“We have streamlined the entire supply chain flow, hired hundreds of new employees in recent months, and have in record time opened up a new warehouse in Stockholm.”

We have talked to Johanna Nilsson, interim CCO at Mathem through Nordic Interim. Mathem is one of the businesses that is experiencing growth and that sees opportunities to help people during Covid-19.

With Covid-19 and social distance, home deliveries have been given a major boost and for many risk groups, it is the only way to bring home the necessary goods. Johanna Nilsson was engaged in 2018 as CCO (Assortment and Purchasing Director) at Mathem to develop the customer offering and increase sales. A year and a half later, the situation is completely different and the focus is now on the huge growth that has taken place in recent months.

Johanna has a long background in marketing and product management roles in retail and has been involved in both ups and downs. We have talked to Johanna to hear more about her views on the current situation, her role at Mathem, and about interim management.

Tell us about your mission as a CCO at Mathem?

“My current assignment as CCO – Assortment and Purchasing Director – at Mathem is a relatively newly created position in the management team with responsibility for the entire range, pricing and supplier collaborations. When I joined as interim CRO (Chief Revenue Officer) in September 2018, with the responsibility of, among other things, developing the customer offering, maximizing sales and optimizing the marketing budget, we also saw the opportunity to reorganization to meet the long-term growth plan. I worked in parallel with building up our current purchasing and assortment organization through mergers of various functions and recruitment of key personnel. Today we are about 40 dedicated people working in different category teams with the goal of offering a wide customer-driven, seasonal and inspired assortment to our customers, in close cooperation with our nearly 300 suppliers.”

What has the focus been on in your mission?

“Within an entrepreneurial company where growth and continuous development are in focus and everything goes very fast, it is important as a leader to find the balance between the operational and the strategic. To be involved in the overall corporate decisions regarding continued rapid growth in close cooperation with the management team and board, and at the same time have an operational daily performance responsibility and to prioritize and guide employees in a common direction – is what is most developing and inspiring for me.

The hardest part has been to make enough time. So much is happening inside and outside the company right now. New opportunities are coming up all the time! Therefore, it has been incredibly important to be an inspiring, safe and clear leader who also dares to challenge, push, prioritize and make decisions.”

What have been the biggest challenges in your mission?

“First of all; I am driven, thrived, and developed by constant challenges, something there are plenty of at Mathem! Working in an entrepreneurial growth company with fast-moving goods combined with a sales channel where availability is more or less around the clock crucial, is an incredibly fun and exciting combination. It also presents new challenges, opportunities, and projects on a daily basis.

During my time at Mathem, we have had fantastic growth and in recent months the demand and growth of our online service have increased enormously. During my more than 1.5 years I have had the privilege of working together with both founders, we have got a new principal owner and board, an expanded management team, and a new external CEO. The organization has grown significantly, updated strategy plans have been made, new headquarters and new warehouses have been planned and opened up. In parallel, as interim CRO and CCO, I have pushed through organizational change and created a new function of about 40 people in purchasing and assortment.”

What are the benefits of working as an interim manager, both for you as an interim and for the company that engages an interim?

“I have worked as interim manager and consultant for over 15 years, which has given me incredibly valuable and exciting insight from many different industries, companies, organizations, and cultures. I really like to start my defined mission right from day 1 and to quickly become a key figure in management. For me as interim manager, it is very important to get a clear mandate and that the organization understands my role and my mission. The tasks themselves within the specific assignment can always change along the way, so it is important to be responsive, flexible, and solution-oriented.

I myself in a previous role as CEO hired among other things. interim CFO and HR manager, which was very valuable in the change journey that involved sales and business transition.

An outside-in perspective, someone who challenges on a daily basis both operationally and strategically to develop and optimize the business and drive the business or organization forward, someone who gives that extra energy to the business – I think that is a great advantage of an interim.

With background and knowledge from many different companies, cultures, and industries as both employees in leading positions, as a consultant, and as an interim, I have acquired broad skills that allow me to quickly enter and understand the business and its challenges and opportunities, and thus adapt to the conditions.”

Many industries and companies are hit very hard by the Covid-19 crisis, how has this affected Mathem?

“Mathem has become a socially important business during the crisis. This means that demand for our services has increased enormously rapidly, which is obviously super fun but also contributed to rapid unforeseen challenges in accommodating the high demand and influx of new customers. We have had full focus throughout the company in increasing capacity so that everyone who wants and can shop with us will have that opportunity. Among other things, we have streamlined the entire supply chain flow and in parallel hired hundreds of new employees in recent months. In addition, in recent weeks we have worked hard to open up a new warehouse in western Stockholm during May in order to be able to offer our current and new customers more delivery times in the short and long term.

With the increased demand and given that more and more customers will spend more time in the archipelago and summer cottages this year, we chose to open up our popular boat deliveries in the Stockholm archipelago as early as the end of April.”

What new opportunities does Mathem see as a result of new needs during and after Covid-19?

“We have brought in a large number of new customers during this time, which means that our planned growth has been significantly faster than expected. We expect that many of these new customers will realize how easy it is to use Mathem’s services and therefore will continue to shop from us even after Covid-19. This means that we have to accelerate and implement our plans faster than we planned. What we’ve experienced now during the Corona crisis will change online customer behaviour faster than we thought.”

How do you see that some industries can actually see new opportunities from the crisis and change/develop their business?

“We all see a clear trend that the e-commerce market is developing positively. In retail, the shift from store to larger share online will be even faster now, and what many predicted before Corona. I believe that the developments we have seen during the current crisis for food, pharmacy, and digital healthcare contacts, in particular, will mean that more and more industries and companies will have to focus more or less, and above all faster, on their online customer offering. More companies, both those that are pure e-commerce companies today, but also businesses with more traditional channels will need to speed up digital development. In itself, I think this will mean a greater demand for competence in growth and change management as well as broad and deep understanding, insight, and knowledge about the customer journey.”