About

We work inside the organisation, side by side.

SAM - Samarbetande Konsulter, "collaborating consultants" - has spent nearly five decades doing management consulting differently: not as outside analysts who hand over a report, but as people who work within the organisation until the change holds.

Who we are

We believe results are made where the work is actually done: on the shop floor, in the planning meeting, inside the numbers.

So that is where we work. Rather than studying an organisation from the outside and leaving a set of recommendations behind, our consultants embed alongside your people for as long as the change takes to become real. We learn the work by doing it with you, and we hand back capability, not just conclusions.

Many of our clients are industrial and manufacturing businesses where complexity has grown faster than clarity. We help create organisations that are easier to run, better able to adapt and capable of delivering sustainable improvements in productivity, profitability and performance.

“We don't hand over a report and leave. We stay until it works.”

↓ A short history

From 1977 to today.

1977

Samarbetande Konsulter is founded

Sten Drakenberg and Anders Bröms start SAM, built on order-line profitability analysis: working with organisations, not just on them.

1980s

First in Sweden with Activity-Based Costing

SAM’s order-line analysis predates the ABC name itself. The early Kanthal analysis becomes a Harvard Business School case, published in Relevance Lost.

1990s

Scania, Toyota and the Scania Production System

SAM initiates the first contacts between Scania and Toyota USA, spearheads the first SPS pilot in Scania assembly, and supports the principles for Scania’s modular design.

2000

Profit Beyond Measure names Manage by Means

Anders Bröms and H. Thomas Johnson publish the book that defines MBM. It is awarded the Shingo Prize for excellence in manufacturing research.

Today

Still side by side

Working inside industrial and manufacturing organisations - and in banking, insurance, telecom, services and transport - on profitability, product structure and change.

→ The mindset

Principles over numbers.

These aren’t slogans, they’re the habits that guide how we create lasting value inside organisations.

01Means before results.

Improve how the work is actually done, and the numbers follow. Chase the numbers directly and you distort the work.

02Inside, not above.

We sit with the work, not over it, learning the reality of the organisation by being part of it.

03Honesty about cost.

We make the real economics visible to everyone, not only to finance, because shared truth changes decisions.

04Sustainable capability.

Success is an organisation that is stronger, more resilient and more capable long after we leave.

The people

The consultants who embed with you.

A team of senior practitioners who spend their time inside client organisations.

Meet the whole team →

Fredrik Lagergren

Managing Director

Erik Eriksson

Operational excellence

Erik Wettergren

Transformation

Greger Laurin

Transformation, leadership & projects

Hanna Hagström

Organizational change & leadership

Careers

Work with us.

We look for people who would rather sit inside the work than present from outside it: curious about industry, comfortable with complexity, and patient enough to stay until change holds.

See our career page and open roles →

Get in touch

Let's talk about your organisation.

Tell us where profitability, product structure or change is getting hard. We'll bring nearly fifty years of working inside organisations like yours.

Start a conversation → [email protected] →