Hallo, Bonjour, Hola, Ciao, привет, привіт, Halløj!

So you might wonder why I am using so many languages. Well, since last time I posted here at the blog, these are the languages I have encountered and I thought that I would tell you a bit more about my travels and how international Lantmännen is.

Hallo and Bonjour are both coming from the languages I hear every day here at the office in Belgium. Since last time I have had the opportunity to see the Brussels office where Unibake BeNeFrItEs had an employee gathering for all the employees. It was a great opportunity to meet employees from all the different countries within this cluster (Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Italy and Spain). During the evening we listened to interesting lectures, played games and attended our own street food festival with Unibake products! I thought it was particularly interesting to see examples of how to bring brands “alive” and give them a story, as compared to just telling the consumer that the product is good.

But how on earth does привет and привіт come into the picture?! Well, as Anton posted earlier, all trainees have a SGA (Strategic Group Assignment) in parallel and me, Anton and Sebastian are looking at Cerealia’s International Growth model. This project took us to Moscow, Russia and Kiev, Ukraine where Cerealia is active, in order to see how the markets are developing. In Russia, Cerealia is selling both Axa museli but also Finn Crisp. Unibake is also on the Russian market and we had the opportunity to visit their office and learn more about Russian trends. One thing that was clear was that Russian people love Georgian food and we just had to try it. I totally understand the hype, as it was one of the most delicious foods I have ever tasted! Me, Anton and Sebastian started planning on opening our own Georgian restaurant in Stockholm when we retire! Exciting times!

Off course we took the opportunity to do some sightseeing in Moscow and in Kiev we met up with Johan who is doing his third project there. He showed us around the beautiful city and you can see some of it in the pictures below.

Above you can see some of the very beautiful buildings in Kiev!

After this trip, it was time to meet up all the other trainees in Copenhagen for a recharge = Halløj Denmark! At the end of each project we always have a recharge where we tell each other about our projects, we visit one of the businesses and see some of the production and listen to employees telling us about the business itself and about their own careers. This time we visited Unibake and we got to hear about their strategy, see bread production, as well as hear more about one employee’s interesting career. During the evening Mikkel had arranged a boat tour in Copenhagen and dinner at a great Italian restaurant! Thank you Mikkel!

Also, the evening before the recharge, eight out of nine trainees met up in Copenhagen and we went to an outdoor concert, we swam and had dinner together. And rode a lot of electric scooters.

Above: Touring around Copenhagen 🙂

Above: Concert and trainees enjoying dinner together!

Meeting up with all the trainees and hearing what they are up to is always so much fun! But for now, we will all have some well deserved vacation! See you in August! /Johanna

Hello again!

We are just approaching the end of our third projects and soon it’s time for vacation. It is crazy how fast this time has run by! This last project, I have been working at Swecon with mySwecon, the new web-app where customers for example can order services of their machines. I have really enjoyed my time at Swecon where I have felt as a part of a greater team, which really has motivated me. I’ve got to see a lot during my three months, I have visited 15 branches, met customers, worked together with the IT team in Stockholm as well as worked closely with personnel from the office in Dusseldorf and Eskilstuna.

One really cool part during this project was when we visited the mine Aitik in Gällivare, which is Sweden’s largest open-pit copper mine. The machines working in this mine were huge, one of them you can see in the picture below. 

I thought of taking some time and reflect on what I have learned during these ten months at Lantmännen, and give some tip to future trainees, I’ve listed three out of many learnings below 🙂 

• Feel ownership of my project. When you’re starting a new project and you know you will only be there for three months, the feeling can be that its hard to own the project. However, I have learned that I develop myself and perform the best when I feel ownership of my project from the very first start.
• Involve others in my project. It is when you get different perspectives and discuss that the best ideas arise. Talk to a lot of people around you, many of them have a lot of great experience that can help you get ahead of your project. Involve others in your thoughts, reflect and discuss. But also, create your own little project groups within your project.  
• Get inspired by good leaders around me. Reflect on what leadership style you like and what you don’t like and let the good leadership skills inspire and influence you to become a great leader and team member.

After the summer you will find me in Malmö, working with an operating capital project within agriculture!  

All the best!

/Lovisa

Hi peeps,

Last time I wrote a blogpost I was sitting in Copenhagen Airport waiting to board my flight to Chicago. This time I’m sitting in Chicago Airport waiting to go home. My time in the US has offered me a lot of great experiences, adventures and insights on the famous American life. I’m leaving with mixed opinions of this vast, weird and impressive country. I have learned that you cannot generalise and put Americans in a box, it would be like saying that Italians, Brits and Danes are all the same. Instead I appreciate the diversity and different personalities I have encountered, and acknowledge that in such a country you will meet all kinds of persons from all over the world.

