Do like Klarna & Worldfavor implement OPEX, Sofia Busck CRO Worldfavor

Wilma Eriksson: [00:00:00] Stäng gärna av om du har något. Lingande telefon eller du vet något annat slagg som kan stötsa

upp. Brukar vara likadant där, brukar vara jag som trasslar till med det. Är

det andra frågor? Annars så kör vi.

Sofia Busck: Ska bara sätta på

don't disturb.

Wilma Eriksson: Jag kommer hålla en liten kort monolog, så du kan bara liksom lean back och sen kommer du förstå när jag introar dig.

Då kör vi[00:01:00]

då.

The guests that I invite are not just full of knowledge, but also very humble and enough to share their fuck-ups and what they've learned from it. So today's guest is no one less than a VLUX-Q customer, Sofia Busk, CRO at Wellfaber. And your host is me, Dilma. I'm one of the co-founders to VLUX-Q CPQ. It stands for Configure, Price, and Service.

So, Willows Q is the place for you who want to secure your sales organization when doing costly wrongs in the quotes and proposals you send out. Everything is, of course, integrated with your CRM. But enough about us. Sofia is XEY, XCLANA, and now the CEO of Worldfavor. And Worldfavor is a company that has been around for a long time.

is a global sustainability platform that helps company access, manage and share sustainability information. They [00:02:00] have over 30,000 organizations in over 140 countries. This is really impressive, I feel. And I want to say thank you. We have one explanation of what they're doing that really spoke to me.

Imagine Worldfavor being to sustainability data what LinkedIn is to jobs. Companies can share and access sustainability information, compare data and interact with each other. It went, I mean, so and so that, Sofia, but I'm super happy that you are on the show. Welcome! Thank you so much. And if you were to describe Worldfavor with your own words, how would you talk about Worldfavor?

Worldfavor.

Sofia Busck: World Favour is all about creating true sustainability impact. So, of course, as you mentioned, a place where people can access, share and manage their sustainability data. But it's also being a part of something bigger, very famous for the network effect that we're creating, enabling not only our [00:03:00] customer but also their supply chain to really drive sustainability.

Wilma Eriksson: And that is truly, truly needed. www.slu.se Okej, Sofia, first of all, I will ask you about your favorite after work drink. What could I buy for you if we want to meet up this Friday and celebrate life together?

Sofia Busck: So I'm a bubbly kind of girl, so I would say a glass of Prosecco or Cava would be right on

Wilma Eriksson: my alley.

Wonderful. I agree with you. And your funniest work-related fuck-up, what do you want to share with us? Thanks for watching!

Sofia Busck: So obviously I got this question before, Wilma, and first I felt that The funniest, I mean, I take my work very seriously, so I felt that, what is it, was it someone, you know, during the pandemic, rising up in their boxer shorts?

Was it, you know, we've all been there, I think. Uh, but I think the, the funniest, [00:04:00] uh, I don't even know if it's funny, but I think one of the biggest fuck-up that, uh, I've had is, um, looking at, you set the process, And I think this turns in a little bit what we're going to talk to you about today when it comes to operational excellence.

Um, within tech, time to market is everything, right? Mm. And we tend to do, prioritize new launches, new things. To launch them very quickly. And for a while we had birdies whispering that we needed to clean up things, you know. We had launched so quickly so we needed to spend some more time cleaning things up.

And I think we had, at that point, we created, I think we should take this over, it became

Wilma Eriksson: very long.

Sofia Busck: Det här har varit ingen bra erkände jag.

Wilma Eriksson: Det gör ingenting. Och vill du inte att vi har [00:05:00] någon funny, då skiter vi i det. Men, det

Sofia Busck: är ju... Jag vet inte vad det är för funny, fucka. Förstår du? Jag tycker

Wilma Eriksson: det är jättesvårt.

De som har tyckt det var svårast har frågat sina vänner. Typ, vad tycker du att jag ska prata om? Eller så är det, jag har, jag har väl inte gjort några roliga misstag och så har de fått en lista att typ gå ifrån. Jag har också haft folk som har sagt att jag åkte till fel kundmöter och kände jag var så här, fast det är väl inte roligt.

Eller alltså det är roligt men det är inte roligt liksom.

