Who will become the Wolt of industry?
The success story of Wolt, a company that delivers food to your home, is interesting in many ways. I have been wondering why Wolt was born in the 2010s, specifically. There are certainly many reasons for this, but one is the development of technology. Without modern mobile networks and smartphones, Wolt could not have come into being as we know it today. Wolt took on an area of business that is thousands of years old, i.e. buying, paying for and delivering food to the customer, and developed a new business model for it with the help of modern technology. In retrospect, the business model is quite simple, but it did not happen all at once originally. At first, Wolt was a mobile application that allowed you to order food in advance and pick it up without waiting in line. It was only later that home delivery of food was added, which is now at the core of the operations and has also expanded to retail deliveries.
How does this relate to industry? Wolt’s story shows us that new technologies enable new business models for those who dare to think outside the box when it comes to their own operations and sector. Now such momentum is at hand in industry, as mobile technology, familiar from public networks, is rolling into various industrial sectors as a digitalisation platform in the form of private networks. The secure wireless data transmission, various terminal devices and applications enabled by private networks allow production to be made more efficient, safety to be increased and costs to be saved in many ways, but I believe that the biggest upheavals will be found in the new business models made possible by new technology. Such models do not come about by themselves or all at once, but the one who takes the first step will be one step closer to the goal than others.
So who will be the first Wolt in industry, the one to see things outside the box and gain an unfair competitive advantage by doing things differently?
Henri Viljasjärvi, Director, Business Developement
