Håkan Nilsson
CEO
Zinnovate sounds a lot like innovate, can you explain why you have chosen this name? Who owns your company and what is your background in logistics?
Customers can expect Zinnovate to help innovate solutions, systems and processes but the name was also chosen as a constant reminder to myself and my team of our obligation to innovate. To the best of our ability we truly aspire to help others drive innovation.
I’m the sole owner of Zinnovate International and, quite frankly, that helps me ensure that our focus remains on customers and employees rather than being ‘distracted’ by any other shareholder driven priorities.
Prior to starting Zinnovate, I spent 23 years in the logistics industry as CIO for global freight companies such as Wilson (SE), TNT Freight Management (NL) and Geodis Wilson (FR). It was a journey of constant global growth both organically and through mergers and acquisitions. This fast-paced environment taught me tons of lessons on business optimization based on self-experienced failures and successes.
What can you actually do for shipping and logistics companies?
My global team of hands-on doers and I can help leaders of shipping and logistics companies to:
- Boost productivity and revenue through system solutions and process excellence
- ‘Future-proof’ your company in a world of accelerated change
- Drive transformation from local to global optimization (local optimization being sub-optimization)
- Drive high-tech advances without losing the important human touch
- Ensure perfection in system connectivity (with customers, carriers, other stakeholders) to boost customer value and “make the whole more than the sum of the parts”
There is generally a lot of hype out there these days and it seems that every Tom, Dick and Harry is an IT consultant offering a smarter solution than the next. Tell us, if you will, why you believe you can make a difference and why our readers should believe you over others?
I have spent more than two decades on the customer side and have met all the Toms, Dicks and Harrys out there! It made me almost allergic to consultants so now that I am a consultant myself I sometimes say that I’m allergic to myself. Bottom line is that I have a simple philosophy: consultants should be used wisely to fast-forward your own development as you build your own strengths, thus becoming independent of consultants (including me…). We help you achieve this by only employing doers with deep freight domain expertise in addition to their leading-edge IT competence.
Can you provide us with a couple of references of customers that you have served over the years?
We service customers ranging from 10 FTE’s to 28,000 FTE’s so lets just give a few examples from different size groups:
- In the giant group we are now helping DHL Global Forwarding to migrate to a new IT platform in 100+ countries.
- In the sizeable group we have several customers such as Marmedsa Noatum Maritime (ES), Logwin (DE) and Greencarrier (SE) – please have a look at https://zinnovate.se/greencarrier-leverages-zinnovate-expertise-to-take-quantum-leap-with-state-of-the-art-global-systems-and-processes/
- Finally, we have many small and medium sized customers (representing the majority of our customers).
How do you cover companies overseas if you only have your office located in Sweden?
Our HQ is indeed in Stockholm Sweden but we have people on the ground in 20+ countries on all continents by now (https://zinnovate.se/unique-partnership-model-basis-for-zinnovate-expansion-across-the-globe/)
What is blockchain and how mature is it in your view?
Simply put, blockchain is ”upgrading” the internet from being just a means to deliver information to also delivering value. This is without having a middleman as a bank or governmental authority. Bitcoin is perhaps the most well known example of blockchain technology in play but there is so much more. Effectively, any case involving a transfer of value, be it in the form of digital money or a document attributed with value, lends itself perfectly to blockchain. Blockchain is simply a decentralized digital ledger where authenticity and security are guaranteed through the blockchain.
Blockchain will deeply and profoundly transform our industry. Most of that transformation is still years into the future despite what all hype prophets will tell us, but we do already now see blockchain use cases that deliver tangible benefits.
How can our readers get in touch with you if any of them are interested?
Readers are welcome to contact me directly at +46 70 555 32 41 or hakan.nilsson@zinnovate.se or skype hakan-zinnovate.
Also please feel free to visit www.zinnovate.se or if in Stockholm you are more than welcome to visit Zinnovate at Vendevägen 89 in Danderyd.
