Apptus' new CEO focuses on customers

He is a structured, analytical realist who really puts his heart into his work. He always makes sure that he has good data for making decisions and finds decision-making easy. Although he’s a man with strong opinions, he’s always open to reconsidering previous conclusions as new information becomes available. Apptus’s role as newcomer is a perfect fit for Michael Atlevi. Meet the man who will be leading Apptus into the world beyond searches.

The opportunity to begin a new journey during which he can apply experiences from his previous travels with Telelogic is a dream that Michael Atlevi has had for quite some time. This made the offer from Apptus irresistible.
“My dream was to one day lead a Swedish, high-tech company into the international market.”
As other factors behind his decision to make the move from Telelogic to Apptus, he mentions having fun at work, getting the chance to work in an exciting expansive market and Apptus’s solid reputation.

After a few months on the job, Michaels Atlevi’s message as to what he considers most important can be summed in three words – constant customer focus.
“We’re a company on the way to becoming a supplier of more complete solutions to a larger market, beyond the borders of Scandinavia. My initial meetings with customers have been very positive; they have substantial confidence in our expertise, and we have excellent customer relations. I’m especially pleased that our customers feel that we treat even minor problems in a professional manner,” Michael Atlevi emphasizes.

The corporate culture at Apptus has evolved from the university environment at the Ideon research center in Lund, and it’s a young company in more ways than one. The company can boast of a high level of expertise, dynamic initiative capabilities and a creative culture that provides every opportunity to develop products that are at the leading edge of technological development. The challenge facing the new CEO is to develop and structure operations but without lowering the creative ceiling, according to Atlevi:
“I was pleasantly surprised by Apptus’s potential to further develop on the basis of its technological expertise – the range of knowledge is greater than I had expected. At the same time, this indicates a clear need to focus.

His expressed goal is to make a “Telelogic journey” of sorts, but this time at the rudder for Apptus. He strongly emphasizes that the planned and ongoing scale-up of operations is intimately related to packaging the solutions that have been developed, with the focus on two main areas: e-directories and e-commerce. The idea is that Apptus’ existing Scandinavian partners and customers will be able to benefit from the company’s international experiences, and the increase in knowledge that the company is now attaining.

How does Michael Atlevi see himself as a leader and person? As a CEO, he describes himself as playing the somewhat dull role as the one who establishes trust, who determines the structure and focus, and who takes charge of moving the company steadily forward. He doesn’t subscribe to any particular management theory, but nevertheless mentions Jack Welch as something of a role model, mostly because of his practical precepts, such a “do it now” and “better to make a decision, even if it turns out wrong.” At the same time, he describes himself as a consensus person, who seeks support for his decisions.

It’s obvious that the new Apptus CEO is a multifaceted person. A more private example of his sense of structure is that he “schedules” his reading when traveling by air. He knows how many pages he reads per hour and how long a particular flight will take. Before departing on one of his frequent trips, he counts the number of pages remaining in whatever he happens to be reading, to make sure that it will last until he reaches his destination.