My daily life was in a small suburb outside Chicago called Lisle, not much happening, but I lived and worked in a small office in a nice area with kind and helpful colleagues. I got to be a part of the digital revolution that we are hoping to reach, and I have worked with exciting projects like SEO (search engine optimisation), social media marketing and launching a new website. As marketing is not my biggest strength in life, I got to challenge myself and my creative self in many ways. I had to create posts for our social media accounts, write blog posts and develop content for our new website. Despite the challenges of finding my inner artist, I have learned a whole lot during this period, and I believe that these learning will prove valuable in the future.

On a more personal level, I was a part of the American working culture, I have met Americans from many different states, and I have been lucky enough to get to travel around various states. I got to see New Orleans and listen to all kinds of interesting music genres, I did a road trip to Niagara Falls with my family who came to visit. And finally, I was in Florida twice to see our production facility and attend workshops and meetings at our office in St. Pete outside of Tampa.

Now I’ll be in Copenhagen and Stockholm during the two last weeks before the summer holidays. The next two days all of us are gonna meet in Copenhagen to sum up the third period, see our Unibake production facility and have some fun together in the sunny capitol of Scandinavia 😉

So long,

Mikkel

Ciao, hej and Nǐ hǎo TraineeBloggen!

My name is Nicola Brioschi and I’m part of the SKF’s Global Graduate Programme. I’m from Italy, with a background in mechanical engineering, ICE and turbomachinery specialization.
It’s been already 9 months that I joined SKF, having the fabulous opportunity to be part of this journey with other 10 colleagues from all over the world. Let’s go deeper into the details together…

The programme starts with a brief period in your home country (Italy for me) to get in touch with the local SKF and its environment. Suddenly, the real programme starts with an introduction month at the SKF headquarter in Gothenburg. I can’t imagine a better way to start your career in a global company: in this weeks you have the chance to meet the senior management, get the vision (A world of reliable rotation “) and mission (“The undisputed leader in the bearing business”) of the company and its way to achieve it.
The first impression that I had of the company made me feel that I made the right choice: SKF is a family, where there aren’t any barriers between employees, it doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or an expert, it doesn’t matter what is your job role; whoever you are in the corporation, you can get in contact with anyone to share knowledge, experience, ask questions about a particular stuff or just for a coffee during a break.
The time in Gothenburg was awesome and we participated in several trainings about Business Acumen, Finance, REP, products reviews and also a visit in the factory where bearings are manufactured: from raw material to a high-quality product. Furthermore, it gave me the possibility to meet the other 10 graduates as well as the previous SKF graduates. Funny activities and moments of reflection are mixed together and suddenly a great chemistry and synergy is created.

After the introduction month, I came back in Turin to start my first rotation, working on my own project. I was in the Product Development team for Super Precision Bearings, a product which requires a high level of running accuracy at high to extremely high speed (mainly spindles for machine tools, but you can find them also in racing, medical equipment…). I worked on a really technical project and I don’t want to annoy you with too much technical details: what I can say is that it gave me the chance to learn so many things about bearings, measuring systems, machine capabilities and 6 sigma principles. I am really grateful to all the people involved for giving me that opportunity, even if I was a fresh graduate.

Beside the bigger project, I was involved in the daily work of the office such as drawing preparation for customers or software simulations. During these 5 months I had also the opportunity to take several trainings on PLM, design courses and to take part at BIMU, the biggest fair in Italy on machine tools, robot, automation and digital manufacturing. The time flew and soon it was time to get back in Gothenburg for 2 weeks to share our experiences with our colleagues and have other powerful trainings as the GPM2 and the Agile way of working.

As a trainee you are expected to be very flexible, that’s why I made luggage again for the second rotation: 5 months in Taiwan, at the machine tools solution factory. Here I am involved in different projects and activities with a close relationship with customers. If they experience problems in their application, mainly grinding, milling and turning, the solution factory can help them to find the root cause. In addition, we also design and mount spindles and components at the factory, selling to customers the assets and providing them monitoring services: only SKF can provide such a 360° offer!

But the journey in Asia is not yet finished for me… In June/July I am going to Shanghai for several customer visits where we will follow tests regarding SKF new products and solutions to reduce Noise & Vibration. Beside that, we want also to develop a more structured dialogue with customers to go deeper in their real needs and understand how SKF can help them when it comes to rotating parts. All the acquired information will be then passed to Product Development and Process to align. I am excited about seeing a new country and their way of doing business.

And after?

Another great point of the Programme is that you can actually choose your rotation and explore the most suited role for you. My next step will be in Steyr, Austria, working in manufacturing environment. Another part will be related to ReMan; this is quite a new business for SKF where basically we offer to customer remanufactured bearings, as well as service and condition monitoring to get more knowledge about the condition of their assets. If customer knows the condition of its asset in real time, he can also foresee maintenance period and change bearings without losing time; the used bearing can later be send to SKF Reman Centers to be inspected and remanufactured, giving them a new life. Can’t wait to set up another challenging project with my future manager!

