Jacobi in the Nordics has had a long and fruitful journey thanks to the great cooperation with our Nordic distributors. We spoke to Polynova in Finland, Wendt & Sørensen in Denmark, and Sparks in Norway, to find out how they feel about the relationships and the key to successfully doing business together.

First up are our Danish partners, Wendt & Sørensen, where we met Peter Knudsen.

Peter, what is your role at Wendt & Sørensen?

I work as CEO and operationally, I am responsible for the activated carbon department. I have been with Wendt & Sørensen for 30 years. This is either due to a lack of imagination on my part or because no one has been able to use me for anything else. It must be one or the other but I enjoy my role either way!

Can you tell us a bit about Wendt & Sørensen?

We are an engineering company with 12 employees that started in 1971. Over the years, we have developed processes to disinfect water, including drinking water, pool, and spa water. We have also been working with filtration solutions since the 1980s.

Thanks, and how does the collaboration between Jacobi and Wendt & Sørensen work?

We have been working with Jacobi for about 25 years so we've seen how Jacobi has gone from being a rather small Swedish company to becoming a European company and then an international company. It's been an amazing journey to follow.

Jacobi is our partner, and we use Jacobi's brand and all the good documentation we receive, but our customers have a relationship with Wendt & Sørensen. For example, the extensive PFAS tests we have carried out in Denmark are run by Wendt & Sørensen and the local authorities, the data is then shared with Jacobi in order to optimise product performance.

In your opinion, what is essential for good cooperation between a distributor and a supplier?

The most important thing is trust. Only when we have 100 per cent trust can we work as a one entity, even if, legally, we are separate entities.

As a local distributor, you can add a local touch; how important is that, and why?

We've been working with water, wastewater and incinerator builders for 30 years so we know the business. We are an established company working in this field for a long time and so we have built an irreplaceable trust with our customers. We are on-site all the time. When we go to refill activated carbon at a waterworks, our team is there.

We have to ensure it works, that there are the right connections, and that the service is efficient. The customer then must receive the activated carbon, and we help with transport, documentation, etc.

Also, for many Danish companies, having a Danish distributor is a great advantage, many of them they prefer to talk to Danes for language reasons.

What would you say that customers like most about the product and/or service we supply?

Our customers use the product that works best for the treatment requirement first and foremost. The performance must be what the customer expects; it must also arrive at the right time and at the right price. But even with these factors, our business is people driven.

We recently got a joint large biogas customer, where we were able to offer a good price and stock a large amount of material so the customer could get overnight delivery. We also provided the customer with good technical support in terms of operational optimisation. So technical support, price, and delivery time won us the customer. In another customer case, we had two major technical challenges to solve, and here, we have received highly qualified technical support from key people at Jacobi.

We work with functional products that must do what they are supposed to, regardless of the manufacturer behind them. But we also often work on problem-solving, and our customers benefit greatly from good cooperation between us and Jacobi.

Here at Jacobi, we know that it's the people that make the difference, and the same is true when it comes to our partners. Behind the scenes, there is a whole host of people working to ensure operations run seamlessly. We talked to Lotte Sonne, who works with Sales / Logistics and Finance at Wendt & Sørensenv to find out more.

Lotte, as the Sales / Logistics and Finance member of the team, what does a typical day include for you?

I am responsible for the daily customer contact with our carbon customers, many of whom I have been doing business with for many years. So the relationships are close and good. I am also responsible for purchasing and transporting activated carbon, filters and ion exchangers. Additionally I work on reconciling rolling forecasts with the customers where we have their carbon in stock. I really appreciate the close relationship with the team in Sweden; they are always ready to answer my questions. I really want to emphasise the difference Annika Ljungar at Jacobi makes through her excellent customer service.

Thanks for taking the time to chat with us, Peter and Lotte, and thanks for all that you and your team do at Wendt & Sørensen. We look forward to many further years of collaboration between yourselves and Jacobi Group.

The Sparks Team: Åsmund Sæther – Partner & Sales Manager, Pernille Moen – Customer Service & Logistics, Lars Bugge – Sales Manager, Marianne Engebretsen – Head of Support Functions, Geir Markussen – Partner & Sales Manager.

Next, we meet Sparks our partners in Norway, a slightly younger company but again their relationship with Jacobi goes back many years. We sat down with their team to discuss their views on a successful business relationship.

Can you give us a quick overview of Sparks as a company?

Åsmund: We are a Norwegian company that helps Nordic companies reduce their carbon footprint, or ‘decarbonise the business’, as we say. That includes our own carbon footprint. We are determined to help save the planet. It may be a big statement, but we are doing our best to take steps in that direction.

Our main customers are in three different segments of the market. Energy is our largest business area, where we work with oil services, biofuels, biogas and waste-to-energy companies. We also work with gas and water treatment, which involves purifying various industrial processes, both liquids and gases. The third segment is the asphalt and road industry.

