Blog

Empowering Finance in ERP Transformations: Lessons from the F&C Process Coordinator Role

In significant, organisation-wide transformations, finance is often one of the most impacted functions—but also one of the most critical to ...

The CIO’s Challenge: How to Achieve Cost Savings and Continuous Development at the Same Time?

Economic uncertainty, new regulation, and technological disruption are forcing Nordic companies to transform. A recent Nordic study commissioned by Midagon ...

Finance on the Path to Automation – Where to Begin with AI?

Finance functions have already come a long way—from manual processes and paper-based offices to digitalised and integrated operations that support ...

What happens after ERP renewals?

Almost all companies will be forced to renew their ERP systems within the next few years due to pressure from ...

Meet the team: Mika Alastalo joins Midagon as Senior Managing Consultant

Mika Alastalo joined Midagon in April 2025. Let's get to know him a bit better!

How to succeed in complex business transformations? Learnings and key enablers

The ability to transform and renew your business is a critical factor to being successful in the future. Customer, market, ...

Securing business transformation results: Start with business design before functional and technical planning

In today's fast-paced world, most companies undergo one or more major transformations each year, driven by increasing globalisation, competition, and ...

ERP Rescue - preventing and fixing common issues in ERP transformations

Healthcare is in crisis in many countries, and Finland is no exception. When resources are limited, and the demand keeps ...

When the business cycle changes, companies’ competitiveness is re-measured

For business and IT leaders, preparing for a business cycle shift means ensuring the right strategic target state and ambition-level ...

Meet the team: Jarkko Peltonen and Janne Takala join Midagon as Senior Managing Consultants

Jarkko Peltonen and Janne Takala joined Midagon as consultants in May 2024. Let's get to know them a bit better!

Why does experience matter in organisational change?

Have you ever pondered the significance of experience in organisational change? Join me for a moment to explore the challenges ...

What is wrong with organisational change management?

Organisational change management frameworks, like Prosci and ADKAR, have their merits but also limitations. I acknowledge these methodologies' popularity and ...

Multiple successfully implemented M&A projects in 2023

The year 2023 had lower-than-normal M&A activity. This was mainly due to the high interest rates yet still high company ...

Kontio ERP transformation: Working together to succeed all the way from tendering to a successful go-live

One of the strategic objectives of Kontiotuote Oy (later Kontio) for the strategy period is "exploiting the potential of digitalisation". ...

Part 5/5: Building an integrated production site

Effective integration on all levels of business revolves around controlled actions based on sound data and an understanding of the ...

Part 4/5: Data-driven efficiency: What does it mean and how to achieve it?

Before reading further, I ask you to stop here and think: what do the title’s three words mean to you? ...

Part 3/5: How to make a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) part of your production transformation?

MES is designed to manage and optimise manufacturing processes. In the ISA-95 framework, MES is positioned in the heart of ...

Part 2/5: Improving industrial efficiency with balanced mechanical efficiency and personnel satisfaction

Finding the right balance between technological, productivity-driven and human-centric development is key to success in manufacturing in the 2020s. Actions ...

When IT falls into place in acquisitions – you are following a common playbook

If your company’s strategy is to increase its growth or profitability (rapidly) through several acquisitions or divestments, I recommend introducing ...

Part 1/5: The evolution of production: Uncovering critical success factors over time

Welcome to read part one of our industrial production blog series. In today's dynamic business landscape, understanding the ever-shifting nature ...

Meet the team: Jussi Haatainen, Sanna Lankinen, and Riikka Henriksson join Midagon as consultants

Jussi, Riikka and Sanna joined our team in early August, bringing vast knowledge from transformation and development projects in the ...

Meet the team: Teemu Forsberg and Paula Hantula join Midagon as Senior Managing Consultants

Midagon's consultants come with many different experiences and backgrounds, which is our company's strength. As a good example of this, ...

Meet the team: Tommi Linnavuori joins Midagon as Senior Managing Consultant

My professional working life started in the paper and printing industry with a two-year experience in production supervisor roles. After ...

Meet the team: Jussi Kokkonen joins Midagon as Senior Managing Consultant

For the last 20 years before joining Midagon in March 2023, I worked on the IT vendor side. I started ...

Thoughts on digital transformation in 2023

I recently saw a comic strip on LinkedIn where digital transformation was compared to a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly. ...

