How Axel Johnson International’s IT division handles constant acquisition

Axel Johnson International is an industrial group within Axel Johnson, which also owns Swedish food retailer Axfood and Dustin, the online IT partner in the Nordics and Benelux, among others. The group develops and acquires industrial companies in selected niche markets, including just over 200 companies in six different business areas with a focus on, among other things, technical components and industrial process solutions. 

In general, the group is decentralized and places an emphasis on the entrepreneurial culture of the individual companies. But there are some areas where central staffs have been created.

“We reorganized in 2017 and then also decided to create certain central staffs — finance, sustainability, M&A and IT,” says Mårten Steen, CIO at Axel Johnson International.

Although the companies within the group have a high degree of self-determination, there are areas where the central IT department controls the decisions, and is responsible for cyber security, and ownership of networks and clients, so M365 applies throughout the group. 

“Those are the areas where we decide centrally, but, having said that, there are no rules without exceptions,” he says. “If we buy a small company group that’s just implemented a new network, for example, we’ll have a dialogue that may end with us connecting to their network instead.”

Clear process

Today, all companies in the group have entered M365 and there’s a well-proven and clearly designed process for how new companies are moved into that environment. Steen estimates that on average, between 15 and 20 companies are added each year. So the reason to have everyone in M365 is partly connected to security and partly because there’s a lot of information there that everyone should be able to take part in.