Consultancy Case Studies

Caledonian Paper Mill

Caledonian Paper Mill in Irvine, Scotland, is part of the UPM Kymmene Group, one of the largest paper and forest products producers in the world, supplying paper to some of the UK's largest publishing and printing houses.

Caledonian decided to use the scenario planning process to help them assess the way they worked within the constantly fluctuating paper market and how they could have a more effective relationship with their customers. In order to understand the nature of the paper/publishing relationship, they asked one of their major customers, IPC Media, a leading publishing group, to be involved in the three-stage process.

After conducting a series of in-depth interviews with senior managers, Professor Kees van der Heijden and George Burt held a one-day workshop to discuss what had emerged from the interviews.

That was followed by a two-day workshop designed to develop scenarios for the paper and publishing industry, from which three possible futures or scenarios were developed.

The first future, the Godfather scenario, considered what would happen if all the major players within the paper/publishing industry reduced in size through mergers and acquisitions to manage paper industry capacity.

The second scenario, the Party of the Invaders, looked at the development of e-commerce and its effect on the industry, while the third, the New Constellations scenario, looked at what would happen if the barriers between the paper and publishing industries were broken down and a new business model was put in place.

The process had a considerable effect on the future business perspectives of both companies. Caledonian Paper Mill has set up a media research group as a direct result of the scenario planning process, and started a synergy bank with IPC with the am of improving their working relationship.

Since embarking on the scenario planning exercise, many of the predicted risks have already occurred. There has been major consolidation of the industry and the development of e-commerce has had the expected impact. However, because the changes had been anticipated, they were prepared and had already considered how they would operate within the new environments.

Campbell Lee

Campbell Lee is Scotland's largest group of business solutions providers. Since 1977, the company has held a leading position in IT services and more recently e-business. The Group represents four distinct technology companies based in Glasgow, Paisley, Falkirk, Aberdeen and Manchester.

Today, the company provides over 200 Scottish organisations with an unparalleled breadth of technology consulting, e-commerce systems integration, internet services and business process applications and support. The company's key partners include IBM, Microsoft and Cisco. These partnerships extend Campbell Lee's relationships with the many internationally recognised software partners in Financial, Manufacturing and Distribution business applications.

When the Centre for Scenario Planning and Future Studies first met up with Campbell Lee, they found them to be predominantly problem solvers, relieving customers of their problems - something they happened to be very good at. However, the scenario planning team suggested that while they should not stop being relievers, they should additionally become "enablers," working with their customers and asking them about their business and customers.

The Centre's team helped them change their assumptions about their business and how they interacted with their customers, and Campbell Lee said scenario planning opened up their eyes, making them "think about the unthinkable."