Consulting field study 1/3

 Blogpost Nr.1

I have now for three weeks worked with my consulting field study for Värnamo of Sweden together with Digital Business Lab. 

The family owned business is run by the third generation now and has been in business since the 1950’s. They are a small - to medium sized enterprise (SME) who manufactures mainly pillows, duvet and mattress protection. In their factory in Värnamo they perform the final assembly of the product, stuffing the products with synthetic fibers and the final sewing. 

They are the only company in Sweden who still have their own production in Sweden but they also have production in China, Denmark, Pakistan and Spain. 

Their products can be found at multiple brands stores or their website, otherwise they perform a B2B operation where their biggest clients are hotels, cruise ships and resorts. 

My consulting field study is focusing on how SMEs can strategically implement a digital product passport (DPP). I have conducted my research based on regulations of the European Commission, research articles, reports, videos and websites to get both a broad understanding of what kind of information is out there and how it performs more specifically for SMEs. 

Because the regulations are not yet determinant of what is mandatory to include in the DPP resulting in hesitation upon which data is more important or prioritized to gather. 

My discoveries are making me realize what a big challenge this transition is for sustainability, circular business models, DPP and to understand the EUs regulations is for SMEs. 

It is challenging for me who has the knowledge even from before and even harder now with more knowledge to understand how SMEs can leverage these regulations without proper research and understanding. 

I'm trying to step up and go from theoretical learning into practical, to get actual facts and information on how SMEs are approaching these regulations and the implementation of DPP in practice. Together with the understanding of the software and how the data is collected and put into use.