Hope you have enjoyed the reading and gain some insights about the Programme and SKF in general!

Cheers,

Nicola

Hugo here and great to be back in the blog-warmth again! After two periods in my hometown Sthlm it was time to pack my bags and head over to our dear neighbor in the east, and more specific to Helsinki!

Here in Helsinki I’m working at Agro Oy, the finnish leg in our agriculture business and I’m looking into their seed business and its production plants, volumes and cost structure. The project has been really interesting and quite closely related to my studies within supply chain management which have been a great experience to try it out in “real life”. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not been new territory for me, born and raised in Sthlm my agriculture knowledge was on the same level as my finnish, combine the two and you have quite a suuri (well, I’ll just let you guess) adventure in front of you!

Trying to summarize my last few months here in Finland I would say that it’s been a real pleasure, meeting a lot of great colleagues patiently describing the finnish agriculture, living in a real nice city (underestimated!) that offers a lot of city sightseeing as well as some accessible nature and genuine finnish sauna (can’t write a blogpost about Finland and not mention sauna…). And of course, living in Finland when they win the World Championship in hockey, well that just doesn’t happen every year!

Take care and see you at the next place!

/Hugo

PS. And a picture from the first week in Finland:

Hej blog readers, it’s Vanessa who will take over this week’s blog post! After spending previous period in Stockholm at Group Function (GF) R&D, I decided to extend my stay here in the capital and join another GF: Supply Chain.

The reason behind this is because I want to experience how it feels to work in a supply chain field since I only got a little glimpse of supply chain while pursuing my Bachelor degree. Initially, I would like to move to Malmö and be part of Lantmännen Agriculture business area, however there was no project within supply chain area available for me. But, lucky me, there is a joint project between GF Supply Chain in Stockholm and LM Agriculture in Malmö regarding supply chain, in which I immediately said yes to! 😉

At my current project, which has been running since late March, I was assigned to look at possible relocation of one of our biggest grain silos in the West region of Sweden. I learn (and am still learning) so much more than I expected! Starting from looking at one subject from different angles and interests, developing strategic thinking, incorporating external yet relevant insights into current data flow, and so on. Soooo many considerations need to be involved before we decide on one thing and so many information to be confirmed as well in order to guarantee its validity. In conclusion, I really like this project because it matches my interest and the outcome.

I haven’t really taken many pictures from this project (oops), so here is a picture of Stockholm in the spring and sunny weather.

See you around! /Vanessa

Ciao everyone!

I’m Ginevra from Italy, I am an engineer and I am part of the SKF Global Graduate Programme wave 3. Being half way through the programme, I feel like it’s time to share with you how my experience has been so far.

I am sure that you already know how the programme is structured, but in case you don’t, I will summarize it briefly for you:

• 1 introduction month in Gothenburg
• 3 5-months rotations in different business units
• 2-weeks gatherings in Sweden with all your graduate colleagues between the rotations

The start – Rotation 1

I’ve joined SKF in September 2018, and after a quick week in the office in Milan to know my colleagues and get my pc and mobile, it was already time to fly to Gothenburg for the introduction month! Needless to say that it was great experience. What really impressed me at the time was the availability and willingness of the senior management to meet us and share with us their views. As a young professional, it doesn’t happen that often be given a 360° overview of the company and of its strategy.

It was then time to go back to Italy for my first rotation! In Milan I joined our Industrial Sales team for 5 months. During this time I mainly worked on a market study project which included database analysis, future trends in the segment, our value proposition and the go-to-market strategy. In the meantime, a lot of customer visits with our account managers!

What’s happening now – Rotation 2

After the gathering in Sweden with the other graduates (so nice to meet everyone again!) it was time to start a new experience: I moved here in Gothenburg to start my second placement in Business Development in one of our factories!

I was expecting to have a slow start, being the new one that is staying in the department for only some months but it was not the case. Here I found a team that has involved me in all the activities from day one – asking for my opinions and challenging my views – the best start I could ask for!

I am currently working on three different projects regarding our self-aligning roller bearings, and everyday I find myself working with people from all over the world. Plus, I get to spend some time in the factory, getting my hands dirty and understanding how our bearings come to life.

What will happen next – Rotation 3

In August I will move to Katrineholm to spend the last part of my second rotation in our housings factory, and I am looking forward to understanding more about our manufacturing.

In the last few days I have also started planning my third rotation, which will probably be a split one: 2 months in China, joining the Product Development team, and 3 months in Germany.

I am extremely excited about the next adventures, wish me luck!

Arrivederci!

Ginevra

Hey!

