CEO's review
Timo Lepistö, CEO of Nordic Morning Plc until January 11, 2017.
"We help our customers to thrive in the digital world"
In 2016, Nordic Morning’s home markets, Finland and Sweden, continued developing at different rates. Media investments increased by more than three percent in Sweden, while in Finland the growth was 0.9 percent. Online services, mobile solutions and social media continued to be the primary growth areas. Marketers invested an increasing amount in online marketing, and in their own websites and blogs. *
We helped our customers in transforming their marketing, communication and business. The market for digital transformation services, including strategic consulting, service design and the management of data and marketing technologies, is expected to grow significantly.
Data & Insights
In March, we acquired Stockholm-based CountQuest Interactive AB and established the Data & Insights business area. Providing a solution for data management, CountQuest complements other Nordic Morning businesses that use the data obtained in their service solutions. CountQuest’s net revenue grew by 33 percent in 2016.
Visibility & Service Design
Klikki Group strengthened its position as a leading service provider in the implementation and management of advertising and marketing technology solutions in the Nordics. As a Google Premium Partner, Klikki has led the execution of several high-profile assignments utilizing Google’s DoubleClick and Google 360 platforms. The increased demand for these solutions, combined with Klikki’s other core services, led to profitable growth. Klikki AB's net revenue grew by 53 percent and Klikkicom Oy's by 14 percent.
Ottoboni Sweden AB was developed to provide more strategic and user-centric services. In Malmö, Ottoboni grew its business and increased net revenue by 61 percent, whereas the office in Gothenburg was restructured and merged with Sitrus. The restructuring led to a write-down of goodwill items, which weakened the result of the Visibility & Service Design business area.
Ottoboni Finland Oy succeeded in reaching a clear market position as well as building the team and client portfolio with several strategic assignments for digitization and service design. The company’s net revenue grew by 42 percent.
Content
Sitrus, which specializes in content, enhanced its operations in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark. The speed of transforming Sitrus Agency AB into a more digital and agile organization was accelerated by focusing on digital services development and sales. This required restructuring in Sweden and a significant write-down of goodwill items, which weakened the result of the Content business area.
Edita Publishing Oy sold its customer magazine business to sister company Sitrus. The company focuses on providing information and learning services and content curation. The Secondary and Upper-Secondary School business area’s net revenue grew by 23 percent. The Learning Services and Learning Materials business areas also showed some growth.
Campaigns & Dialogue
Seed Digital Media Oy developed its business with a good number of customer acquisitions. Seed has strong experience of both understanding consumer behavior and of leveraging marketing automation, which resulted in a 20 percent growth in net revenue.
Edita Prima Oy had a successful year, despite a challenging business transformation. However, although significant growth was reached through print automation and web-to-print solutions, this did not compensate the declining net revenue from print, even though this decline was remarkably smaller than in previous years.
Focus on collaboration and talent
Talent acquisition and retention are crucial for us to meet the demand in the market. We focus on strengthening an engaging and collaborative culture for retaining and attracting people. We develop inspirational and nurturing leadership, and help our employees to achieve success.
By enhancing collaboration within the Group, we ensure the best possible service for our customers. In 2016, collaboration increased remarkably through joint sales activities, customer projects, service development and a mentoring program.
In spring, Seed, Edita Prima, Ottoboni, Klikkicom and Sitrus moved together under the same roof in Helsinki. At the beginning of 2017, Ottoboni moved together with Sitrus and Klikki in Stockholm, and Sitrus and Ottoboni decided to share an office in Malmö
* Sources: Institute for Advertising and Media Statistics (Institutet för Reklam- och Mediestatistik, IRM), Revised Advertising and Media Forecast 2016–2017, Dec. 9, 2016; Association of Finnish Advertisers, Advertising Barometer 2017, Jan. 10, 2017; Kantar TNS, Advertising in Finland in 2016, Jan. 31, 2017.
