European Furniture Group: the end of spreadsheet overload with GanttPRO
“There is no excuse anymore. People used to say, ‘I didn’t know I was supposed to do this.’ Now they just log in and see exactly what they have to do.”
A story about how EFG moved beyond scattered spreadsheets to bring clarity and structure to twenty parallel projects.
Company overview
Company: European furniture manufacturer
Role interviewed: Andreas Mattison, Head of Product Development & Sustainability
Project types: multi-step product development projects, sustainability and long-term strategic projects
External pressures: long development cycles, many departments involved, suppliers, certifications, sustainability requirements
Tool history: Excel only, no PM system before GanttPRO
Problems hinted at: inconsistent use of Excel by many team members, overload across departments, lack of visibility
Summary
Company Background
What does your company focus on?
European Furniture Group is a global office furniture supplier based in Sweden. All interior pieces reflect elegant Scandinavian style and are known for their long service lives.
EFG’s philosophy is built on high-quality materials, sustainable manufacturing approach and multi-step development cycle, bringing together specialists from various fields. The team, including product developers, sourcing, marketing, sustainability and supply chain, could be working on numerous activities simultaneously, so that the process would gradually move from early insights to final launch.
“We were looking for a program that was easy enough, so we got everything in one place, even the small actions.”
Struggle
How did your approach look before GanttPRO?
Previously, EFG relied on Microsoft Excel which was indeed accessible and familiar for many team members. However, for a workload of that scale, managing tasks across countless spreadsheets proved ineffective. Andreas, Head of Product Development and Sustainability, described that issue perfectly: "We had 20 projects and 20 action logs going on simultaneously. Everyone had to open 20 different spreadsheets just to find their tasks."
Adding new ones was a chaotic experience and some parts were eventually lost or undone. As Andreas explains with a different example: "Our marketing coordinator had maybe four actions in each project but in ten plus projects it was too many entry points. It was impossible to prioritize."
Project participants were simply unable to track all of their responsibilities while project leaders had to constantly remind them what to do, holding extra sync calls and chasing manually. “It wasn’t okay. People would come to project meetings not even knowing what actions they had inside the project.”, highlights Andreas.
The team wanted a tool where everyone could quickly visualize their tasks across all projects, update easily and add new ones to the log.
One of the priorities in searching for a new tool was the ease of Excel but with clarity and structure added on top.
“We were looking for a program that was easy enough, so we got everything in one place, even the small actions.”
Solution
GanttPRO had the core feature EFG needed. “Everyone is using GanttPRO: marketing, sourcing, coordinators. Teams especially like the My Tasks Tab as they log in and immediately see their activities across all twenty projects.”. That became the tipping point, the center of a workflow, solving the problem of slow work pace across departments.
“There is no excuse anymore. People used to say, ‘I didn’t know I was supposed to do this.’ Now they just log in and see exactly what they have to do.”With automatic notifications and synchronized Outlook calendar, the tool started working for the team, not the other way around. GanttPRO was integrated seamlessly into the tools that were highly important: “You don’t even need to log into another program. You can work from Outlook. You can work from Teams. There is no excuse not to do your tasks.”
As a result, what used to require regular sync meetings became manageable with monthly check-ins, and the focus was finally shifted from reminding project participants to actually discussing the content of the work.
“We took away the focus from the spreadsheet to actually discussing what we’re working with in the project. The right focus.”In EFG’s specifics, where production requires significant both human and financial resources, it’s critically important to ensure that the project stays within the limits. This is where the Dashboard helps the team with quick reporting: “When I prepare my steering group meetings, the dashboard gives a quick understanding: Are we in budget? How many hours? Are we following the time? Everything is there.”
Impact
What does your work look like now with GanttPRO?
From product launches to sustainability initiatives, including a major climate-neutrality program running until 2040, GanttPRO became both daily and strategic tool across departments. As work became more visible, team members had no struggle with accountability and action log updates. Departments that once had difficulties with prioritizing, could now move without overload and chaos.
Today, EFG’s processes are running smoothly on operational clarity and consistency, while uncertainty around project management is left behind.