Elisa Industriq: ”Start-up energy and the stability of a large corporation”

As Finnish software company Elisa Industriq establishes itself in Sweden, it does so with a clear goal: to offer Swedish industrial companies its modern, integrated supply chain suite, sedApta. SCE met with the company’s Swedish sales manager, Sebastian Wollter, to learn more. 

– The foundation of our offering is the sedApta supply chain suite, an end-to-end platform that combines advanced procurement and inventory planning, forecasting, simulations, WMS, MES, and a global TMS,” explains Sebastian Wollter, adding that Elisa Industriq is part of the Finnish Elisa Group, a large and stable publicly traded company.

Between 2018 and 2024, Sebastian served as sales manager and later CEO of the Swedish WMS company Qsys. With that experience under his belt, he has a deep understanding of the challenges facing the market. One clear challenge, he says, is that broader system solutions create the conditions for the holistic view needed to act with sufficient agility.

“Now that we’re establishing ourselves in Sweden, it’s a bit like building a startup within a large corporation. It’s entrepreneur-driven, but at the same time, we have a large, stable corporate group behind us. That allows us to think long-term right from the start,” says Sebastian.

The parent company, Elisa Group—founded as early as 1882 as Helsingin Telefooni—is Finland’s equivalent of Sweden’s Telia. Today, the group is listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange and has annual revenue of just over 2.2 billion euros. Six or seven years ago, the Elisa Industriq business unit was launched as a strategic, long-term initiative in industrial digitalization and software. Today, the business consists of a handful of technology companies, all of which operate under the Elisa Industriq brand.

“Many companies still do their planning in Excel and use a plethora of fragmented supply chain software solutions. We offer a comprehensive end-to-end platform that manages all parts of the supply chain, while the various component solutions are robust modules that work well on their own,” he says, noting that the initial plan is to market sedApta’s planning and inventory management systems, since many companies still rely on manual processes in those areas.

“Many of the major supply chain platforms are often a collection of separate systems, which can make it difficult for the different systems to work together. In sedApta, all modules share the same database, which means our customers truly get an integrated and well-functioning platform,” explains Sebastian.

– Resilience is about being able to anticipate the consequences of a change or disruption before it occurs. “Our platform can simulate different scenarios and show how capacity, inventory, purchasing, and production are affected. This allows the customer to act proactively rather than reactively,” says Sebastian.

“Many companies have multiple factories, multiple warehouses, and multiple ERP systems that don’t really communicate with each other. That makes it impossible to get a comprehensive picture of what you have and what you’ll need. Planning becomes more a matter of guesswork and gut feeling than facts,” says Sebastian.

Planning tools and access to large amounts of relevant data are essential for making reliable forecasts, simulating scenarios, and balancing capacity and demand—all of which form the foundation for conducting Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) in a professional manner.

“The S&OP process requires everyone to have the same understanding of the business. That’s why it doesn’t work if the different functions within an organization are working with different numbers. Having access to a shared set of data for decision-making creates the conditions for more accurate planning,” says Sebastian.

“We’re currently building a consulting team of experienced supply chain professionals who can support both implementations and lead standalone projects. It’s meant to be a strong center of expertise, not just a delivery function,” says Sebastian.

He also emphasizes that the consulting component should operate in parallel with the software—not merely as tool support, but as value-adding advice.

– It’s about helping our client companies develop their processes using our expertise and our software platform. The key is that we create value, and in doing so, build trust.

– One key difference compared to the largest global players is that we also cater to companies that are a bit smaller. Gartner classifies our platform as part of the global ”mid-market segment,” which makes sedApta relevant for many Swedish industrial companies that are too large for simpler systems but too small for the most complex ones. This is a large segment where we are very strong,” says Sebastian.

– We want to help customers based on where they are right now. Sometimes you start small. Sometimes it’s big from day one. The key is to have a clear path for growth,” explains Sebastian. The company’s expansion into Sweden is now in its very earliest phase, and there is still much to do, analyze, and develop. But the ambitions are big.

– We’re not building a small satellite, but rather a business that will grow and establish itself for the long term. Strong products, compelling customer success stories, and a corporate group that firmly believes in this expansion give us a solid foundation to create something that will grow rapidly and establish itself as a strong brand here in Sweden as well. We combine the best of both worlds: the agility of a small organization and the security of a global group.

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Text and interview by Stefan Karlöf and Marika Karlöf