‘Your first partners become your local ambassadors’
Västerås-based Sandra Kleveland started working at one of the companies acquired by Alfa eCare, Joliv (focused on the delivery of software for elderly care primarily) in 2015 as a project and development manager. After the merger with Alfa eCare Sandra started as Product Manager and Strategy Manager and now takes on the new role of Group CCO.
“I’m really passionate about bringing together all our resources and capabilities to make an impact on the lives of people involved in the healthcare sector. With our type of software solutions, we help care providers and recipients. Creating one strong organization with a clear purpose and defined strategic direction, is what drives me most. I think we can make great products, but that aspect doesn’t matter if we don’t treat the customer in the right way throughout the customer journey. I’m looking forward to my new role”, Kleveland says.
Alfa eCare develops and markets health-and social care software solutions in the public sector. “We usually define the market as the welfare sector more broadly, as we have also expanded to childcare. We have offices in Sweden and Finland, but there are plans to expand to the remaining Nordic countries too. At the moment we are just over 100 people and I have approx. 40-50 people in my commercial teams.” she adds.
What is your attraction to software in general and Alfa eCare more specifically?
“In general, I like problem solving and the creative, collaborative part of it. This is where the possibilities of (software) technology come in: digitalization and automation can improve end-market processes, increase efficiencies, or solve issues in a fairly simple way.
The welfare-, health- and social care end-market can really benefit from technology, although this sector sometimes lags behind in terms of digitalization compared to other industries. The steps that we have ahead are incredibly exciting!
With its active buy-and-build strategy, the product portfolio of Alfa eCare is growing and now includes software solutions targeting different parts and work processes of the welfare sector. Bringing together these solutions, enables us to serve customers across end-to-end workflows in the welfare sector, which is very inspiring too.”
What opportunities do you see for Alfa eCare in the Healthtech market?
“The great opportunity we have is to bring our integrated, comprehensive software offering to more and more municipalities in Sweden and the other Nordic countries. As it stands now, many employees of municipalities need to log in to several different systems during a working day and that is no longer necessary if you use our combined solution. We also have an opportunity to package our offerings, not just the software but related services and advisory too to address the specific needs of our customers and build strong partnerships with them.”
What is the biggest challenge for Alfa eCare?
“The challenge is to balance between the organic growth journey and integrating solutions as a result of the followed buy-and-build strategy with Main. Creating synergies and really building one integrated company is a cool job though. In terms of go-to-market and the commercial aspect of running
Alfa eCare’s business, the challenge is to continuously match and align our costumers’ needs and requirements– that can change, e.g. because of regulatory developments – and our product offering”.
How do you see diversity in the B2B software sector? Why do you think it’s important/or not?
“At Alfa eCare, our team exists of approx. 60% men and 40% women today. If we look at the software engineering and product development team, it’s not as equal. I absolutely believe that diversity is important, since diversity drives creativity and stronger problem-solving skills in the teams. Our recruitment process begins with a test: the candidate’s gender, name or ethnicity is not visible in the test results. By doing so, we’ll try to make unbiased decisions in our recruitment processes and promote diversity in different ways”.
Sandra Kleveland concludes: “It’s great to add colleagues to the team, who are passionate about bringing together the world of welfare on one side, and tech on the other side. In general, we are looking for those who have the right skills, the right will and who are passionate about these worlds, regardless of gender or ethnicity. That’s the most important thing!”
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