Michael Magnhagen

CEO & Senior Advisor

Michael is a specialized generalist with an open mind, a multi-disciplinary approach and an ability to learn specialist skills quickly. He is highly adaptable and likes to understand the big picture before digging into details systematically.

He is curious by nature and prefers to work with ideas where he needs to connect seemingly vague bits to a coherent whole. He uses an entrepreneurial mindset, more than 20 years’ experience as a consultant, and a systematic approach to create valuable solutions. He has a keen interest in how technological breakthroughs rapidly change the way we do business

Expertise

  • Business Architecture
  • Business Development
  • Digital & IT
  • Marketing & Sales Technology
  • Growth

Skills

  • Collaboration and Communication
  • Analytical and Strategic Thinking
  • Leadership
  • Social and Relationship Builder
  • Creative, Adaptable and Positive

Strengths

Individualization

He is intrigued by the unique qualities of each person and like to figure out how different people can work together productively.

Strategic

He can quickly spot the relevant patterns and issues in any given scenario and create alternative ways to proceed.

i

Learner

He has a great desire to learn and want to improve himself and everything around him constantly.

Ideation

He can find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena and are fascinated by new ideas.

Futuristic

He is always on the lookout for new opportunities when thinking about the future.

Being effective is about doing the right things while being efficient is about doing things in the right manner.

Effective (adj.): Adequate to accomplish a purpose; producing the intended or expected result.

Efficient (adj.) Performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste of time and effort.

INFORMATION IS KEY

The purpose of an organization is to create value for its stakeholders. It manages to do so by executing activities systematically, enabled by people and technology.

Information is the glue holding everything together and acts as a lubricant so that the system can run smoothly. Information is firmly attached to what an organization does, and are in a way industry agnostic.

Information is data that is accurate and timely, specific and organized for a purpose, presented within a context that gives it meaning and relevance, and can lead to an increase in understanding and decrease in uncertainty.

Information is also the common thread throughout Michaels professional life, where he has improved how people work with information in a digitalized world, from an individual level to the organization’s extensive requirements to communicate and collaborate securely across the globe.

EXAMPLES OF ASSIGNMENTS

Organizations Michael has had the privilege to assist over the years.

High-tech
Responsible for communication and collaboration platform. Several business-critical functions such as public web site, intranet, email, partner portal and approximately one hundred and fifty applications used by various business functions, many business-critical.

Michael was engaged with this customer for four years.

Media
Advisor to the CIO regarding strategic and technology decisions. License auditor and responsible for numerous projects where added or new functionality was the primary driver.

Michael was engaged with this customer for ten years.

Bank/Finance
Responsible for replacement of system, security, and integration.

Michael was engaged with this project for one year.

Public Sector – Defense
Responsible for technology, security, integration and client rollout of new case and document management system.

Michael was engaged with this project for fourteen months.

Bank/Finance
Responsible for communication and collaboration platform. Several business-critical functions such as email, CRM application for the service organization and their call center.

Michael was engaged with this customer for three years.

Multinational Professional Services
Responsible for numerous projects where added or new functionality was the primary driver.

Michael was engaged with this customer for four years.

Expertise

Business Architecture

The primary value of business architecture is to facilitate change. Organizational environments must be simplified, business direction needs to be executed with speed and coordination, and we need to bridge the strategy-to-execution gap to succeed with our transformational journey.

Michael is a certified Business Architect

He shares the thoughts and works by the Business Architecture Guilds BIZBOK™, an industry standard framework to address business challenges.

The Business Architecture Guilds value proposition is:

The value of business architecture is to provide an abstract representation of an enterprise and the business ecosystem in which it operates. By doing so, business architecture delivers value as an effective communication and analytical framework for translating strategy into actionable initiatives.

The framework also enhances the enterprise’s capacity to enact transformational change, navigate complexity, reduce risk, make more informed decisions, align diverse stakeholders to a shared vision of the future, and leverage technology more effectively.

 

Skills and qualifications

  • modeling business processes with tools and techniques
  • Apply architectural principles to business challenges
  • appreciation for strategy, value streams and capabilities
  • planning and deploying both business and IT initiatives
  • Recognize structural issues in the ecosystem
  • Visualize and create high-level models
  • Communicate appropriately at all levels of the organization
  • Ability to influence others to move toward consensus
  • Assimilate and correlate disconnected documentation and drawings
  • Strong situational analysis and decision-making abilities

Business Development

The primary value of business development is to create long-term value and growth. The toolbox below is an example of tools that we can use to get new perspectives when searching for new ideas and solutions.

Excerpt from the book Value Proposition Design

Michael believes that every assignment and challenge is solvable as long as you use a proven methodology and learn from the very best. He is a thinker who likes to be up-to-date on the leading management ideas of our age and keeps an eye on the work of business thinkers and analysts from his area of expertise.

We should have a practice of asking questions that keep us ahead of the game, rather than reacting to changes. Some vital questions every leader should be able to answer or at least take into consideration thinking forward is:

  • Why do we exist?
  • How do we create value from an end-to-end perspective?
  • What is it that we do better than anyone else?
  • How do we take care of the existing business while at the same time trying to invent the industries of the future?

Get a new perspective on your business! Book a meeting with Michael to
explore new ideas or improve the way you work today.