Sparks has five employees, a small but hungry and efficient organisation with a can-do attitude. This means that problems and challenges are there to be solved. Combine that with good humour and a constructive way of looking at things, and you have a pretty good description of Sparks.

A small but efficient team indeed, and how does the team work with our teams here at Jacobi?

Geir: It actually goes quite a way back. Me and Åsmund started the company in 2014, but we have a relationship with Jacobi that began in 2003. We were working at a company called Kraft Chemicals, and they had been working with a company called Norit since the 1950s.

Norit wanted a pan-European distributor, and Kraft Chemicals needed a new supplier, so we called Jacobi's owner at the time, Anders Skeini, and told him they were sitting on a large customer portfolio and wondered if they should start a collaboration. So, that cooperation got off to a flying start.

Fast-forward to 2014, a new distributor company was built, Sparks. Right now, we are working very intensively on the transactional shift from fossil to coconut-based products. Our long journey with Jacobi has been super nice and exciting to follow.

We’re pleased to hear that. With over 20 years knowing each other, how would you say Jacobi has evolved over that time?

Geir: If we look at the period 2003 – 2024, we meet the same people as in the early phase, but Jacobi has grown and become a global company. Today, it is a much larger, integrated industrial company but we still meet the same Jacobi spirit. Even now, 20 years later, we can see that the core values remain the same, as can be seen in Jacobi's Go Green initiative.

Sparks and Jacobi also have a shared vision around sustainability. For us, it makes more sense to market a sustainable product. If we get a 100-tonne customer to switch from fossil carbon to coconut carbon, we reduce the burden on the planet by 500 tonnes of CO2 per year, which is 100 times a personal CO2 footprint.

Besides a shared vision and spirit, what would you say is essential for good cooperation between a distributor and a supplier?

Lars: We would say good communication and access to resources, both technical resources to solve various complex technical challenges and competitive sourcing so we can be competitive in price against the market. Although we have all sorts of good arguments, price will play a significant role.

Also, a good cooperation must be based on trust. We need to trust Jacobi to manage the opportunities and resources available to us, but we also need to trust that our issues will be recognised and prioritised. This way, we can build each other up to commercial success, but also on a personal level. This is absolutely a people business.

We couldn’t agree more on that point. How important do you think people find the local touch when working together?

Marianne: We spend a lot of time familiarising ourselves with customers’ processes and how they work. The better you know a customer, the better you understand their decision-making processes.

Decisions made at the customer site are influenced by several factors, such as technical, commercial, logistical, or strategic factors. Solving a problem may require four people on the customer side, and it takes quite a long time to build so many relationships with a customer. This is always easier when done on a local level. Keeping the process of working together agile and efficient.

Reflecting for a moment on the customers and their feedback in general, what would you say that customers like most about the solutions we provide?

Åsmund: Some of our customers are a key part of our sustainability journey. When we get them to replace their traditional fossil fuel solution with renewable activated carbon from coconuts, we also contribute to the customer’s sustainability journey. Some customers highly value this. Customers also appreciate Jacobi’s work on documenting their carbon footprint, the full LCA analysis that has been done, and the actions implemented as part of the Go Green initiative.

Lars: Of course, the quality of the product has to be good and the deliveries have to get to the right place at the right time. It's taken for granted, but these things work. When we take on a customer case and need technical support, it’s easy to bring deep product knowledge from Jacobi in Germany and the labs. It takes very little time to put together a good team. We may have had a challenge that was solved well, and three years later, when there is a new major problem to discuss, the same people from Jacobi are involved. It makes the customer feel remembered and taken care of.

Sparks often highlights the importance of teamwork when describing their business. Two people playing a particularly important role in ensuring everyday operations run like clockwork are Pernille Moen and Marianne Engebretsen.

Pernille and Marianne, what does your work at Sparks involve?

Pernille is responsible for purchasing and managing the logistics. Marianne has overall responsibility for the support functions. She oversees the Enterprise Resource Planning system (ERP) and manages the quality system. Together, we ensure that all requirements are met on a general basis.

We are in close contact with Sparks's customers and work daily to find the best solutions for them. We both have a daily dialogue and close cooperation with Jacobi's Customer Service, which is highly valued and necessary to meet customer expectations.

And how do you see the relationship with Jacobi?

We believe it is as personal as it is professional. We operate in a competitive market and our customers have high expectations of us as a supplier. Thanks to the excellent communication we have with Jacobi, we are able to meet their expectations. Our close dialogue with the Jacobi Customer Service team is key to providing the best possible service and achieving success for both us and our customers.

Thanks to the team at Sparks for sitting down and taking the time to chat to us. We’re very happy with the sustainability focus we share and are certain it is the best way forward for us all to do business together for the benefit of the environment.

Next, we meet our partners in Finland, Polynova. Finland is part of the Nordic region and a key country for the business and usage of Jacobi’s products. We met with Marco Lemström, Managing Director of Polynova, to learn about their approach to offering Jacobi products since the 90s.

Marco, to start, could you please tell us a bit about Polynova?

