Advania Finland revamped Lahti Energia Oy's ICT solutions and modernised services

Lahti Energia is a diversified and responsible energy company that provides carefree energy solutions to its customers. The company invests in eco-efficiency and fosters the use of renewable energy. As the first company of its size in Finland, Lahti Energia executed an energy U-turn and moved from coal burning in its energy production in 2019. The company delivers customized energy solutions to businesses as well as district heating and electricity using local recycled fuels and biofuels.

Background information

Lahti Energia has collaborated with Advania since 2014. Good relations with people in Advania has strengthened this collaboration over the years. As a forerunner, Lahti Energia needed to revamp ICT solutions and modernise services so that end users would find them safe and easy to use.

Lahti Energia was using an old Exchange and Lync environment that posed major challenges. A decision was made in the company that the system would no longer be upgraded. 

Moving e-mail and instant messaging services to the cloud

The project began as a collaborative meeting where a more modern technology was examined to replace the old one. Advania Finland's experts worked together with Lahti Energia to carry out a Microsoft Office 365 project in conjunction with which the employees' e-mail and instant messaging services were migrated from local servers to Microsoft's cloud services. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) and data security settings in accordance with best practices were enabled for the services. End-user training was included in the package.

Juha Rantala, ICT Manager at Lahti Energia, says:

"The services were deployed in a controlled manner in components and over several months. It was, of course, a heavy load for the ICT but we did not want to rush the deployment. At the same time, users and project participants were trained in small groups before and after migrating to the cloud. And best of all, the project was completed just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The new services have been extensively adopted, which has permitted increased teleworking in the company. As teleworking started, user satisfaction on the services was assessed through a survey which provided positive and good feedback and suggestions for development. The feedback was heard and responded to, but it is clear that the users in the company have different levels of skills to use the services. The priority in this project lay, however, with the safety of the services."

"The deployment went smoothly within a manageable timeframe and in close collaboration with the customer. Lahti Energia's own IT team also learned to do things in hands-on workshops", says Arto Happonen, Architect, Advania Finland Oy.

Solutions promoting teleworking and smooth collaboration with experts

"Teleworking and meeting practices have significantly improved, operating systems have been upgraded, and downtime has been eliminated. The M365 environment now also has storage for videos that was previously missing.

Advania's experts were readily available, and both parties worked together as a team whilst listening to customer needs. Every environment is unique and requires familiarisation, but the project was completed successfully. Collaborating with Advania has been very successful and I can recommend Advania as an IT service provider,” says Juha Rantala, ICT Manager, Lahti Energia.

Further information

Reijo Parpala , Regional Director, Account Manager, Advania Finland Oy, tel. +358 (0)50 3819 110