In the 1880's Royal Copenhagen and Bing & Groendahl of Denmark were ready for going new directions. I think they were following the developments in the rest of Europe, especially in France, where the Sèvres factory was the example of quality, style and craftmanship for porcelain factories. There was also a keen interest in Chinese and Japanese glazes in Denmark. From 1883 to 1901, Thorvald Bindesboell made designs in the Danish-Japanese taste. Arnold Krog (art director at Royal Copenhagen) visited the Japanese collections of Siegfried Bing in Paris. Pietro Krohn (art director at Bing & Groendahl) developed the same interest in japonism. Probably because of Sèvres' expansion of porcelain production with stoneware, R. Copenhagen and B&G, decided to develop a stoneware production too.

Pioneers of the early 1900's were: Patrick Nordström, Carl Halier & Knud Kyhn at R.Copenhagen and J.F. Willumsen, Fanny Garde & Effie Hegermann-Lindencrone for B&G.

In the late 1880's, Herman August Kaehler began experimenting with lustre decoration (metallic shine of the glazes), setting up one of the first studio pottery work-shops. Another pioneer was Lauritz Hjorth on Bornholm.
Most ceramic factories in Scandinavia adopted the studio concept, where artists could work on a limited production, offering their creativity and the factories providing the technical infrastructure to produce the "studio ware". The private studio and factory studio concepts, and the fact that design and art were intertwined and not seperate disciplines, are the main reasons for the quality of Scandinavian ceramics of the 20th century.

To know more about the history of  Royal Copenhagen: link
(in their timeline you can read that Aluminia bought Royal C. in 1882 and not, as is usually claimed, the other way around. See >craftmanship>history of RC on their website.)