Mixed messages
By the 1980s, Fagerdala’s reputation as a protective packaging specialist for shock-sensitive equipment was solid, particularly in the electronics sector. When the company, more recently, began R&D into new material technologies—it was to seek the same top-of-mind dominance in other sectors.
Chief among Fagerdala’s challenges was good old-fashioned confusion—outside the organisation as well as within. It had failed to communicate the push into new materials, while completely different product specialisations across US, China, and SEAsian divisions pulled the company in different directions. Furthermore, the public often mixed it up with Fagerdala World Foams, a breakaway business that kept the name but otherwise operated independently.
It seemed Fagerdala meant different things to different people moving in different directions. For a vast global organisation with products and services of a complex and truly technical nature, transformation meant something that would unite them, something to believe in—purpose.
Freedom to focus
We spoke with Fagerdala clients at length on their needs and pain points; we held an intensive workshop with senior to GM-level management from various global offices on five-year goals.
Our strategy included readying mindsets for the future. Discussions about staying on the forefront of sustainability soon turned into action, as the company made biodegradability standard and began flexing its muscles in recycling and product research.
In design phases, we evolved the Fagardela brandmark, reworking the hexagon into nesting forms that appear both solid and safe. For a protective packaging specialist, there is simply no visual more apt than the strongest shape in nature.
The same geometric treatments and colours were used to build a sweeping communications system for internal and external stakeholders both offline and online. We produced “We are One Fagerdala” corporate and staff induction videos, a new website, and worked with an HR consultant on an employee handbook and onboarding programmes that aligned teams all over the world.
Within this system, we identified sales kits as an opportunity to demonstrate Fagerdala’s expertise. Designed as protective packaging, the kit that functioned as a document holder for catalogues, brochures, and other product literature—as well as a modular, customisable palette for material samples—became an indispensable tool for telling the Fagerdala story.
Achieving buy-in from numerous stakeholders, aligning interests that seemed contrary at times—at the end of extensive discussion and dialogue, what had been a fragmented company consolidated its considerable strengths into Fagerdala today: a protective packaging specialist with a vertically integrated value chain, united by the Fagerdala promise Freedom to focus.
The power of purpose
With a strong, clear proposition, Fagerdala successfully evolved its presence in the industry, going on to win even more Tier 1 clients and MNC accounts. Sustainability remains a driving force, influencing subsequent M&As with companies on the cutting edge of material science. In 2016, a Temasek fund acquired a stake in the company, and by the end of 2017, Fagerdala was acquired by Sealed Air, a world leader in global packaging.
