From Complexity to Clarity: How Tikkurila Transformed Its Product Launch Process

When you're a global leader in sustainable paints and surface treatment, your product launch process is mission-critical. For Tikkurila, it was also broken.

The process was opaque, inconsistent and underdeveloped, with no systematic approach to improvement. As Tikkurila shifted from country-specific operating models to centrally governed processes, the cracks became impossible to ignore. Launching a new product required orchestrating R&D, procurement, manufacturing, marketing, sales, finance and planning across multiple geographies, yet the process that connected them all lacked clarity, ownership and structure.

The cost: slow launches, avoidable bottlenecks, and an organisation that struggled to adapt when, not if, something unexpected happened.

Tikkurila partnered with Flovio to redesign the product launch process end to end, with a broader ambition to elevate process management as a strategic capability across the organisation.

The engagement was structured in three phases, with a dedicated project organisation and strong sponsorship from Tikkurila's Group Management Team.

Phase 1: Current-State Diagnostic

Flovio mapped the full landscape of stakeholders, functions and dependencies involved in the product launch process. Through structured workshops and interviews, the team identified decision points, communication channels, critical interfaces and bottlenecks, building a clear, shared picture of how work actually flowed, and where it stalled.

In a global operating environment, Tikkurila's product launches are shaped by raw material availability, freight logistics, regulatory shifts and evolving consumer demand. The diagnostic had to account for all of it, including how the organisation detected and responded to unexpected disruptions.

Phase 2: Future-State Design

With a clear view of the current state, Flovio defined the target operating model and built a transformation roadmap. Cross-functional workshops brought together employees from every stage of the product launch process, from ideation to marketing, ensuring that no critical stakeholder was overlooked in the redesign.

Using Flovio's process tool Cleverom, Tikkurila gained a clear visual model of the end-to-end process: interfaces, information needs, decision gates and escalation paths. Critical deviations were defined, and clear decision-making models were established between operational teams and business leadership.

Phase 3: Embedding and Scaling

Process transformation only delivers value if it sticks. Flovio worked with Tikkurila to embed a continuous improvement culture, ensuring that the tools, capabilities and ways of working developed during the project could be scaled across other parts of the business.

The redesigned product launch process gave Tikkurila something it didn't have before: a single, clear, shared view of how new products move from idea to market, and the governance to keep it on track.

Key outcomes:

• End-to-end process clarity, a visual model that supports planning, steering and performance tracking across all functions.
• Faster, better decisions, sharper decision points between business leadership and operational teams eliminated ambiguity and delay.
• Stronger cross-functional collaboration, clear roles, responsibilities and interfaces reduced friction across R&D, procurement, manufacturing, marketing, sales and finance.
• Improved predictability, clearer process phasing reduced workload peaks and made day-to-day work more manageable for teams on the ground.
• A foundation for continuous improvement, process capabilities and tooling ready to scale across the organisation.

Two things made this transformation land.

First, leadership commitment. Tikkurila's management team didn't just sponsor the project, they participated actively in steering group work and ensured that progress and insights were communicated broadly across the organisation throughout. Process development wasn't something done to the organisation. It was done with it.

Second, the right tool for the job. Cleverom gave Tikkurila a living process model, not a static slide deck that gets filed and forgotten. The visualisation continues to serve as the operational backbone for planning, coordination and continuous improvement long after the project concluded.

⚠ TODO: Add "Looking forward" content for this case what's the ongoing collaboration, the next phase, or the longer-term direction? Remove this section if not applicable.