Complicated decisions regarding insurance system solutions and country adaptations: modernisation or a comprehensive renewal?

When insurance companies are in the process of modernising and renewing their business processes due to customer expectations, they often ...

Organisations and ERPs are becoming modular - why and what does it mean?

Over the last couple of years, Gartner has highlighted the topic of ”composable” models: Composable Organisation, Composable Architecture and Composable ...

Episode 6: The new ERP is finally live – what's next?

The ERP is now live, but the work is not over. I see that as companies evolve over time, new ...

Episode 5: The ERP project is running – we’re all in the same boat, let’s work as a team

So, this ERP project execution phase will last for quite a while. In some large projects, we are talking almost ...

Episode 4: The board approved the ERP project – time to get organised

And now it’s off to the races. Things start moving, deadlines are set, and the project plan is finalised. Assigned ...

Episode 3: RFP for an ERP renewal – let’s keep calm and focused

In the previous chapters, we figured out that we really do need an ERP project and what processes the new ...

Episode 2: Someone really meant ERP renewal – what now?

Ok, now it seems that someone inside your company is pushing for an ERP. If the idea came from a ...

Episode 1: Someone said ERP renewal - was that for real?

This six part series about ERP projects has been written to highlight - with some humour - the lifespan of ...

Meet the team: Mikko Heinonen joins Midagon as Senior Managing Consultant

When I started as a summer worker in a large electronics manufacturing company to do order handling activities on the ...

Five considerations for banking and insurance core systems service model selection

When considering an investment in a core system, whether it be a new one or a replacing an existing system, ...

Holidays are over - but the work with Industrial Service Transformation is quite far from it

It was a great summer holiday spent mostly traveling with family and friends, eating lots of delicious food, enjoying warm ...

Why hiring a project manager from system integrators is problematic

When companies plan for the management of transformative projects, they have several options to source the required project management skills ...

Meet the team: Tero Leivonen joins Midagon as Senior Managing Consultant

Hello all! I was walking up the streets of a small town in southwest Finland on a grey day in ...

Offshore at last!

We’ve just arrived to the Azores islands with the Ocean Ladies yacht, and I wanted to share with my network ...

Midagon's Supply Chain Management Community is taking its first steps to strengthen team competences and knowledge sharing

At the end of last year, we initiated community work in several areas. It has been a great pleasure to work ...

Introducing Midagon's ICT Management Community

In this blog, I would like to introduce Midagon’s ICT Management community. Midagon’s communities aim to improve internal team building and ...

SSAB Track and Trace: Next level customer service with real-time transportation visibility

Midagon helped SSAB design and implement a new Track and Trace (TnT) visibility platform for transportation, providing customers with direct ...

How to pull out from Russia - recent experiences from our clients

During the past two months, many Western companies have pulled out of Russia and at Midagon, we have recent experience ...

Welcome to Midagon's Mergers and Acquisitions Community!

The M&A Community started its work a few months back and we are now ready to share a couple of ...

Meet the team: Hannu Eskola joins Midagon to strengthen the Banking and Insurance team

I have been working with financial services systems deployment, development and maintenance for more than 20 years. My career started ...

Don't get lost, map your digital journey easily

As a leader you have a need to improve your business top or bottom line by digital means. However, you ...

Exceptional management support and project success

For a project to succeed, strong top management support and sponsorship is vital. This is not only our personal experience ...

Mergers & Acquisitions: Success is a choice

The majority of Mergers and Acquisitions fail to achieve their targets. According to KPMG (2015), 83 percent of the mergers ...

Change management in cloud and agile projects

‘The only thing that is constant is change’-is a phrase that you often hear in organizations which are enabling change ...

Is your ERP strategy updated?

SAP has announced that its support to the SAP Business Suite 7 will end by 2025. SAP will then support ...

After the Deal: Three success factors for M&A integration

Integration services related to mergers, acquisitions and carve-outs have been at the core of Midagon's service offering as long as ...

How to experiment digital opportunities for true business benefits?

In my previous blog, I opened the key challenges to scale digitalization from small experiments to true business benefits. Let's ...

Digital is the new normal - what can the customers and partners of process and manufacturing industries expect now?

The development of digital is changing many industries and value chains dramatically. Today, digital is a vital piece of everything. ...

Midagon's renewed Digital Business Services: Competitive advantage for process and manufacturing industries

Throughout the 2010's, digital development was focused on innovations, pilots and digital strategies. These were all formed apart from the ...

