K-Citymarket

There are 81 K-Citymarket stores in Finland employing a total of approximately 6,800 people. The most important internal communication tool for K-Citymarket’s non food personnel is the intranet, as it also functions as an operational system in their daily work. The intranet is actively used every day, which makes it especially important that both shared and store specific up to date information can be easily found in intranet news and other content. The old intranet no longer met the organization’s needs, so in spring 2023 it became time to fully renew it with the help of Sulava.

In spring 2023, Sulava set out to modernize K-Citymarket’s intranet as a completely new solution. The old classic SharePoint intranet no longer met business needs, and its maintenance had become burdensome. The new intranet was envisioned as a modern, user centric solution built with up to date technology. The goal was to create a clear, efficient, and easy to use intranet that reflects the K-Citymarket brand and supports store specific communication. In addition, mobile use was to be significantly increased.

“The best solution was to build a completely new, modern intranet from the ground up so that the user experience could be elevated to an entirely new level. We wanted to start from a clean slate, because we felt there was no point in migrating the old data — the cleanup work would have needed to happen at some point anyway,” says Elina Miettinen, IT Manager, End User Services at K Group.

Iterative development work in K-Citymarket’s own environment

The project began with a planning meeting where a project plan was drawn up and roles and responsibilities were agreed upon within the project team. In the first phase, the project team—consisting of Sulava’s consultants and representatives from K-Citymarket’s administration and IT department—defined the requirements for the new site solution.

A visual identity, page templates, and landing page structures consistent with the K-Citymarket brand were designed for the intranet. To make daily work more efficient, the structure and navigation of the site needed to be intuitive and easy to use. Development work took place iteratively directly in the customer’s environment so that the customer could see all changes live as they were made.

All-new intranet content created from scratch

Sulava organized a total of six design workshops with the project team. These sessions reviewed the current state and existing content and defined the needs for the future solution. The workshops addressed the role of the intranet in relation to other tools—such as store specific Teams environments—along with document management, permissions, and the requirements for news publishing and information architecture.

No content was migrated from the old intranet; instead, all material was created anew from scratch by 300 content creators. Because of this, it was essential during the implementation phase to quickly and efficiently reach a stage where the environment was ready for content production.

“It’s worth noting that the entire project was successfully carried out remotely via Teams—and partly even during the summer holiday season,” says Janne Lanu, Development Manager at K Citymarket, praising the agile transformation project.

Tailored features to make everyday work easier 

The intranet was enhanced with custom-built features designed to improve the user experience. To keep the news feed up to date, rules can be created for articles to simplify content management. Expiring articles automatically disappear from the intranet, ensuring the news feed remains current and free from outdated information. In addition, page owners receive automated reminders when their content requires updates.

“The rules were created behind the scenes to make content creators’ work easier, so that no single person has to manually keep watch over the content,” Miettinen explains.

The news feed is also easy to manage thanks to a personalized read/unread feature, which is especially useful for store employees who use shared workstations. With this feature, each user can clearly see which news items they have already read and which remain unread.

Symbols and icons are used to categorize announcements by level of importance, allowing users to filter news by topic. AI overwrites outdated files and ensures that items such as price lists and assortment lists are always up to date for each store.

Special attention was given to the intranet’s search and filtering functionalities so users can quickly find the information they need.
“When the intranet plays a central role in guiding store operations, it’s crucial that users can filter, for example, urgent or task oriented news directly from the front page,” Lanu says.

Training as a key factor in intranet adoption

The new interface and structure required both store personnel and content creators to learn new ways of working. Sulava organized training sessions for administrators and content creators, covering the most important features and capabilities of the new intranet.
In addition to this, Kesko arranged its own internal training sessions for employees—both company wide and tailored for individual teams—focusing in more detail on specific functions and workflows. Kesko’s team customized the internal training materials into “Kesko language” to better support end users in their daily work.

For larger transformation projects, Kesko typically utilizes its own change agent network, which consists of 65 Kesko employees from various business areas. In addition to their regular responsibilities, these change agents guide and train colleagues in adopting new tools and ways of working. In this project, however, the broader change agent network was not used; instead, training was delivered directly by the project team, and based on feedback, this approach proved successful.

Modernisation project completed on schedule and under budget

The modernisation project was carried out on schedule, and the new intranet was launched in August 2023. The original project budget was underspent, and after the implementation phase the collaboration has continued through ongoing maintenance. Our consultant supports content creators and, when needed, provides guidance to both administrators and content producers.

A feedback form was added to the intranet’s front page, allowing users to share their thoughts on the new solution. Smooth mobile use has been among the features receiving positive feedback.

“Thanks to the professionalism of your consultants, the project progressed to completion as smoothly and efficiently as one can imagine. Their understanding of our business has also played an important role in making the collaboration so seamless,” Miettinen says.

Writer: Merja Turpeinen
Published in October 2023