8. Gazelle
About gazelles and Germans and the greats of the great wide world
The eighth dream – the great wide world.
It wasn't that Adapt did not work outside Sweden's borders. USA, Italy, Bali, Nordic region. Projects for customers such as Nine Yards/XL-Bygg and Billerud Korsnäs had taken Adapt into the world over the past decade. But the greats of the world would also come to Adapt. Customers and projects that only a few years earlier seemed almost unattainable and unthinkable, now knocked on the door and were interested. The feeling was that Adapt had been moved up a couple of pinholes and now belonged to the really big ones. That feeling would turn out to be absolutely right.
Everything took shape especially at the end of 2016, into 2017 and got its big exchange in 2018. The foundation was laid in the form of a number of large long-term collaborations, not least the cooperation agreements with the Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre and Gorm Larsen Nordic as well as the large installation project "The Edge" for Saab. It invested heavily in the image page and became the first in the country to offer image solutions in 4K resolution. The activities were streamlined and the focus was on Events/meetings, Fairs/Exhibitions and Fixed Installations. They invested in and got full speed on special technology solutions such as beMatrix, Clever frame and Everblock. They also arranged their own "Demo days" where industry and customers were invited and became demonstrations of news and technological innovations. The response was very positive and profitability started to take off.
And then all of a sudden Siemens called.
At first glance, it did not seem to be much bigger, the Siemens project, in terms of money, surfaces or people. But it was. A project with a turnover of seven million, with 50 technicians working around the clock to deliver experiences on eight stages to 1,500 participants from all over the world. Yes, it was the biggest project ever. But really, that's not the big thing. Instead, it was the professionalism of the customer and its agency; the requirements, the budget, the planning, the service, the delivery... everything was one, two, three steps up from what you might call a normal, big project at home. Viking said he enjoyed it tremendously, he and the team toiled like animals to perform and deliver; the reviews afterwards were, indeed – sensationally good. And it was good to have money left in the bank. Now the impossible felt easier than ever. The bar was moved up, up, up.
The hard work and the long success story received a nice recognition at the end of 2018. Then the Adapt appointed a "Gazelle Company" by Dagens Industri. This requires a certain size, several years of constant growth and unbroken increasing profitability, and it was celebrated with a gala event at the Gothenburg Concert Hall. And in the offices, of course. In one fell swoop, the contacts of the greats were opened up. As a jewel in the crown, the world's fourth largest company with a brand that alone is valued at USD 150 billion: Google.
Adapt was given the responsibility of delivering the technical solution to their "Google Cloud Summit". Not only in Stockholm but also in Munich and Amsterdam with 2,500 participants in each location. Projects and assignments that in themselves became confirmation that many borders had been blown up and created the feeling that "now, now we are almost in place!". With projects for brands like Siemens and Google as figureheads and with their confidence behind them, the dream of the great wide world could manifest itself in a single thought, in two short words: New York.