Sofia Busck: Ja, alltså grejen är, de som jag, ska jag vara helt ärlig, de som jag tänkte på, det är så här, det här kan ju typ inte snacka, förstår du? Nej,

Wilma Eriksson: det är för känsligt. Men ska vi parkera den då? Och så tar vi den i slutet om du känner för den eller så skjuter du bara den.

Det är helt lugnt. Det är inte hela världen. Du kommer att framstå som lite torrare än alla andra. Men jag

Sofia Busck: fattar, men kanske, ja, jag fattar. Jag ser att du är en seriös

Wilma Eriksson: person också, så det är

Sofia Busck: lite svårt.

Wilma Eriksson: Jag vill ändå vara ärlig.

Sofia Busck: Men, ja, för att, [00:06:00] hur seg får man vara att inte komma på någon? Det är

Wilma Eriksson: lugnt.

Sofia Busck: Det

Wilma Eriksson: tycker jag är ganska roligt, om

Sofia Busck: jag

Wilma Eriksson: ska vara ärlig. Att det är såhär, jag känner igen mig liksom, jag har en, jag har en fuck up liksom som jag kan dela som inte är känslig. Och den är liksom kul men den är inte jättekul. Jag tar också mitt jobb väldigt seriöst.

Jag har fler när jag driver bolag för då liksom, alltså det är, tempot går så fort så jag gör så mycket fuck up så att jag typ kräks liksom. Men det är ju mer, det kan jag dela också om fem år för de är för känsliga nu att dela. Tack för mig för att du tittade på den här videon!

Sofia Busck: Ja, det är lite så, ja, nu glömmer jag lite så.

Alltså, sen finns det väl miljoner så här, du vet, man har gett pris till fel person, årets anställd och sådana filmer. Alltså, det finns väl en massa sådana där, men jag vet inte om det är så roligt då, förstår du?

Wilma Eriksson: Den är ganska kul, årets anställd. Alltså, tänk dig själv om du hade fått det, så var det inte det.

Den inte, det behövde heller vara så seriöst liksom. Nej, jag fattar, okej, så jag ska

Sofia Busck: bara ta det seriöst. [00:07:00] Men okej, kanske att vi bara ska prova igen då och så säger vi att vi ska prata lite mer brett.

Wilma Eriksson: Okej, mm. And thank you for sharing. I love bubbles too. And now I'm going to ask you about your funniest work-related fuck-up that you want to share

Sofia Busck: with us today.

Okej, so, uh, Thinking about funny work-related fuck-ups, I mean, I could imagine that the most people have done many, many fuck-ups. Everything from, I know, you know, during the pandemic, someone raising up in a meeting only wearing their boxing shorts. I think for me, it's giving the speech to, uh, praising a co-worker for being the employee of the month and saying the wrong name.

And that was not one of my proudest moments

Wilma Eriksson: to be honest. I can get the match of the one that thought They were the employee of the month and then weren't. No, that's why [00:08:00] you should like know your

Sofia Busck: script and keep your KPIs to be honest. Okay, thank you

Wilma Eriksson: so much. Thank you so much for sharing. And segueing over to today's topic, we are going to talk about something that I feel is very interesting.

We are going to talk about how to implement OPEX in tech and you are the expert here. So please give an intro to OPEX from your point of view. What is operational excellence

Sofia Busck: for you? So, uh, starting my career in management consultancy, um, operational excellence or quality has always been at the core of everything that I've done.

Moving into Klarna, it became very clear that, um, Start small, learning fast, learning by your errors, launching quickly. In order to be successful you need to do that with quality and with excellence. [00:09:00] So what we, I think what we did extremely well at Klarna and that I'm very proud over is to ensure that The full customer journey from the customer experience to the back-end development to service center or internal processes.

They were built for purpose. So there weren't just internal PowerPoints flying around or processes dragging out time or efficiency, but Everything was done from the purpose of the consumer. And that made us, like, not only scalable, but also, like, the excellence was there. Because we did it from the consumer point of view, or customer.

Wilma Eriksson: How did you start to map that out? If one were to start... Really, really digging into this and trying to implement the OPEX. Yeah, yeah. How, how would one start?

