Case: Caruna
Understanding the Social Role of the Power Grid
In 2013, Fortum announced it would sell its Finnish electricity grid to foreign investors. Caruna became Finland’s largest electricity distributor and, almost overnight, turned into a national symbol of something far greater than power transmission. Something that was seen as a public resource was now privatised, and the company began to represent experiences of unfairness and exclusion.
By 2020, the public debate around the electricity network company was still saturated with distrust, frustration, and anger.
Over the years, Caruna had tried various ways to work out how to stop the cycle of reputational decline. It had commissioned reputation and customer satisfaction surveys, but none of these managed to change the tone of the discussion. The company decided to take a genuinely different approach. It wanted to open a real and honest dialogue with Finns.
When Caruna was looking for new partners, one proposal clearly stood out. Noren did not suggest a traditional way of collecting insight, such as a quantitative questionnaire or a panel discussion. Instead, it asked: how do people truly experience electricity transmission?
The methodology was ethnography. Rather than collecting opinions, this approach seeks to capture the lived experience of a chosen topic. Researchers set out to expand the understanding of people’s everyday lives and the role the electricity network company plays in them – consciously or unconsciously – by going to the places where these experiences take place.
“The proposal felt truly different. Usually, qualitative research has meant panel discussions and pre-specified interview frameworks. The results rarely surprise you then. We felt that this time we might get something genuinely new. And indeed, the outcome was a completely new way of holding dialogue with our key stakeholders.”
– Noora Neilimo-Kontio, CFO and Deputy CEO, Caruna Noren’s approach did not merely examine individual service encounters but focused on deeper tensions in society – experiences of exclusion and injustice that the electricity network company had, unintentionally, begun to symbolise. At the same time, it revealed how even an invisible service can either build or undermine trust.
On the basis of this understanding, Caruna was able to shape its services and communications around the meanings that customers attach to them, grounded in robust insight.
Project Goals
Understand where customers’ anger, distrust, and sense of exclusion stem from
Identify which services are considered meaningful, and why
Examine how Caruna’s service experience compares with that of competitors
Approach
To make sense of this complex phenomenon, Noren combined ethnographic research with quantitative analysis in a multidisciplinary way:
Desktop research: Previous studies were combined with an anthropological perspective on infrastructure
Ethnographic research: Extensive qualitative interview study across Finland
Quantitative analysis: Established the scale of the qualitative findings and compared the service experiences of Caruna’s customers with those of other network companies
Segmentation: Identified customer segments with strategic potential
Project Results
A deep understanding of how an electricity network company is entangled with wider social tensions
A comparative analysis of customer experiences of Caruna and its competitors
Customer segments to support more sustainable interaction
A new perspective on Caruna’s role as a societal actor: no longer speaking only of customers, but engaging in dialogue with people
The collaboration led to nationwide visibility. HS Visio published an extensive article titled Vihaa kohti (Towards Hate), which explored Caruna’s role as part of the story of a divided Finland.
Article in Finnish: https://www.hs.fi/visio/art-2000007977315.html Want to learn more?
Get in touch
annakerttu.aranko@noren.fi
