As I shared in my previous post, we were on the path to create the industry’s largest player in IT infrastructure by consolidating many competitors into one major player, Atea. Many of my CEO counterparts in the industry had Atea as a topic of conversation along the lines of, “this is impossible – They will hit a roadblock…”
One day, Carl-Johan (Calle) Hultenheim (Calle was then working with business development) and Magnus Sallbring (Magnus was the marketing manager) came to my room. Magnus proposed that, as a key element in our integration, we position ourselves as the “Swedish national team in IT infrastructure.” To reinforce this, we’d become sponsors of Swedish Athletics. The concept was that, like athletes in various disciplines, Atea covered different areas in IT (servers, clients, licenses, security, communication, etc.).
This was a brilliant idea, and we decided to go all-in to make it happen!
I will never forget the feeling in the large conference hall in Västerås, where we gathered all employees, when Magnus declared on stage, “From today, we will refer to ourselves as the Swedish national team in IT infrastructure.” And hence, we will also be proud sponsors of the Swedish national athletics team. Then several stars from the athletics world at that time took the stage, and all Atea employees were given a training tracksuit similar to the ones worn by the national team stars.
It was there and then that something happened, the journey towards building a fantastic company that grew faster than the market, quarter after quarter, began!
We consistently integrated this concept into our narrative, holding kickoffs at Bosön (the national team’s training ground), and fostering teamwork by aligning our salary conditions accordingly. You may have seen proud Atea employees proudly sporting the national team jersey at various IT events.
Fast forward to 2023, and Atea remains steadfast in following this guiding principle.
I share this story to highlight the tremendous impact of holistic, methodical, and persistent storytelling in marketing and company development.
Author Stephen Covey says in his excellent book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, “Begin with the end in mind.”
That’s what we did when, amid the challenging integration process. We declared the ambition to become a national team. We dared to be ambitious, and we communicated this day after day, year after year. And many years later, this still has relevance for Atea that continues to win
Part II – The value of storytelling – and persistence
