Business Transformation: Forest Firms

Business transformation involves firms changing their business models to pursue new opportunities. The ambitions of transformation are to enhance a firm’s competitiveness. Transformation is risky— literature highlights that transformation efforts often fail; reasons include firms not having the sufficient competencies or enough capital to carry the changes through. As Canadian forest sector firms look to new opportunities in the bio-economy, they must change their business models to successfully compete in these new segments. The research of Cohen and Nikolakis (2012) has identified 6 areas a forest firms must focus on to successfully transform. Each of these areas requires different levels of attention. The researchers have undertaken benchmarking of transformation in Northern European and North American forest firms against these six ‘gears of change’. The researchers will apply their 6 transformation enablers and empirical findings from their benchmarking survey to guide Conifex, as it transforms to compete in the bio-energy and bio-products sector.

Faculty Supervisor:

Dr. David Cohen

Student:

William Nikolakis

Partner:

Conifex Timber Inc.

Discipline:

Forestry

Sector:

Forestry

University:

University of British Columbia