INTO Concept Oy is a Finnish furniture company that specializes in support space solutions and modular POD meeting rooms. Their INTO the Nordic Silence concept has been created to solve various distractions in open-plan offices and educational environments due to a lack of support facilities.
Interview with Kirsi Soini, Director of Business Operations at INTO Concept Oy.
Easy Engineering: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
Kirsi Soini: The purpose of our being is to create functional office environments for our customers with INTO the Nordic Silence furniture concept. The customer is at the center of what we do from our internal design process to sales & communication to production and all the way to the customer having the finished product on their premises.
Our best-selling furniture is POD rooms which are withdrawal spaces for 1 to 4 persons. Their design is classical and timeless mimicking the look of a traditional room.
E.E: What’s the news about new products?
K.S: We have watched the office culture and working methods changing rapidly past two years. Meetings and negotiations have transferred from offices to online and personnel chooses remote work over contact work more often. With all these changes in mind, our INTO design team has developed accessories for our existing STORY WALL space divider product that will make life in the office easier, more functional, and funnier. For example, we now have available shelves, coat hangers, and even basketball baskets.
STORY WALL is a space divider on wheels. It provides space to share ideas and brainstorm. It is built with sound-absorbing materials and due to its design, it breaks soundwaves creating an acoustically friendly environment.
Moving STORY WALL video
E.E: What are the ranges of products?
K.S: INTO the Nordic Silence product range is wide and versatile. In our portfolio, you’ll find furniture for every office and working space.
Product categories are POD rooms, Seating furniture, Tables & Workstations, Space dividers, and Accessories (add-ons for INTO products).
E.E: At what stage is the market where you are currently active?
K.S: INTO Concept is an international company and the market situation in each country is slightly different. Especially the POD Room- market in various European and Middle Eastern countries is still busy and very active.
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?
K.S: In the post-COVID-19 world, workplaces have adopted hybrid work which combines remote and traditional office work. Office’s new role is to support the company culture and tempt employees to the office to meet each other and to work in teams again.
With these new ways of working and designing offices, we, at INTO Concept, have seen a massive increase in demand for not just phone booths, but especially for bigger withdrawal spaces where employees can work multiple hours or have online meetings in groups.
Throughout the corona pandemic, we’ve seen the need for flexible offices and office layouts, and we think this demand will increase due to the uncertainty regarding how, when, and in which form employees will return to the offices. This will have a straight effect on office leases and therefore on refurbishing the rental spaces. For example, INTO POD rooms can be installed and dismantled up to 10 times which will dramatically decrease the building waste.
E.E: What are the most innovative products marketed?
K.S: INTO the Nordic Silence POD rooms was one of the first in the POD market a decade ago. POD rooms have maintained their spot as bestselling products, yet with INTO’s founders’ over 30 years of experience in creating functional working environments, we have been able to identify needs in the furniture market and develop products to answer those needs. One of these products is the STORY WALL space divider, which can be used to create working nests for different types of working from brainstorming areas to individual working spaces to creative areas.
INTO design team has also designed FOCUS and ROLL IN workstations which both are individual working stations for work that needs focus and peace. They are both on wheels and come with built-in lights and sockets. ROLL IN workstations has been exceptionally popular in home furniture retail whereas the FOCUS has drawn interest in the office market.
E.E: What estimations do you have for 2023?
K.S: The Director of Business Operations, Kirsi Soini, states that she thinks the year 2023 will be a turning point. Kirsi hopes that the world situation will calm down and while that happens, people and companies globally will find the best ways to work whether that is remote or in the offices. INTO Concept is ready to help with this change. We exist to enable better workplaces so that our customers can thrive at what they do.
The CEO, Jari Inkinen, agrees with Kirsi’s message and adds: “We invest in the service of our customers around the world. Being an interior architect and an architect myself, designers and architects are close to our hearts. We understand what it takes to design visually beautiful, acoustically pleasant, and practically functional working environments and we can put ourselves in the shoes of our customers with all their hopes and challenges”.