M&A process - build bridges, not walls

While the M&A landscape has been impacted by the current crisis, and many deals are on hold, it’s more important ...

Millions lost in carve-out deals

There is a general expectation that the recession following the COVID-19 lockdown will create a major wave of new business ...

Get to know our team of digital business experts

As discussed in our previous articles, process and manufacturing industries are facing an important challenge when it comes to bringing ...

M&A and improving due diligence in interesting times

The first half of 2020 was exceptional in M&A markets. When market fundamentals are unclear, thorough and strategic due diligence ...

Midagon's new digital business white paper tackles digital development in process and manufacturing industries

Digital development in process and manufacturing industries is on the move. Important advances in the ways in which companies are ...

Want to make your ERP go-live bulletproof? Do it remotely!

Unlike the Olympics, an ERP go-live is all about winning. Our project team has been challenged by the pandemic during ...

Join us at our Tech Intensive M&A virtual event on 19 November

Almost exactly one year ago I attended the Dagens Industri's M&A conference in Stockholm. Our CEO Ilkka Töyrylä had encouraged ...

Establishing a cross-ordering process in post-merger integration

Cross-ordering in this context stands for a process where acquired and acquiring businesses sell each other’s products and services to ...

Get the most out of data and analytics by setting clear strategic business objectives

Far too often driving analytics in companies comes down to single analytics rehearsals conducted by just a few enlightened individuals ...

Are you ready for Artificial Intelligence in sourcing & procurement? [Part 1]

Are you familiarized with all the ways in which Artificial Intelligence (AI) can benefit the area of sourcing and procurement? ...

What opportunities and benefits does Artificial Intelligence bring in sourcing & procurement? [Part 2]

As mentioned in our previous blog, new Artificial Intelligence (AI) related business opportunities can be found by considering which tasks ...

Growth, great achievements and learnings for Midagon’s M&A services in 2020

An exceptional year for Midagon’s M&A services came to an end and a new one has started. The feeling is ...

4 steps to resourcing your ERP project effectively and creating a well-oiled project organization

As the preparation phase of an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) project progresses towards the final stages of solution and vendor ...

Strategic transformation programs continued in large companies despite the pandemic - Midagon reached nearly 40% growth

2020 will be remembered as a year of uncertainty, rapid changes and adapting to new conditions. The pandemic forced all ...

Fixing the foundation first: master data

In October 2020, Midagon released the white paper How to drive business value from digital in process and manufacturing industries. ...

Make better decisions in a fast-paced world with integrated business planning

Planning future events is essential for every organization in order to maintain focus and direct the business in each market ...

Cultural differences in M&A integration - managing the unmanageable

Culture, change and people leadership are some of the most challenging and disputed aspects of M&A integration. Especially when integration ...

Meet the team: Liisa Falck joins Midagon as Senior Managing Consultant

I have always been somewhat fascinated by finance. When I was about five years old, my dream job was to ...

Not an ultimate list of digital business solutions for supply chain

It takes skill to identify potential benefit sources of modern technologies in different industrial contexts. You must know both the ...

Top 3 topics to ensure a successful transformation project roll-out

In this blog, I will share my experiences in the past few decades from various different roll-outs, and discuss my ...

Who needs an M&A playbook?

Creating an M&A playbook - a standardized approach for mergers and acquisitions implementation can help your organization to run projects ...

What about organizational and cultural changes in the digitalizing process and manufacturing industries?

In industrial digital capability development, the focus has turned from technology-oriented pilots to functional business core changes. Simultaneously for data, ...

Meet the team: Eveliina Eerola joins Midagon to support recruitment and team success

Hi! It’s been a month since I started at Midagon and I’d like to share a little something about me. ...

3 key components of a world-class finance function and how to optimize them

How would you describe a world-class finance function? If you think of adjectives like reliable, competent, efficient, consistent and impartial, ...

Experiences from successful ERP projects: Plan, communicate and lead the change

ERP projects are known for their complexity and significant risk of failure. However, this is not how an ERP project ...

Meet the team: Susanta Mallick joins Midagon as Senior Managing Consultant

Finland is my second home and soon I will have lived here half of my life. I was brought up ...

Transforming traditional supply chains into digitalized supply chain networks

The traditional approach to supply chain is relatively simple and straightforward. Suppliers supply, producers produce, distributors distribute, retailers sell and, ...