will drive the future mix of housing.
Other outside speakers included Jaakko Pöyry Consulting, wood. for good, the Building Research Establishment, TRADA Technology, and the British Woodworking Federation, all of whom provided a view of where the next key growth areas are for Irish and UK timber companies, especially in their relationship with Stora Enso.
Clear strategy
The Timber Trends Day helped to explain how, since the merger, Stora Enso has been working to establish a clear strategy, allowing the company to push forwards over the coming years with its customers.
Peter Kickinger, executive vice-president, ran through each of the Stora Enso “product families”, which tackle specific sectors, namely Construction (building products), Joinery Components, Woodpax (the retail products supply business) and New Concepts. “There is a chronic overcapacity in Europe and North America and we have to boost European consumption, providing added-value products by efficient on-line further processing,” explained Mr Kickinger. “We will move more into eastern Europe where we already have 10 sawmills producing around two million m3.”
Matti Mikkola, senior vice-president of Business Line Construction, showed just how Stora Enso has developed in global markets, taking growth in the pan-Pacific area from zero to two million m3 over the past 12 years. Mr Mikkola went on to explain some of the ways it is developing basic products which will work reliably and consistently, especially within sectors such as timber frame. “There is too much rejection at the moment; we have to produce straight, strong, stable and durable products,” Mr Mikkola explained. “This is our mantra.”
Olle Berg, senior vice-president of Stora Enso’s Business Line Joinery described how partnership arrangements can significantly reduce customers inventory, processing, stock levels and overall cost. Just one example showed Stora Enso’s commitment: the com-pany invested over €8m to provide a total solution mainly for one customer.
Wood supply, that is proven in terms of its environmental and sustainability credentials, is vitally important to Stora Enso, especially as it continues to move further into eastern Europe, where it is difficult to gain satisfactory accreditation. Kari Airaksinen, an expert in environmental questions of European wood supplies, explained Stora Enso’s commitment to these factors and how it manages them. Its annual raw material sourcing is over 44 million m3, of which around 40 million m3 comes from Europe and Russia. Traceability, through ISO 14001 as well as PEFC and FSC schemes, allows it to manage this task, with ongoing internal and external auditing.
The Timber Trends Day was completed by Erkki Valikangas, managing director of Stora Enso Timber UK, who explained that UK customers now have outstanding opportunities to use the vast resources of the group through the new distribution facilities at Immingham. When this is allied to its UK team and IT capability, there will be an increasing capability for the group to provide its customers with both added value and basic commodity products.