Sofia Busck: So the absolute first point would be to know [00:10:00] and understand your customer, who they are, what they need and how they behave. Um, so in a SaaS platform or within a digital experience, that would be basically following the customer journey from customer acquisition to onboarding and how they behave, ensuring that.

Everything from that they're exposed to has a high level of quality and has the focus of what you want. And from a process perspective, we created these different principles. But the principles became our guiding stars in how we made efficient, um, um, business decisions. So when we were, you know, wobbling from one step to another, should we go for, Ref left the right here.

These principles guided us in how to always follow the strategy and become very hands on. Um, I would say that the second piece is that the principles freed up time for a [00:11:00] lot of cross-functional teams or team collaborating together. So where on efficient organizations. Spend a lot of time internal debating, preparing fundamental reports or which decisions should we take or how should we develop or what should the marketing strategy be.

We could in the majority and we said 80 percent of the cases lean on the principles and say but this is how we do. So now we know we have the background, we have the options, according to our principle we should go for this. And if we, for some reason or someone, didn't agree, then that could potentially be the 20 percent that, um, diverted from the principles.

Wilma Eriksson: Okay, very interesting. How did you decide upon the principles? Or are they like Klarna values [00:12:00]

Sofia Busck: or how did you decide upon them? Um, so I think the values were, has always been at the core of Klarna since they were invented. And I think all great companies have those type of leadership principle of values that they use to form decisions.

We added more operational principles to those values. Like even more hands on. How do we decide, uh, how do we decide which market to set up and why? How do we decide which customer is prioritized, which group? And so it was even more operational than the values, which made it more tangible in our everyday decisions.

And they also, when talking about how we decided for them, we started with sitting down and evaluating our success factors. When did it go really, really well? And from that, [00:13:00] we started to form it a couple of principles and then they grew. So very incremental, very iterative, start small, learn fast. They grew.

And the more we worked, the more we got to know the principles and understood like, yeah, this is correct. And we could add dimensions to the different principles, if that makes sense. Like top level, they were just a catchy slogan, but they were like everybody who worked with them, all us. that use them as leaders.

We carefully explain to every new start that, okay, so we're going to choose this because of XYZ.

Wilma Eriksson: You

Sofia Busck: talked

Wilma Eriksson: about, uh, cross, uh, functionalities and, I mean, this is obviously something that affects more or less every, uh, vad heter avdelning? Department. Thank you. Uh, you talked about, uh, uh, cross-functionality through different departments.

And obviously this is something that touch upon every [00:14:00] departments. Uh, how, how to know where to start? I mean, Do you start where something is most badly working or how do you start with this? And then, of course, work the full work through the whole tech company to ensure that we are

Sofia Busck: really, really in a high level of optics.

So, um, I think there's two ways to, uh, to work with it. At Klarna we did both. My goal with World Favour is also to do both. So first of all, identifying the lowest hanging fruit, which would be the largest gap. Where, where could we increase the lowest level? So we'll kind of rip the whole department company depending on size.

That's kind of how we did it at Klarna. Identifying where is a massive need for quality to be improved. At the same time, because we're in a failing [00:15:00] growth podcast now, trying to scale and grow, you also need to develop ideas on where you're going and how. And if those two can meet, you can have those two thoughts in your head at the same time, you will be able to increase the lowest level, uh, or the biggest flood of errors.

At the same time, you will steer the company in a direction where we're continuously growing and improving. And that, for me, would be like the optimal scenario. Not necessarily, you know, they're happening at the same month, but over six months time you would start at one and you would slowly make them go at the same

Wilma Eriksson: pace.

Super interesting this. And now you are at Worldfaber and you have been working for this for a while, correctly? Yeah. Um, where would you say, where are you now in this process? And what would [00:16:00] you like to share to the audience like do's and don'ts? You have started. And when

Sofia Busck: to go next. So one of the reason why I joined World Fever was to also implement some of these ways of working and scalable approaches to World Fever as a platform is super scalable.

So the technology and the idea behind how to create the network effect that's really impressed me. One of the reasons why I joined. Now it's time for us to like. Implement those kind of ways of working and ways of making abrupt decisions, like be a little bold and say, Hey, we're going to do this, but not that because it's a detour and it's not fulfilling our strategy or a growth strategy.