This week’s blog is written by Sebastian. I wrote my previous blog post in the fall when I was placed at AS-Faktor working in business development, but a lot has happened since then.

After Stockholm, I went to Unibake in Copenhagen where I worked on a project for their fast foods division. I looked at the northern European market for hamburger and hot dog buns to find out what opportunities Unibake have to expand in the segment. Did you all know that Lantmännen Unibake is the market leader for fast food buns in Sweden with Korvbrödsbagarn (read: MAX Friscobröd) and has a big presence in Norway, Finland, and Denmark? I keep thinking that it would be amazing if you could find our delicious buns all over the world though. Well, maybe one day…

Now I am at Lantmännen’s energy division, which just expanded by acquiring a British company’s factory outside of Norrköping. We are famous for our imagination here at Lantmännen (not really), so we decided to call the new company “Lantmännen Oats”, as the factory refines oats. The energy division also consist of “Lantmännen Agroetanol” (ethanol), “Lantmännen Aspen” (alkylate fuel), and “Lantmännen Reppe” (gluten, starch, and drinking alcohol).

Instead of joining one of these companies, I was fortunate enough to work with the energy division’s management team in Stockholm. I am “uppe i smöret” (“up in the butter”), so to speak. On a daily basis, I am helping out where needed, but I am mostly working on a market analysis for starches and the integration of “Lantmännen Oats” into Lantmännen. I also get to sit in on a bunch of meetings to really understand what happens in a management team, which is really cool.

However, this post was supposed to be about the training we just had about change management, and not about me. The topic of change is both incredibly relevant and interesting. We got to learn about useful theories on change management, and lead change through simulations and real life scenarios. A lot of the issues we came across were very relatable, as they are issues we all continuously face in our projects. Change is truly a part of everyday life, at least here at Lantmännen, so learning how to deal with it will probably have some pretty fantastic consequences.

Learning about change was great, but it wasn’t even nearly as good as meeting up with the whole trainee-gang at a vineyard in sunny Skåne. Summer finally arrived! We always have a great time meeting up, and even if we learned that there perhaps is a reason to why Sweden isn’t famous for wine, the beautiful scenery along with the company made these three days absolutely amazing.

Until next time!

 /Sebastian

Nu är traineeprogrammet snart slut här på Jordbruksverkets IT-avdelning för den här gången, och tillsvidareanställning tar vid, den här veckan har jag som tidigare jobbat i ett av utvecklingsteamen där jag även skall stanna när praktiktiden tar slut den 1 juni. Det känns kul att traineetiden är slut och att vi alla har fått anställning, mycket kunskap har sjunkit in under dessa trainee-månader. Nu ser vi fram emot att fortsätta utvecklas som tillsvidareanställd samt att få träffa de nya traineerna om några månader!

Hi/Hej/Hoi readers!

I am Henrik Wallander, and I am the Global Trainee in Business Development for the Husqvarna Division. Connecting to something that my fellow trainee Raphael mentioned in an earlier post of working in a different country than you were born: I am originally from Sweden, but I am based in the Netherlands, just outside of Amsterdam, as Husqvarna Group offered me the opportunity to make my home base Dutch, instead of Swedish.
During my masters studies in Innovation and Industrial Management at the School of Business, Economics, and Law at the University of Gothenburg, I realized that what suited me best would be a dynamic career, requiring me to own dedicated projects with the associated responsibilities and somewhat fight for the possibility to support and drive change and improvement in an organization. That last part might seem discouraging or negative, but it is actually the opposite. I want to be challenged, and when I have the support from my manager and team to positively affect the organization I work for in a meaningful way, I thrive.

For my first six-month assignment, I got the responsibility to drive a project investigating online sales opportunities, with a lot of helpful support from my team, my assignment manager, and my home manager. With the golden support internally, I was given the chance to progress professionally and personally with more responsibilities and trust than I could have ever hoped for going into this position. For the various stakeholders, the assignment was successful and created valuable insights which I can only be proud to have been a part of.

I am currently on my second assignment within the Global Trainee Program, working on another Business Development project in Global Sales and People & Organization. What is extremely exciting about this project is that it is nowhere limited to a single country or region, it’s focused on global employee development, which is a topic I have not worked with extensively before.

Evidential for the delegated responsibilities for this assignment, I can highlight that I am currently finishing this blog post from my hotel room in Olathe, Kansas. I am here for a week-long business trip to gather and share experiences with our colleagues in the Construction Division in the US. To explore and collaborate on what they have done related to the project, input that I can bring back to Europe and share with our division, fostering and strengthening global collaboration.

Working at Husqvarna Group has led me to take on more responsibility than expected and capitalize on professional development opportunities, all thanks to remarkably supportive and engaging coworkers and managers. However, one should always remember that in order to achieve what one wants, continued effort and dedication is needed to reach one’s goals. Bring it on!