Fenix is changing the funeral industry - with an innovative system
Fenix funeral wants to disrupt a billion-dollar industry - and predicts that the funeral parlors are facing extensive digitization. Recently, the company took in another nearly 7 million in venture capital, money that is now going into an innovative platform and a foreign investment.
That's what Johannes Ekblad, entrepreneur and co-founder of Fenix burial, says. The company was started in 2014 and has grown steadily to an annual turnover of SEK 22.6 million in 2019. And there is plenty of room to grow more: the funeral market is worth over SEK 2 billion, and Fenix is also getting into family law. The company helps with services such as wills and powers of attorney.
”In 20 years, I think 80 percent of all people will plan funerals online. It is an obvious development. If you look at how quickly digitization has taken place in other sectors, I find it hard to see that it wouldn't be the same here.”
Smoother planning
Fenix funerals was started in 2014 by three managing agent consultants. All three founders had been thinking about the idea separately for several years, and saw that the funeral industry was lagging behind in digitization. The prices were high, the transparency was poor and there was a lack of customer focus.
The funeral itself takes place exactly as usual - it is in the preparations that differ. A traditional funeral home directs customers to a physical meeting, while Fenix allows the customer to make the choices in peace and quiet from home via the website. Approximately ten percent of the customers want to meet before the funeral and then get to meet one of the freelance funeral advisors that Fenix works with.
”We do not see ourselves as an online funeral home. What we offer is a smoother and easier way to plan a funeral, with better service”, says Johannes.
”Like the travel industry 20 years ago”
Six years after Fenix was founded, digital maturity is still low in the funeral industry. Johannes compares the situation with the travel industry twenty years ago.
”We are in an early digitization stage, roughly 15 percent into the journey. The product will need to be developed in order for the masses to want to plan funerals digitally”, he notes.
A good technical platform with a user-friendly interface is therefore business critical for Fenix. Two years ago, Fenix started developing its own platform from scratch together with its IT partner Indpro, and a year ago it was launched.
In the new system, customers meet an interface on the web where they can book and plan a funeral. The data is sent further in the system to Fenix's advisers, who pick it up in the internal part of the platform. There is a flexible workflow that is easy to overview, and which is available to both employees and external advisors.
The platform thus functions both as a project tool, CRM and e-commerce solution. It is built with microservice architecture and integrated with the underlying business system Microsoft Business Central.
Success factor – get everyone on board
Johannes is very satisfied with how the work with the new platform has progressed. So what have been the success factors?
”That everyone in the team understands the long perspective, what it is we are trying to do. And that we do the design ourselves, including CSS. Then the actual development is done by our partner Indpro.”
Why do you do the design yourself?
”It will be much clearer to communicate how we want things to work then. We are forced to think about how we want it.”
So far, only Johannes and a designer have worked with the platform at Fenix. Now Fenix will grow the team internally, but the team at Indpro will keep them.
”In the long run, a mix of consultants and own employees is best, I think. It is an advantage to be able to scale up or down quickly with external resources.
The pace of innovation is crucial
Fenix are not the only ones working to digitize the funeral industry. In addition to a number of other startups, Johannes expects that the traditional guys in the industry will also modernize.
In order to stand up to the competition, Fenix has recently taken in an additional SEK 6.7 million in risk capital. The money will go to an investment abroad, and to improving the platform. Because the technical solution will be decisive for growth, Johannes is convinced of that.
”What will differentiate the companies is the ability to maintain a high level of innovation, and have a high pace of improvement. The pace of innovation will determine who wins.”