Nordic Morning in brief
Group companies
Parent company Nordic Morning Plc
Nordic Morning AB
Data & Insights
CountQuest Interactive AB in Sweden
Visibility & Service Design
Klikki AB and Ottoboni Sweden AB in Sweden, and Klikkicom Oy and Ottoboni Finland Oy in Finland.
Content
Sitrus Agency AB and Mods Graphic Studio AB in Sweden; Sitrus Agency Oy and Edita Publishing Oy in Finland, and Sitrus Ukraina LLC in Ukraine.
Campaigns & Dialogue
Edita Prima Oy and Seed Digital Media Oy in Finland; Edita Bobergs AB and associate companies Brand Systems AB and Edita Bobergs Förvaltings AB in Sweden.
We are about 700 professionals driving marketing, communication and business change through data and insights driven innovations combining content, service design, visibility and customer dialogue. We have been on the forefront of the communications industry almost 160 years, since 1859.
We have always been agile in adopting to change, innovating and taking into use the latest technologies. Today, our strength lies in diverse talent, close internal collaboration and complementing services that cover the entire customer journey enabling us to take a broad-based approach to the customer’s challenges.
Nordic Morning is made up of the parent company, Nordic Morning Plc, as well as six Finnish and six Swedish subsidiaries. Each Group company has a specific market position and service portfolio complementing each other. The companies operate in four business areas: Data & Insights, Visibility & Service Design, Content, and Campaigns & Dialogue.
The parent company's role in relation to its subsidiaries is to be an active and innovative developer, and an attractive home for strategically interesting business and competences.
Nordic Morning’s business operations have changed substantially over the past decade as the focus in marketing and communication has shifted into digital media and become more data-driven and customer centric. While operations with declining profitability have been discontinued, the Group has acquired new companies to meet the customers' changing needs.
According to its strategy, Nordic Morning will continue to reinforce its position as driver of marketing, communication and business change in the Nordic region.
Value creation in Nordic Morning
Values
Renewal
We are innovative forerunners of communications.
Respect
We promote equality, openness and integrity.
Responsibility
We pursue good results in a transparent and ethical manner.
Key behaviors
Passion for Success
We have a positive attitude towards working smoothly and achieving targets. We take the initiative in development.
Openness and Sharing
We want to understand others, work together and be part of a team.
Curiosity to Learn and Innovate
We are curious. We want to learn to know things, people and challenges better. We also want to ask questions, question things and challenge the current ways of doing things and be open to new solutions.
Helping Customers Succeed
We want to serve customers and other stakeholders, and satisfy their needs. We focus our resources on understanding and satisfying customer needs.
Code of business ethics
Nordic Morning's Code of Business Ethics is based on our core values guiding our interactions with colleagues, customers, partners and other stakeholders. We expect also our partners to comply with it.
The Code of Business Ethics helps us conduct successful business operations and feel good at work.
Business areas
The Data & Insights business area comprises only CountQuest Interactive AB, which is specialized in implementing and maintaining data-driven business decision solutions for the digital activities of global enterprises.
The Visibility & Service Design business area comprises Klikkicom Oy and Ottoboni Finland Oy in Finland; and Klikki AB and Ottoboni Sweden AB in Sweden. Ottoboni is specialized in business and service design. Klikkicom and Klikki are specialized in media optimization.
The Content business area comprises Sitrus Agency Oy and Edita Publishing Oy in Finland; Sitrus Agency AB and Mods Graphic Studio AB in Sweden; and Sitrus Ukraine LLC in Ukraine. Sitrus is specialized in strategic content and content marketing, Mods Graphic Studio in image retouching and Edita Publishing in professional content, information services and learning solutions.
The Campaigns & Dialogue business area comprises Edita Prima Oy and Seed Digital Media Oy in Finland; and Edita Bobergs AB and associate company Brand Systems International AB in Sweden. Edita Prima and Edita Bobergs are specialized in personalized print and Seed Digital Media in loyalty marketing.