Building a strong development culture with Elkjøp Nordic
Our client Elkjøp (Elgiganten in Sweden and Gigantti in Finland) is on a journey to create a strong in-house software development culture, where mentorship, team culture and team efficiency are key factors. Crowd Collective is a part of that journey, and we had a chat with Anders, Software Development Manager at Elkjøp, how he views our partnership of two years.
To build the organization
The co-operation with Elkjøp started two years ago, but Anders had already vouched for a stronger software development culture for years. Previously, in-house team was not an option since the risk of being dependent on only a few people was too big. Anders wanted to change this and instead build a strong development culture.
“We are not the first company to do this journey and we are definitely not the last one.”
Anders, who has previously worked as a consultant, wanted to find a few suppliers who could meet his needs, both for technical competence but also for sharing knowledge. He started with one consultant from Crowd Collective, Christofer Österberg, and since then the teams has just been growing.
“When Christofer told me that Crowd Collective consisted of not only smart and competent people, but that they also had the skills to onboard and coach colleagues, I felt very reassured. And it has turned out very well. That is one of the reasons that we have had a high growth with Crowd Collective consultants.“
Mentorship as a strategy
It became clear that with a high growth pace, mentorship was needed. Anders needed a group of people that could take responsibility for building a framework for onboarding and coaching new colleagues. Crowd Collective consultants Christofer, Lina and Patrik took it upon their responsibility to do so.
“We are trying to have a couple of different suppliers of consultancy services, but what stands out with Crowd Collective is the way that you have helped us with our growth and our mentorship models. Christofer, Lina and Patrik have played a huge part in getting to where we are today.”
The Crowd Collective consultants has now taken responsibility for the frontend development, both from a technical perspective but also from a coaching perspective. This arrangement allows Elkjøp to grow with more junior and senior colleagues also in the future
“Crowd Collective has been a great partner to us since we at the moment don’t have the senior resources ourselves.”
What does the future look like?
The journey is not completed yet, if it ever will be. Over the next years, Elkjøp will continue to grow with more talented co-workers, both consultant and in-house. The scope for Anders teams is continuously growing, and more exciting technical challenges are heading their way.
To be able to meet those needs, growth is crucial. From Anders perspective, it needs to be a balance of employees from external parts and recruitment.
“In the future, it is our hope to do it a bit more on our own. And we will probably use the models and framework that Crowd Collective has put in place since it has worked our really well.”
So far, 12 Crowd Collective consultants and 11 Academic Work consultants have worked at Elkjøp, co-creating great tech and culture. It’s exciting to see what the future holds!