And I think. My learnings, because we did some of those detours. I mean, in my previous, [00:17:00] um, uh, position or work, we absolutely had the principles. We had a bigger organization. Nevertheless, you know, the detours happen. Fashion detour, or, you know, a problem detour with a cast. Like some things happen for various reasons because we can't affect everything.

What I'm hoping that I will be able to. Fast track at World Favour is to be even more determined that we know the strategy and go for that because a detour, you obviously learn and you will be smarter in the future, but it also took time and energy. Some cost comes with it. So I think that's, you know, my core focus right now and it's on a really good pace.

I mean, when I, when I joined World Favour and I look at the values of World Favour, And with a much smaller company than Klarna, the values or leadership principles or whatever you want to call them, they were, they were [00:18:00] pretty good. They were good, like, I was impressed. And I think now it's the time to make them a little bit more forward leaning, so that we can get that hyperscale that the technology enables.

Wilma Eriksson: Okej, jag kommer verkligen att se fram emot att följa kontinuerligt, förstås, att följa din resa. Och hur mäter du detta? Finns det specifika KPIs att titta på? Är det annorlunda beroende på företaget? Är det något du kan guida oss om här, både KPIs och effekter som kommer av detta? Så först och

Sofia Busck: främst, mäter ja.

Jag tror att en av de viktiga fokusområdena där nya företag kan get a head start is to start tracking data. Um, like all data, just start getting some sort of data hygiene. When you have tracked your customer behavior, then ideally, or this is how I would have [00:19:00] done it, is to set out different, um, milestones or thresholds in your customer journey where you say, this is a point where we need to achieve X.

And so right now, my responsibility is... I'm chief revenue officer, so responsible obviously for, uh, the customer journey that's market facing. So we meet the customer in the market funnel here. We measure sort of like how many customer wants to be in tact with us. The MQLs, what's a good level, how quickly should they move from being an MQL to further down in the funnel.

And for sales, I think those are the, like, very normal sales parameters, as in any sales company. We're measuring ARR, obviously, but we really, really, really want to ensure that we help our employees know what the hygiene level is. So we set sort of, um, clear goals. I think, [00:20:00] uh, I mean, gaining and keeping customers, that's a lot what the SaaS business is about, right?

And, um, when we have the customer, we of course want to see that and track and see that they use the platform the way we want. If they're not using the platform the way that we want, can we help them, nudge them in some way? Because that's all how we learn. So I think by, um, Understanding. I'm repeating myself here, obviously, but just tracking the customer funnel and understand where the customer is diverting from how we wanted to behave.

And

Wilma Eriksson: understand why. I think that's the key. That's very interesting. And that also is a great segue to my next question that you already know and gave us an answer to. From the customer point of view, why is this important? And if I were to guess, and you are correct me of course if I'm wrong, is to be really, really aligned with the customer's [00:21:00] value that they give us.

Get from using Worldfavor and of course encourage new customer to jump on this journey and being really, really sensitive to their buying process to be everywhere and the correct way to be fully yeah, customer oriented. Sorry. Yeah. No, but

Sofia Busck: you're completely right. I think from, for all tech companies, the customer is the most important thing, right?

And for a company such as ourself at Worldfavor where we are creating. A network platform, a network platform, it becomes even more important because our customer is the endorser of driving sustainability impact through their supply chain. So if our customer doesn't understand and use our platform in the best, in the most optimal way, I mean, we could also learn from our customer, obviously.

But then we don't get that network effect, which is going to change the world. [00:22:00] And that will make us, you know, the number one ESG platform provider. So... Our entire tech platform and business model is built on our customer having a great experience and using it wisely so that they also can nudge their suppliers telling them that if you use Forever Forever, you will make a true impact in the sustainability sphere.

And yeah, I think that's

Wilma Eriksson: The ones passionate about OPEX, but maybe in a sense where the company isn't that passionate as they are, and they want to sell this to a management group or board or the board. How would you encourage them and how would they talk about this? Like if you implement the OPEX, uh, yeah, if we work more OPEX in our organization, how would you encourage them and how would they talk about this?

