Here’s something I’ve learned after years of guiding manufacturers, telecom operators, and energy companies through operational transformation: the technology almost never fails. The partnership does.
That might sound provocative coming from a technology company’s Chief Commercial Officer. But it’s a truth I’ve seen play out dozens of times across industries and geographies. You can have the most advanced AI models, the most elegant data platform, the most seamless integration architecture—and still fail to deliver value. Not because the software doesn’t work, but because the people working together don’t trust each other enough to make it work.
That’s why, in my new role at Elisa Industriq, I want to be honest about something most software companies would rather gloss over: building trust is harder than building software. And it’s far more important.
The real operating model is human
When an organization begins a digital transformation—whether they’re implementing supply chain orchestration, network assurance, or quality management—the conversation almost always starts with a target operating model. People, process, technology. It’s the classic triangle, and for good reason.
But here’s where many technology vendors take a wrong turn. They treat that triangle as a neat framework for a PowerPoint slide, then fast-forward to the technology piece. The implication is that if the software is good enough, people and process will sort themselves out.
They won’t. I’ve watched brilliant implementations stall because the team running the project didn’t have the right governance. I’ve seen rollouts delayed not by technical problems, but by stakeholders who felt unheard. And I’ve seen companies with modest technology stacks achieve remarkable results—because their teams were aligned, empowered, and communicating constantly.
The direction needs to come from leadership, yes. But the energy needs to come from every team member who’s affected by the change. That requires something you can’t install from a repository: genuine collaboration.
Over-communicating is always better than the alternative
If I could give one piece of advice to any organization starting an operational intelligence initiative, it would be this: over-communicate. Relentlessly. Even when you think everyone is aligned. Especially then.
Are we moving in the right direction? Do we need to adjust? Is what we’re building actually reflective of what we want to achieve? These aren’t questions you ask once at the start of a project and then file away. They’re questions that should be on the table every single week.
Working with distributed teams—across borders, time zones, and organizational cultures—makes this even more critical. When your team is spread across Finland, Italy, Germany, and beyond, the informal check-in over coffee doesn’t happen naturally anymore. You can’t lean over to a colleague and ask, “Is this really what the customer meant?” You have to create those moments deliberately.
At Elisa Industriq, we serve more than 2,000 customers across manufacturing, telecommunications, and energy. Our teams are global. That’s a strength—we bring local expertise with global perspective—but it means we have to be disciplined about how we collaborate. Structured cadences, clear agendas, playback sessions to confirm understanding. Not because we don’t trust our people to work independently, but because we trust them enough to invest in keeping everyone connected.
Before the solution, understand the situation
One of the patterns I’ve seen consistently in successful implementations—and one I’m committed to reinforcing here—is that the discovery phase matters far more than most organizations realize.
Before you configure a single module, before you train a single model, you need to understand the why, the who, and the how. Why are we building this? Who are the people directly and indirectly involved? Who will ultimately be affected by the solution? And how will we work together to get there?
This isn’t project management theatre. It’s the difference between implementing software and building operational intelligence. When you take the time to incorporate user feedback from the very first week—not just from the project sponsor, but from the people on the shop floor, in the network operations centre, on the production line—you build something that people actually use. And when people use it, it creates value. That’s the whole point.
I’ve seen this firsthand with manufacturers who thought they needed a massive, multi-year programme to see results. What they actually needed was to break the work into smaller, meaningful increments. Deliver value quickly. Learn. Adjust. Deliver again. Not a six-month plan followed by a big reveal, but a continuous rhythm of progress that keeps teams engaged and stakeholders confident.
Trust is built in small moments, not grand gestures
The most interesting thing about trust in technology partnerships is that it’s rarely built during the impressive demo or the polished pitch. It’s built when something goes wrong in month four and your partner shows up—not with a support ticket, but with a conversation.
It’s built when a team member feels safe enough to say, “I don’t think this approach is working.” It’s built when every person in the room—whether they’re from the customer’s organization or the vendor’s—feels heard, feels they can contribute, and feels a genuine sense of ownership over the outcome.
This is deeply personal to me. Throughout my career, I’ve coached teams through transformation journeys in some incredibly challenging circumstances—distributed teams, tight timelines, shifting priorities. What I’ve found, consistently, is that the teams who succeed are the ones who invest in relationships as seriously as they invest in requirements. The ones who take the time to understand how each person contributes. The ones who create an environment where ideas are shared openly and feedback flows in every direction.
At Elisa Industriq, our messaging talks about “value-focused partnerships.” I want to make sure that’s not just a phrase on a website. It means your success is our competitive advantage. When you hit an obstacle, we collaborate to solve it, not blame-shift. When market conditions change, we evolve alongside you.
Disruption is an invitation to get better
The industrial world is no stranger to disruption—supply chain shocks, energy market volatility, regulatory shifts, talent shortages. Every organization I’ve worked with has faced moments where external forces threatened to derail their plans.
But here’s the thing about disruption: it forces clarity. It makes you ask whether you’ve been doing things the best way, or just the familiar way. Many of the most significant operational improvements I’ve been part of started not during comfortable times, but during difficult ones. When the pressure was on, organizations realized they’d been relying on unstructured collaboration, outdated processes, and information flows that simply weren’t fit for purpose.
That’s the real opportunity behind operational intelligence. It’s not about layering AI on top of existing chaos. It’s about creating the foundations—putting people, processes, and data together in a way that delivers consistent, actionable information to the right stakeholders, so they can make better decisions faster.
If your teams feel overwhelmed by data chaos, you’re not alone. If your organization has started and stalled on digital transformation more than once, that’s not failure—it’s an honest reflection of how hard this work is. The question isn’t whether to keep going. It’s whether you have the right partner to go with.
What I’m here to do
Joining Elisa Industriq as Chief Commercial Officer is, for me, a chance to put everything I’ve learned about customer success and GTM into practice at a company that already believes in the same principles. Nordic innovation culture values substance over hype, pragmatism over promises, and long-term thinking over short-term wins. That resonates with me deeply.
My priorities are straightforward. I want every customer engagement to start from a place of genuine understanding—not a product demo, but a conversation about your operational reality. I want our teams to deliver value in meaningful increments, not disappear for months and then hope the rollout lands. I want to build a customer success discipline that makes Elisa Industriq the partner our customers talk about when someone asks them who they trust.
And I want to be honest about the hard parts. Transformation is not easy. It requires discipline, commitment, and empathy—from both sides. But when it works, the results speak for themselves: costs come down, quality goes up, decisions get faster and smarter, and your teams gain confidence that they’re building something durable.
That’s the promise of operational intelligence, and it’s the promise I intend to keep. Not just through technology, but through the kind of partnership that earns your trust—one honest conversation at a time.
I’d love to hear what’s on your mind. What’s the biggest obstacle standing between your operations and the intelligence they need? Let’s start a conversation.