Case

Viking Line’s data-driven transformation journey

Introduction

Challenge

Following the pandemic, Viking Line identified a need to become more data-driven in its operations. With over 5 million annual passengers and 2,000+ employees across Sweden, Finland, and Estonia, they faced significant challenges, including:

No unified view of customer data across channels and markets
A need for more personalized and coherent customer experiences
Limited ability to measure marketing impact
Manual, time-intensive marketing processes
Underutilized first-party data with no predictive customer insights or AI-driven models in use
Limited organizational experience in data-driven or automated decision-making

“This project successfully tackled complex data across competencies, silos, and markets. Despite starting at an early stage of data maturity, Avaus’ structured frameworks brought clarity to what might have been an overwhelming process. This enabled us to focus on value-driving activities, breaking down traditional departmental barriers.”

Tom Lindberg, CDO at Viking Line

Solution

After conducting a pre-study that outlined the plan, business case, and targets, Viking Line partnered with Avaus to initiate a strategic program for systematically developing data-driven capabilities. The collaboration included:

Strategy & Business case

Development of a business case for becoming data-driven
Quantification of business potential from data-driven processes
Defining the target level of automation
Establishing annualized targets for incremental revenue growth
Structuring consultancy fees to align with annual targets

Use case development

Implementing over 110 automated marketing processes within two years
Creating AI models for predicting and segmenting tax-free recommendations, pre-bookable services, and cruise route promotions
Activating data across five channels, including paid media, email, SMS, and app

Technical foundation

Building a composable Customer Data Platform (CDP) on Google Cloud Platform, with data activation handled through Hightouch and Adobe Campaign
Accelerating technical progress using Avaus’ pre-built components for identity resolution, data management, omnichannel consent management, reporting, and historical engagement structuring

Analytics & results measurement

Developing a reporting system to track results at the use case level and measure incrementality
Creating dashboards to visualize business impact and return on investment (ROI)

Change management

Governing the process to ensure alignment across all stakeholder levels, from top management to technical teams
Conducting change management initiatives, such as demos, workshops, and steering meetings to enhance capability adoption
Documenting the newly established processes for seamless handoff and integration into Viking Line’s organization

Results

The transformation program delivered impressive results in just two years:

110+ automated, data-driven marketing processes deployed across five channels, powered by 5+ decisioning algorithms
Incremental revenue from automated processes reaching several million euros annually, delivering outcomes like:
5.5% higher average spend on tax-free items for targeted customers
~20% improvement in media efficiency for customer acquisition campaigns
Payback period for the transformation initiative achieved within approximately 18 months, ensuring cost neutrality while building critical long-term capability
A robust, scalable technical foundation for future growth, AI readiness, and expansion of data-driven processes into other business domains

With these outcomes, Viking Line established a robustly data-driven culture, supported by collaborative feedback from teams with an average satisfaction rate of 4.36/5. A key element of the project’s success was its focus on aligning business targets with incremental revenue, coupled with Avaus’ structured and systematic methodologies.

Key success factors

The initiative leveraged Avaus’ expertise and methodologies to generate tangible business results. Key factors included:

A clear and robust business case with defined targets for automation and revenue growth
A structured operating model for use case development, supported by ongoing measurement and optimization cycles
A scalable, modern technical architecture, leveraging cloud infrastructure and AI-powered decision-making
Accelerated implementation by using Avaus’ pre-built components tailored for scalability
Strong executive sponsorship and seamless collaboration across teams, fostering wide organizational adoption

“What we have achieved is far more advanced than I imagined when this project began. I never thought we’d progress this much within such a short timeframe.”

Niklas Andersson, Digital & CRM Manager at Viking Line

“Under the visionary leadership of the Viking Line team, we have been able to support the organization in both taking big technical leaps, but also improving the ways of working with data driven decisions in the commercial domain. One of the key success factors has been the long term collaboration, the clear targets for the collaboration and our shared risk and reward. Our joint teams have worked seamlessly together and achieved great results over the past years – I could not be prouder!”

Emma Storbacka, CEO at Avaus

If you’re inspired by Viking Line’s successful data-driven transformation and are considering a similar journey for your organization, we’d love to help. Contact us to explore how we can collaborate to achieve your goals.