Higher efficiency and utilization rate, and increased profitability

Conoa is a cutting-edge company in modern hybrid IT infrastructure. They have won Di Gasell six times in a row and have recently been named Sweden’s “Superföretag” for the fourth consecutive year. In 2021, they were acquired by Proact Sweden.

With a strong focus on competence development and the right assignments, they have succeeded in attracting the best in Sweden within Kubernetes, cloud-native, hybrid cloud, and container technology. 

We had lunch with Pär Bergman, consulting manager at Conoa / Proact Sweden to hear more about the company’s fantastic growth journey and how they use Cinode to further develop their business.

You are one of the few Swedish consulting companies that has managed to maintain high organic growth and profitability during corona pandemic. What’s the secret behind your success?

– You could say that the company has three main pillars; consulting services, product and training, and our customers are mainly large banking, telecommunication, and industrial companies. We were the first Swedish company to be appointed as both a Kubernetes Certified Service Provider and Kubernetes Training Partner. 

Thanks to our specialist competence, we have come to be well known amongst companies in our target group, a favoured supplier amongst customers, and an attractive employer amongst talents in the industry. The latter is much thanks to our strong culture and our investments in competence development, says Pär Bergman.

You were recently acquired by Proact. What has this contributed to?

– Proact is a specialist company, and one of the (if not THE) best in Sweden when it comes to data management. They are skilled in hot technology areas such as multi-cloud, AI, and security. Prior to the acquirement, we have worked together with Proact on several assignments involving large customers. Their expertise is a great complement to Conoa’s existing expertise and services, so great things are to come!

Additionally, we share a common belief that our employees are our most important asset. Both parties see a great value in continued knowledge exchange, making sure that we take advantage of the collective knowledge, whilst also having fun together! I believe that this formula is the key to continued success.

You have used Cinode for quite a long time, and recently decided to scale-up the usage of the platform. Why did you choose Cinode?

– As a digital company that’s at the forefront of technology, we want internal tools of the same digital/Technological standard. Our consultants appreciate that we choose platforms wisely, and only implement tools that will truly help us with our internal efficiency, overall profitability, and growth. Cinode helps us with everything from CV handling, skills audits, matching to utilization reports and forecasts.

How do you use Cinode?

– I use Cinode on a daily basis. This is where I keep track of the upcoming assignments and all the details. The structure helps us work faster. we can easily match our consultants with the best-suited assignments. As a result, we have become much more efficient, and we have seen an increase in utilization rate.

I like that we get an overview of all the data, our current status, delivery capacity, as well as we can produce forecasts that can be used as a basis for decisions. Governance and overview are essential for consulting companies. Cinode contributes to both higher growth and increased profitability.

You mention skills development as a success factor. How has Cinode contributed to that area?

–  We use Cinode to map our and showcase our skill supply. This way, our employees can easily find and take lead on the experts within the company. By encouraging people to take advantage of the internal knowledge and learn from each other, we create a strong company culture and as well as great teams that can help our customers solve their problems.

We really like Cinode’s new function “Growth Plan”, which we will use as a basis during the yearly employee reviews. During these reviews, managers and consultants will set clear goals for the year. these goals can be, for example, upgrading a specific skill from 3 to 4 (cinode grading system), or it can be to obtain a certification that’s beneficial for the consultants’ development and progress. 

We have also started to use “Skills Sets” where we can define competencies, for example, that a Senior Infrastructure Engineer should have. Cinode really contributes to effective competence development.