This would be the effects because we talked about a

Sofia Busck: lot of different KPIs here. [00:23:00] Yeah, but I think ultimately it has to do with quality and profitability. So if you work with operational excellence. And you align your organization through operational excellence, you will definitely have higher quality, happier customer that would stay with you longer and hopefully also increase their engagement with you.

And I mean, just speaking for myself, much more like proud as a leader. When we could deliver that type of quality. Um, not only customer facing, but also back end. So I think it's, I mean in this day and age, with you know, the economy and everything that's going on, creating a more quality level of service, it's just a lot easier.

That's so important.

Wilma Eriksson: Is it something I forget to ask about, about operational excellence implemented in tech that you would like to add?

Sofia Busck: So I wouldn't say that you forgot to ask, [00:24:00] but if there's one thing that I would underline is to encourage people to get started. Because it doesn't, it sounds like a big deal.

big fancy word, but if you break it down, what it really means is to align your strategy and your processes to common goals and become very efficient with quality. And everyone can do that. So I think that's, I think that's my key point to, to spend some time within that area. I couldn't

Wilma Eriksson: agree more. Thank you so much for sharing.

Very interesting. And who do you yourself get most inspired by regarding operational excellence?

Sofia Busck: So,

Wilma Eriksson: um,

Sofia Busck: I had like a number of people that inspired me. Um, for me, One of the people that inspire me the most, I would say, is, um, Andreas [00:25:00] Kualund. So, Chief Revenue Officer of QueenNyx, or co-founder. Um, his dedication and persistence is also one of the reasons why QueenNyx is the success it is today.

So that I feel truly inspired by. I also have an ex, uh, colleague of mine called Katarina Brangler Björk, who works in the economy, so still Impact Tech. Um, she also has this background in management consultant, which also, you know, adds the quality aspect to her ways of working, and that, um, really inspires me.

Wilma Eriksson: Lovely to hear. I probably will reach out to them since it feels like you have so much more knowledge about Opace. I would really like to pick your brain on that, but we have to move on. So thank you so much for sharing and also to giving me those names as well. Okay, now it's time [00:26:00] for you to wing a business related question from an earlier podcast.

And we will see. Sofia, if this will match you, otherwise we will just erase it, but I hope, I hope you are comfortable answering and I hope as well I will be managing to, uh, to play out the recording. Yeah, so bear with me here. Try this one out, share, and then... If it works, please give me a thumbs up. I press play now.

Sofia Busck: Hi everyone. My name is Becca Burns from Plio. I'm an enablement manager here. And my question for you is, what are, what is your company currently doing to work more with intent data?

Wilma Eriksson: And that

Sofia Busck: was it. Thank you. So intent data, um, what we, uh, I mean, [00:27:00] I think we covered it a little bit already. But, uh, Gathering the data on the customer behavior is a key focus area for us right now so that we understand how our existing customer behaves in our platform when they're happy and not happy.

And the core reason for this is to be proactive so that we're not reactive but we know when a customer is not, yeah, reaching their targets or happy for whatever reason with their platform. Then we want to help them so that they can.

Wilma Eriksson: Be

Sofia Busck: happy.

Wilma Eriksson: Good, spot on. And I feel being more or less brought up in sass, or sass, as I...

are supposed to say, otherwise it's sus. Being brought up in SaaS, I would say, uh, there is a lot of SaaS companies out there not really doing it. So that's a good, good advice from you. [00:28:00] Okay. Uh, what are your main challenges in your business right now? Problem that you are addressing? You just more or less answered that question too, but I guess that is one of the initiatives to track the customer behavior.

Maybe is there another thing that you're extra focusing on?

Sofia Busck: Yeah, but, uh, speaking about, uh, recovering data and operational excellence here today, I think one of the key quality aspects within the sustainability and impact sphere is the regulatory requirements. So, the regulatory demands is increasing significantly year by year within this year.

ESG space, and the customer know the regulation is coming, but the regulation isn't done yet. So we need to interpret regulation, implement it to our platform, and almost be ahead of governmental, um, positions. And that is a challenge that we're constantly trying to [00:29:00] balance being, providing the guidance in our platform, helping the customer with data and, you know.

a warm hand. This is the direction you should go. And at the same time being very agile because the requirements aren't really done yet. And I think that's one of the key challenges at this point. Wow. I can just

Wilma Eriksson: imagine that must be super tricky. I mean, from our point of view, providing customers with a very customized CPQ plattform.

