Strategy Development Lead, Innovation Partnerships
The challenge
Metsä Wood wanted a scalable way to conveniently showcase ecosystem partner network idea of its fast, light and green Kerto LVL products in industrial manufacturing to potential new ecosystem partners.
The solution
A 360° virtual tour of Metsä Wood’s Kerto LVL ecosystem showing the laminated veneer lumber products’ path all the way from Metsä Wood’s own mill via partners factories to a fully constructed house.
Read more about Enhanced Reality LabAbout the customer
Metsä Wood provides competitive and environmentally friendly wood products for construction, industrial customers and distributor partners. Metsä Wood's strong and dimensionally stable laminated veneer lumber products – Kerto LVL – are used in all types of construction projects, from new buildings to renovation and repair.
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Highlighting the story of the product
An immersive experience that shows how Kerto LVL is used in construction
Tangible example for potential partners
A scalable way of demonstrating Kerto LVL’s versatile use to potential ecosystem partners
Great tool to boost international sales
Tool is providing genuine business advantages
Presenting the Kerto LVL ecosystem to a growing number of potential partners
Metsä Wood has been expanding its number of long-term partners for industrial wood construction, developing an ecosystem based on its laminated veneer lumber products known as Kerto LVL.
Metsä Wood wanted to showcase the benefits of belonging to this ecosystems to potential partners with a compelling demonstration of both the ecosystem and the versatility of Kerto LVL – a strong, dimensionally stable laminated veneer lumber product that can be used in all kinds of offsite manufacturing projects.
A traditional marketing video was not an appealing solution for this challenge, as potential Kerto LVL ecosystem partners often wish to gain more in-depth information of varied aspects of the ecosystem. Offering potential partners a chance to see examples of the ecosystem first-hand is a very time-consuming alternative – especially for potential partners outside Finland. Moreover, inviting potential partners to familiarize with the ecosystem is not a scalable option as number of business cases increase.
Together with Tieto, Metsä Wood had already created a virtual tour of its Punkaharju mill which produces Kerto LVL. Punkaharju mill’s virtual story proved to be a success and it has been used in a variety of events and sales situations globally. Expanding this tour to showcase Kerto LVL’s entire ecosystem presented an optimal solution for the challenge.
The project was well managed from start to finish, and all change requests were promptly and expertly handled. This came as no surprise to us – we have worked with Tieto for a long time and we are accustomed to its good service. Although it is a large company, Tieto operates in a very lean manner and its level of agility is quite surprising. The finished Kerto LVL VR tour met our needs very well.
Jani Rissanen
Vice President, Customer Experience, Metsä Wood
A virtual reality tour that serves the versatile needs of potential partners
The Kerto LVL virtual tour allows potential partners to experience the Kerto LVL ecosystem in a mere twenty minutes. The tour was built to support Metsä Wood’s business model for Kerto LVL, as utilising a virtual reality tour saves time and also enables scalable presentation of the ecosystem.
The VR tour highlights the fact that Kerto LVL is a fast, light and green choice for construction. It portrays various technical solutions that Kerto LVL enables and gives viewers a good overview of the benefits of belonging to the Kerto LVL ecosystem.
The tour shows how Metsä Wood’s laminated veneer lumber products are taken forward by the partner ecosystem and used in construction. It tells a holistic story of the products’ journey using 360° images, audio and video, thus creating an immersive experience that users can explore flexibly, depending on their needs.
The tour enables showing various aspects of the ecosystem in much more detail than for example a commercial film would. Viewers can take the general tour to attain a comprehensive perception of the Kerto LVL ecosystem, or viewers can be guided to pay attention to various alternative details included in the VR tour depending on their specific needs and interests.
In addition to showcasing the Kerto LVL ecosystem to potential partners, the VR tour can also be utilised by Metsä Wood’s customers, ecosystem partners, sales personnel and technical customer service to for example explain some of the more technical solutions that Kerto LVL enables.
I believe that in addition to building image and brand, VR tools like this have a great deal of promise for providing genuine business advantages. Kerto LVL is fast, light and green. The virtual reality tour highlights these sales points, showing how the ecological wood material enables efficient and sustainable offsite manufacturing.
Jani Rissanen
Vice President, Customer Experience, Metsä Wood
We used an agile approach to create exactly what our long-term partner needed
Digital customer experience is one of the cornerstones of Metsä Wood’s strategy. We have been collaborating with Metsä Wood for many years and proactively suggest new ideas to them on a regular basis.
The notion of creating a Kerto LVL ecosystem virtual tour stemmed from an earlier collaboration, during which we created Metsä Wood a virtual reality tour of its Punkaharju Mill. From the start we knew that the Kerto LVL tour should work both as a standalone tour and also as a supplement to the Punkaharju Mill tour, showcasing how timber transforms into Kerto LVL products, then lightweight elements and then finally into a ready house.
Tieto Enhanced Reality Lab took charge of the project and worked in collaboration with a partner to create the best possible outcome for Metsä Wood.
We launched the project with a workshop during which representatives from Metsä Wood and Tieto designed both the basic storyline of the Kerto LVL ecosystem tour and listed all the main advantages of Kerto LVL that the tour should include.
Thereafter, our production partner set to work on creating video and photo material of the ecosystem partner locations, having travelled hundreds of kilometres around Finland.
Our main objective was to create a virtual reality experience that would bring Kerto LVL’s intangible ecosystem into a tangible form and visualize abstract notions such as the value that Kerto LVL products bring to its ecosystem partners and end users. Lightweight and portable virtual reality solution is a powerful way to deliver the message.
We kept the storyline and video fairly simple to ensure that Kerto LVL products get the viewers’ full attention. The tour was perfected along the way, with various adjustments made based on feedback from Metsä Wood and validation with the users, to ensure that the virtual reality tour would serve all potential ecosystem partners in an optimal way. We arranged several test runs for the VR tour, and Metsä Wood piloted it at various customer events. The final tour was ready for widespread use in late 2018.
