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Onninen, a K-Group company, provides a comprehensive selection of products and service packages to contractors, industry, infrastructure building and retail dealers. It serves its customers both online and through Onninen Express stores across the country. 

Onninen wanted to look at developing its sales processes with the help of AI to meet increasing competition and growing customer expectations. For that purpose, two students: Joonas Maisala, studying in the Master’s Programme in Business Analytics, and Juho Tornberg, who majors in Marketing carried out the research project. The work was supervised by Associate Professor of Marketing Johanna Frösén.

The students explored what solutions AI offers to optimise sales personnel's time, harmonise pricing and automate sales processes. The work was carried out in close cooperation with the Onninen sales organisation, using interviews and making observations in experts’ work.

Understanding the daily sales work is the key to a successful development project

The student business project was based on interviews with Onninen's sales personnel and observations of their work in different locations. It helped the team identify genuine areas for improvement in day-to-day sales work. 

These findings were used by the team in the second phase of the project to identify and evaluate the AI solutions that are currently available. The end result was a report containing concrete development proposals and an assessment of their impact and feasibility.

Although the collaboration between the School of Business and Kesko has been going on for a long time, this project was the first of its kind to be carried out with Onninen. 

The project fulfilled its objective by providing Onninen with a concrete direction for integrating AI into its sales processes. The development proposals promise significant savings in manual work and enable more efficient use of time, supporting sales objectives. 

‘AI provides Onninen with the tools to move to a more proactive sales model where technology supports, rather than constrains, every customer encounter,’ Joonas Maisala and Juho Tornberg say.

‘The students' perspective brought fresh ideas for developing our sales work. The report met our expectations and gives us a solid basis to continue building our AI strategy,’ summarises Hanna Jussila, Onninen's Development Director.

This collaborative project between Aalto students and Kesko showed how companies can benefit from the expertise of the academic world. In this way, new technologies are not limited to the distant future, but can already be the key to achieving a competitive advantage and improving the customer experience today.