The official opening of the Digital Innovation for Growth Centre (DIG) was led by Rector at NHH, Øystein Thøgersen, DIG's Chair of Board Jørgen Taalesen, and Professor Tor W. Andreassen.

We must bring customer voices into the development process to a much greater extent, says DIG manager and professor Tor W. Andreassen.

- DIG is a national research center at NHH which, through interdisciplinary research and partners, will help Norwegian organizations increase the effectiveness of their customer-oriented innovations, develop new business models, and adapt to a digital everyday life. The goal is to ensure high employment and financing of the welfare state, says Andreassen.

Read more about DIG here

80 million for innovation research
The centre has numerous partners from academia, public and private sector, which are contributing with 80 million NOK (in both industry hours and NOK) into the centre - Telenor and Gjensidige are the two largest corporate partners. Other partner organizations include NCE Finance Innovation, Posten, TietoEvry, Virke, Abelia, Skatteetaten, Bekk, Bergen kommune, NTNU – Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Sintef and University of Oslo.

This Tuesday Sigve Brekke (CEO, Telenor), Helge Leiro Baastad (CEO, Gjensidige) and Tor W. Andreassen (NHH) met at Telenors offices at Fornebu.

Brekke shares that Telenor has partnered with DIG to take part in the interdisciplinary collaboration between research environments and corporations/companies, which is essential for exploiting opportunities stemming from digitalization.

- As a strategic research partner, we can collaborate with leading researchers and get to share and gain experience from a number of partners with the same challenges and opportunities as us. Digital transformation requires that we become better at cultivating the ability and willingness of managers to explore and try out new technological solutions. Therefore, I am sure that a collaboration with NHH, which is a strong competence center within leadership and management, is the right move for the future, says Brekke.

What is DIG?
See Professor Tor W. Andreassen explain in the video below:

What can NCE Finance Innovation members expect?
Members of NCE Finance Innovation are continuously searching for new innovations to fuel long term value creation together with customers. Their goal is sustainable business models that captures value for shareholders, employees and society at large.

- The Digital Innovation for Growth research center will be an important portfolio of strategic initiatives where we in Finance Innovation connect our ecosystem members to other ecosystems in order to support these overarching objectives, says Atle Sivertsen, CEO NCE Finance Innovation.