ICA
How ICA Made 2,000 Shop Owners Feel Heard — Not Just Informed
Sweden's largest grocery chain used Ventla to transform annual meetings with 2,000+ independent shop owners — replacing passive listening with genuine two-way dialogue.
When your attendees are also your business partners, a passive conference format sends the wrong signal. ICA, the Nordic grocery giant with over 2,000 independent shop owners, used Ventla to turn their regional and national meetings from information broadcasts into genuine two-way conversations.
The situation
ICA isn't a typical retail chain. With more than 50% of the Swedish grocery market, it operates through a model that's unusual in the industry: the stores are run by more than 2,000 independent shop owners, each of whom has a genuine stake in how the organization is managed and where it's heading.
This means that ICA's internal meetings aren't really internal in the traditional sense. The shop owners aren't employees receiving company updates. They're business partners who expect to have a voice in decisions that affect their stores — and who notice, quickly, when that voice is tokenistic rather than real.
ICA holds multiple meetings each year, both regional and national. These bring together hundreds of shop owners at a time to discuss strategy, vote on key issues, and exchange experiences across the network. The challenge was that the format of those meetings — presentations followed by Q&A — wasn't creating the kind of active dialogue the organization needed. A lot of information went out. Not much came back in.
What they needed
For meetings built around franchise owners rather than employees, ICA needed:
- A way to enable real-time voting and polling so every owner could participate, not just the vocal few
- Tools for sending questions to speakers and management without the social friction of raising a hand in a large room
- Post-meeting evaluations that actually got completed, covering content, logistics, and follow-up
- A way to keep shop owners connected and sharing information between meetings, not just during them
- Mobile access so participants could engage on their own devices throughout the day
How they used Ventla
The Dialogue feature became the operational core of ICA's meetings. Rather than collecting views through a show of hands or a paper ballot, shop owners submitted questions and votes directly through the app. Results appeared in real time — visible to both the room and the presenters, making the data feel immediate rather than administrative.
Post-meeting evaluations were sent through the same system. Because owners were already in the app, completion rates improved significantly over previous methods. The evaluations covered the substance of the meetings (decisions made, topics discussed), but also the practical elements — venue, catering, timing — giving organizers actionable feedback on every dimension of the event.
The Participant feature gave shop owners access to each other's contact information within the app, supporting the networking and peer exchange that ICA's model depends on. Owners could connect during breaks, follow up on conversations from the day, and stay in contact between meetings without needing a separate system.
What happened
The shift from passive attendance to active participation was visible in the room. Conversations that had previously stayed bilateral — between an owner and management — became visible to the whole group through the polling results. Owners who wouldn't typically speak up in a large-format presentation found a channel that felt natural.
The democratic feel of the meetings improved in a concrete way: when every person can vote simultaneously and see the results in real time, the meeting format itself communicates that everyone's view matters equally. For a network of independent business owners, that signal matters.
Post-meeting, ICA had comprehensive feedback across all dimensions of the event — content, logistics, and networking. Rather than running the same meeting format indefinitely, they could iterate based on what owners actually said worked and didn't.
What this means for similar organizations
ICA's experience is directly relevant to any organization running meetings with franchise networks, member associations, or partner communities — situations where the attendees have a genuine stake in outcomes rather than simply receiving information.
In those settings, a platform that enables real participation — anonymous voting, direct questions to leadership, visible results — changes the character of the meeting itself. It's not just a logistical improvement. It's a signal about how the organization relates to its partners.
The practical lesson: if your annual meeting or partner conference is still primarily a broadcast format, you're leaving value on the table. The input your network has is valuable — but only if you create the conditions for it to surface.
Industry: Retail · Event type: Annual Partner Meetings · Attendees: Hundreds per event, 2,000+ network · Region: Sweden
Running meetings with franchise owners, members, or business partners who need a genuine voice? Let's talk.
