Scaling up RPA at Sweden’s largest Forest Owners Association.

Södra Skogsägarna is already an industry leader when it comes to digital transformation and works to reduce repetitive and boring work with the help of robotic companions.

The initiative

When Södra Skogsägarna launched its RPA initiative in early 2018, they had a clear goal in mind: To reduce the organization’s repetitive and administrative work so their employees could focus on what they love and do best: managing the forest for its constituent members. Södra Skogsägarna has always been at the forefront when it comes to digital transformation, so their venture into RPA was a natural choice. After a couple of months, they were ready to introduce a new member to the team, Clerk, Södra Skogsägarnas first robotic companion. Four processes were handpicked for the pilot. The processes were spread out across the entire organization but all had one characteristic in common: They were all universally disliked by the employees who were tasked with performing them. This emphasizes the most important goal for Södra: to increase Increasing employee satisfaction and makemaking the company a more attractive workplace.

We view this as a step towards freeing up time for more interesting tasks, being able to recruit qualified personnel, and to increase employee satisfaction.
- Cristian Brolin
CDO Södra Skogsägarna

Scaling Up

With a successful pilot project completed and the technology successfully proven to deliver value, Södra was ready to pick up the pace and scale up. This time around, a more rigorous process analysis was done to identify particularly suitable cases to maximize impact. Today, Clerk assists employees throughout the entire organization wherever it is needed, whether within finance processes or helping forest administrators keep their forestry plans updated for the members.

Going Agile

RPA is now part of an established function at Södra and makes up half of the newly formed "ITAR" (IT Automation and Robotics) unit. The team follows an agile strategy with a focus on continuous delivery of Automation artifacts where they are needed the most. With a team firmly in place, the quick implementation and flexibility of RPA really shines. A new robotic companion, Robin, has been added to assist the already swamped Clerk and because of this, Södra Skogsägarna is fully equipped to handle today's digital challenges.

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