I run Polynova together with my colleague Jari. We have known each other since we studied in Germany in 1990 and even then, we said we would do something together. We gained some experience in different places before we started Polynova in 1996.

The start was quite simple, I worked as an employee at Jacobi from 1994 to 1996. I was the first-person Anders Skeini, who developed Jacobi into the company it is today, hired to sell activated carbon. Anders taught me everything he knew about activated carbon, for which I am very grateful. So, we already knew the business when we started Polynova.

Jacobi and Polynova have been aligned from the very start, how would you say that the collaboration operates today?

We started with activated carbon and then we added ion exchange resins to the range. Of course, we have many waterworks as customers. And battery chemicals have become huge. Many different chemicals for batteries are produced in Finland, and we have one product that all manufacturers want to use. But overall, it's water treatment, air treatment, flue gas treatment, and battery chemicals that we work with. On the industrial side, we also sell to a lot of applications, for example in biogas.

We focus on sales and Jacobi takes care of product, invoicing and delivery. This division is perfect for us because we can concentrate on what we do best. It makes our job a lot easier.

What other challenges do you see ahead, the PFAS issue for example?

I was a bit hesitant about it when I first spoke to Linda Magnusson, who is Nordic Sales Manager, about it. She said it was going to be huge in Sweden and other Nordic countries but I thought I hadn't even seen any discussion about it. But now it has really become huge, in newspapers, on TV – you read and hear about PFAS everywhere. It is becoming more and more important. I also see it with my municipal customers, they are starting to ask about it. We have an ongoing project that will become a reference treatment for Finland.

We are also reactivating a lot of coal in Finland that has been used for water treatment
and now we can also break down PFAS in connection with reactivation, which is a great innovation. Reactivation has been a big thing for us since Jacobi opened the reactivation plant in Premnitz.

What is essential for good cooperation between a distributor and a supplier?

Of course, it starts with a good relationship, with good personal chemistry. And then there is openness, so that you can discuss everything openly. Trust is also important, so that you can trust each other.

Then there are always things that can go wrong and it's nice if you can be honest about why things went wrong so you can have a good discussion about it. In that situation, we and Jacobi talk to each other and do the right thing for the customer, and then we talk about how to resolve it internally between us.

What would you say that customers like most about the product we supply?

I think it's the quality, reliability, and speed of delivery. We don't always have to be the cheapest supplier; we have other advantages that our customers appreciate. And I know that our customers think that our technical expertise is excellent.

What about the importance of the local touch in Finland?

I've been in the activated carbon business here in Finland for so long. I know all the customers and their needs, in some cases for 30 years. They don't have to explain much to me, I can work very independently.

We also have the advantage of having a large local warehouse. We can deliver even small batches within a few days, so our customers don't have to keep their own stock.

And then there is the Finnish business culture, which involves doing business the Finnish way. We get straight to the point and don't need to talk about other things, and nobody thinks it's bad manners to do it that way.

Finally, do you have a message you would like to give the team at Jacobi Group?

I am very happy with Jacobi. As I said before, Jacobi is reliable and that is important to me. Polynova is a small company and my contact with the Kalmar office makes me feel like a member of the Jacobi family. They treat me as such, and I like that.

We also met with Jessica Rosengren, who works with Sales Support at Jacobi, for a quick chat.

Jessica, please tell us about your work in customer service and how you see the relationship with our Nordic partners.

So me, Magnus and Annika in the Customer Service team receive orders and inquiries about products in stock, what lead times we have, and we handle invoicing and logistics around these orders. We have almost daily contact with our Nordic partners, and we understand each other and each other's business considerably because we have worked together for so long. The relationship with them is more like a relationship between colleagues rather than a relationship with a customer.

Finally, we caught up with our Nordic Sales Manager Linda Magnusson, who joined Jacobi in 2021. Before joining Jacobi, Linda had already worked in a global company, embracing different cultures and ways of working daily. This experience and knowledge makes her integral to making such partnerships a success.

Linda, a fairly broad question but we are interested to hear your opinion on this one, what makes a successful relationship?

Since joining the Jacobi Group, I have found that having an open-minded view of these relationships is essential. To make it all work, many people must cooperate in a chain of people, and everyone is equally important.

A good communicative relationship and cooperation with our partners is essential as they are closest to our customers. At the end of the day, we all want to achieve customer satisfaction and beyond.

We are an international company, and it is challenging that we come from different cultures, but it is also the differences that give a good result in the end. Everyone really cares about each other, and our decision-making processes are fast. I would like to highlight all our Jacobi specialists who solve many problems and make customers feel safe.

I also have to mention our Customer Service team. They are the engine, the lubricant, the glue, whatever you want to call them, in our relationship with our partners. Without their fantastic work, it would never work.

Thanks Linda and Jessica, it’s been really interesting to learn how these relationships work so successfully together. It certainly seems that there is a strong motivation behind them that will ensure they continue for many more years to come. Thanks also to all of our partners who were able to take the time and give us some insights.