Novus is a market research and analysis company providing relevant knowledge and an understanding of why it is the way it is. We spoke to Torbjörn Sjöström as we aim to find out about the success of the company.
Novus is one of the best known market research companies in Sweden. The company operates within the Nordics region, with its customers ranging from private corporations to NGO and political parties. A versatile firm, the team provides all sorts of research from traditional qualitative and quantitative research to modern methods. Torbjörn alludes to the success of the company and explains what he believes to be integral.
“A key aspect of the firm’s success is that the focus is not on the methodology but on the output, that the research is providing a direct operational value to the client. We give an answer to what the opinion is in a certain question, and have an understanding of why the opinion is the way it is, as well as possessing the ability to give tools to clients on how to change this to create a better value for the customer.”
Being head of a successful company, Torbjörn tells us about his leadership style and describes his responsibilities as CEO. He mentions leading by example, hoping that staff will follow, and comments on that the fact that he has an open management style, allowing mistakes from employees.
“When being CEO, I try to lead by being a good example, but at the same time I focus on finding good employees and delegate as much as possible on the day to day work to my management team. The long term strategies are easy to miss when you are busy taking care of the day to day emergencies. In other words, try to minimize the day to day emergencies you have more time to look at the bigger picture. It took a couple of years to get this ball rolling, you have to keep focus on the long run and not give up every time you fail in the smaller things. But when you build a team that is based on trust and the roles are clear you get a bigger chance to not get stuck. You are allowed to make mistakes.
“Essentially, I do not follow any management styles, I more keep applying my acquired knowledge about psychology, the drivers, and also try to give the right amount of push to get people to go in the right direction. But it may be a combination of guilt and praise.”
Freedom is a common theme within Novus, as Torbjörn keeps referring us back to the freedom that staff have. He is keen to highlight that he takes responsibility for what services the company offers, and also protects his team when he has been criticised.
“Freedom under responsibility. You do your best and you get every support from the organisation. You are allowed to fail, if you try. The team is everything, you cannot do it best alone. I am protecting my company and team. I take responsibility for the things we do and I am the one fighting if we get criticised. However, at the same time I expect everyone to do their best.
“Moreover, our clients expect us to provide knowledge. Our core business is to provide the correct answer to every question, and an explanation to why that is the answer. We use our tools and skill as professional researchers. In that sense, it is very important to do a good job. But it is also important to know that you are not sacrificed if we get criticised. You cannot do a good job as a researcher if you are afraid to be criticised.”
Lastly, in his concluding comments, Torbjörn predicts what the future holds for both himself and Novus. He is excited about the company going forward, and he believes the research that the company does will become vital and integral to not just the success of Novus but also to its clients and partners that it deals with on a constant basis.
“Ultimately, we are making knowledge great again. In a fast paced digital world, our research will be even more valuable than ever. You cannot afford to guess. Also in this digital world, the collective knowledge is often the truth, not the hard facts. If people think the housing prices will go down it will go down. Novus core business is providing the collective knowledge. And the winner in any industry is the one understanding the collective knowledge.”