Skills and qualifications

  • Modeling business models with tools and techniques
  • Appreciation for business models
  • Recognize structural issues in the ecosystem
  • Visualize business ideas
  • Comprehensive toolbox
  • Workshop facilitator
  • Communicate appropriately at all levels of the organization
  • Ability to influence others to move toward consensus
  • Utilize digital and technology to transform the business

Digital & IT

Michael has comprehensive experience in Digital & IT based on two decades in the intersection of business and technology as a consultant. He understands how an organization can use technology strategically and where to allocate the resources to gain maximum value. He has built systems that were extremely reliable and has worked as a technology and security officer at the Swedish Armed Forces.

 

Areas of expertise:

  • Automation
  • Business Applications
  • Case and Document Management
  • Communication and Collaboration
  • Customer Relationship Management
  • Marketing Automation
  • Security

He has worked with products from several software vendors, ten years as a certified Lotus specialist and as a business partner with IBM and Trend Micro. Additional software he is familiar with is:

Adobe, Alfresco, Alphabet, Apache, Atlassian, AWS, CentOS, CipherCloud, Cisco, Citrix, Check Point, Ephesoft, F5, HP, IBM, Lotus, Microsoft, Mindjet, Nuance, Pegasystems, Red Hat, Slack, Software AG, Splunk, Symantec, Talend, Tivoli, Trend Micro, UIPath, VMWare, Veritas, Visma, Vyatta, WordPress, Qlik, Zapier.

Skills and qualifications

  • Core knowledge of IT
  • Problem Solver
  • Project and Agile Management
  • Crisis and Change management
  • Security and Compliance
  • Digital Transformation
  • Evaluation and Integration
  • Vendor and Partner Management
  • Relationship building
  • Communicate appropriately at all levels of the organization

Marketing & Sales Technology

The Customer is at the very center of the marketer’s mission, not just at the point of discovery or conversion but throughout the whole customer journey. Martech is a vital part and enabler when every touchpoint with the customer counts.

Martech is the single largest area of investment when it comes to marketing resources and initiatives, and martech now accounts for 29% of the total marketing budget according to research. The same study also identified the most vital marketing capabilities supporting the delivery of marketing strategies over the next 18 months as:

 

  1. Marketing and customer analytics (40%)
  2. Marketing technology acquisition and use (34%)
  3. Customer experience (30%)
  4. Digital business transformation (27%)
  5. Marketing Innovation (23%)

Michaels area of expertise, point 2-4.

Skills and qualifications

  • Integration and coordination across business functions
  • Leveraging inspiration from other disciplines
  • Appreciates behavioral economics
  • Marketing & Sales technology evaluation and acquisition
  • Customer Experience and Journeys
  • Entrepreneurial thinking, “Fail Fast”
  • Appreciates the MarTech stack
  • Passion for Tech and Innovation
  • Analytics and Automation
  • Part doer, and part orchestrator

Michael understands how to use technology to improve the customer experience throughout the whole customer journey. He has assessed and worked with solutions from a broad spectrum of martech providers, for example:

Apptus, Brainshark, CallidusCloud, CiperCloud, DocuSign, DPOrganizer, HubSpot, IBM Marketing Cloud, Insidesales, Lime CRM, Mail Chimp, Marketo, Mautic, Membrain, Pardot, Pegasystems, Pipedrive, Pipeline, Pros, Salesbox, SalesForce, Scrive, Sugar CRM, Qvidian, Tacton, Upsales, Vendemore.

The average organization of today now uses cloud services across every department, where marketing and sales take up a significant share of them.

The tech-savvy marketer or the marketing technologist needs to solve the following challenges:

 

  1. Decide what digital tools to use to stay competitive, from a MarTech landscape with over 7.000 solutions.
  2. Create a 360° view over the customers, so we can engage with them on their terms, and don’t lose track of them. Either with a marketing stack built of point solutions, a platform from a leading provider or a combination of both.
  3. While simultaneously transform how everything works, to adapt to a new digitalized customer that has higher, and continually changing, expectations than ever before.

Pega

Pegasystems is the leader in software for digital transformation, customer engagement and digital process automation for the enterprise. Pega’s adaptive, cloud-architected empowers people to rapidly deploy and easily extend and change applications to meet strategic business needs.

 

Pegasystem is also a platform that Michael understand in depth.

 

Michaels achievements:

Certifications

Certified Pega

Business Architect

Certified Pega

Decisioning Consultant

Certified Pega

Marketing Consultant

Certified System

Architect

Badges

Pega Platform Ready

Customer Service Ready

Robotic Automation Ready

Sales Automation Ready

Growth

The world is changing faster than ever before, and it is increasingly hard to engage with our audience that is overwhelmed with possibilities.

Regardless if the primary marketing and sales goals are to:

  • Acquire new, high-value customers
  • Increase share-of-wallet with incremental sales
  • Retain customers and protect profit margins

It all boils down to trust, and trust is built over time. Every individual expects to have a personalized experience, and every touchpoint needs to deliver value. That is why Customer Experience is of importance and why organizations need to align their business functions with their Customers Buyer Journey.

Skills and qualifications

  • Improving customer experience
  • Deliver personalization
  • Business Accountability, TCO, ROI, Revenue and Growth
  • Driving digital transformation
  • Identify and employing emerging technology and APIs
  • Leverages Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
  • Speeding up time-to-market with automation and agility
  • Data privacy and security regulation (GDPR)
  • Visionary and big picture thinker
  • Continuously learner