I mean, the customer sets the rules. Every customer have different rules and we could guide them in the best practice in general or how to think or when in doubt. But I mean, there is no regulation behind it that we have to being agile to so present. Um, who would you like me to invite to Failing Row?

Maybe someone you want to listen to yourself.

Sofia Busck: So, I would love to listen to Sufuda [00:30:00] Alexis. CEO at Undo, who is a personal friend, but also someone I look up to professionally. So that would be awesome to hear her. Absolutely. She's

Wilma Eriksson: warmly welcome to Failing Row. It's been an honor to have

Sofia Busck: her

Wilma Eriksson: as a guest. I used to ask this question every time, but now I will make an assumption.

Is LinkedIn the way to reach out to you or do

Sofia Busck: you prefer another channel? I think LinkedIn is the way to go. Perfect.

Wilma Eriksson: Thanks. Vi har några av dem som säger text eller kväll, men annars är det alltid något. Okej, så tack så jättemycket för att du kom hit och nu ska vi samla upp det här med din favorit eftermiddagssång.

Så du har den där glasen med bubblor i handen och den här sängen kommer upp och du börjar dansa eller smyla på något som

Sofia Busck: gör dig glad. Vad lyssnar vi på? Då [00:31:00] skulle jag vilja lyssna på Avicii. And, uh, my favorite song would be, uh, Did I lose

you? No. I'm curious. I'm waiting. So my favorite song would be Wake Me Up. Love that one. Cheers, have a great

Wilma Eriksson: weekend, and thank you so much for joining Fade & Grow. Thank you. Krimp. Hoppas det kändes okej för dig. Nu har vi sista kvar, bara att spela in en fråga till en gäst. Antingen till den gästen som du själv, om liksom jag skulle få med henne, eller någon annan kommer få svara på den.

Då kan du bara presentera dig med vad du heter, var du jobbar, och sen fråga när du är redo. Superbra. Då ska jag förbättra glasvatten när den har klunkat. Absolut. [00:32:00] Jag är lite lyxig där, kan ju liksom njuta emellanåt och göra grejer. Då kör vi.

Sofia Busck: Hej allihopa, mitt namn är Sofia Bösk och jag är chef förvånare på Världsfabriken.

Jag vill veta, när det gäller författning, vilka typer av lärande har skett? Changed the way you look at your customer journey. So, what happened or what experience do you have that would make you, that you would like others to learn from? Thank you.

Wilma Eriksson: Kändes det okej att spela in? Ja, absolut. Bra. Jäkligt intressant alltså. Det kändes jättebra. Ja, men det var kul. Sen blir jag alltid trött när jag inte hittar ordet sådär, men jag var en riktig pluggare i skolan, men jag har verkligen inget språk att öra, så jag har fått liksom släppa den stoltheten helt.

Att jag, [00:33:00] jag är ju inte duktig på engelska, men jag vill väldigt, väldigt gärna att vi ska fortsätta driva den här podden. Och vi kan inte bara göra den på svenska, för det är inte vår target group liksom, så då får man ju bara acceptera att man ibland gör bort sig. Liksom jag hör ju att jag säger fela ord ibland, men det är bara att släppa liksom.

Det var jättekul att spela in med dig, och jag skulle bara, jag skulle bara säga det här. Det är så mycket opäck som man skulle kunna nörda. Jag skulle liksom se de här framework, hur gjorde ni, vad var det för rapporter, alltså det är så mycket frågor, men jag kan inte ställa allt liksom och det blir också för detaljerat och du kan inte, ja, kan inte skicka en massa dokument till någon som lyssnar på mig på, så jag tycker det var svinbra.

Sofia Busck: Men alltså jag tycker du är, jag är jätteimponerad, jag tycker du är superduktig, jag bara wow, nej men det här är ju jätte, jätteduktigt, superduktigt.

Wilma Eriksson: Ja, vad kul. Det är väl att man är genuint nyfiken, det är väl det som är grejen, typ. Ja, men grymt. Nu ska vi se. Så jag ska bara skriva ner de här namnen. Jag ska sluta inspelningen för stackars behöver inte lyssna på det här.

Stop recording.

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