OREANDA-NEWS. November 16, 2010. The Quality Innovation Prize of the Year was awarded to the subsidiary of AS Tallink Grupp, Tallink Silja Oy for its product development concept ”1000 Tuotekehittajaa”. The quality centre Excellence Finland grants this prize annually as an acknowledgement for a particularly innovative product, service or operation concept.

The aim of the competition Quality Innovation Prize of the Year, organized annually by the quality centre Excellence Finland, is to increase the number of innovations in Finland and to elevate their quality. The recognition is granted to an innovative product, service or operation concept. Tallink Silja won the prize in the category of large companies with its new product development concept “1000 Tuotekehittajaa” that involved Finnish consumers in the development of Silja Line cruising and service products.

”We value the Quality Innovation Prize of the Year extremely and are very proud of the fact that we won the competition exactly with this concept. It is particularly important for us to develop our products together with consumers and by listening them in order to be able to meet their needs and desires in the best possible way also in future”, says the executive manager of Tallink Silja Oy, Margus Schults.

The campaign ”1000 Tuotekehittajaa” was realized for the Silja Line brand in autumn 2009, when all Finns were urged to participate in product development of Silja Line’s Swedish cruises by testing the cruises and giving feedback about them. Almost 57.000 Finns applied for product developers of which Taloustutkimus Oy selected 1000 regular customers that represented comprehensively the customer base of Tallink Silja and 1000 persons that represented comprehensively the population of Finland. Silja Line offered to the selected product developers a cruise in a class A cabin. After the trip each product developer was asked to give feedback about the cruising experience’s various sub areas by answering a questionnaire. The answerers were also able to comment, propose ideas and their own development suggestions.

Several development suggestions arrived through the ”1000 Tuotekehittajaa” campaign have already been implemented and many projects are pending. The campaign gave birth to an interactive blog Siljan Tuotekehittajaat that was opened in spring 2010. Through this Finns are able to monitor and participate in product development of Silja Line’s Swedish cruises. The campaign “1000 Tuotekehittajaa” has moved the product development processes of Tallink Silja closer and closer to the consumer. ”We intend to develop our products and services in collaboration with our customers also in future”, says Schults.

The campaign has caused wide interest. “1000 Tuotekehittajaa” was included as a case example in the research project UseIn (User Involvement In Service Innovations) of Tampere University and VTT financed by Tekes, which studied the involvement of users in service innovation processes. In February 2010 the campaign was also introduced in the udi.fi Internet site of the Ministry of Employment and Economy that presents demand- and user-based innovation activity. 

The quality centre Excellence Finland awards the Quality Innovation Prize of the Year annually. Now the Quality Innovation Prize of the year was awarded for the fourth time. This year in the large companies category the Quality Innovation Prize was given to two companies.

AS Tallink Grupp is the leading passenger shipping company on the Baltic Sea owning 19 vessels and operating under brands of Tallink and Silja Line on seven different shipping routes. Tallink has 6800 employees in Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Russia and Germany.