Resource efficiency with a one-stop-shop IT partner

Finland’s largest supplier of security and lock solutions saves time and resources by outsourcing all of its IT to a one-stop-shop partner. 

Challenge:

CERTEGO is Finland’s largest supplier of security and lock solutions. With technology advancing at breakneck speed, customers’ needs and purchasing behaviour are also changing. It is vital for CERTEGO’s products and services to stay one step ahead in this race. In addition to continuous product development, CERTEGO needs procedures that are the same across the whole of the CERTEGO organisation all over Finland.

Solution:

By putting all of its IT eggs in one basket, CERTEGO saves both time and resources. This frees the company to focus on what it does best: product development. CERTEGO’s long-standing partnership with Advania has evolved into a close service-centric relationship and enabled an approach guided by clear, long-term objectives. This translates to high-performance state-of-the-art services for end users.

Staying on top requires constant work

CERTEGO is the leading security solutions provider in the Nordic countries. The company is known as a supplier of turnkey security technology, such as comprehensive access control and security systems, locking mechanisms and a range of other electronic services.

Staying on top in the highly competitive security industry requires constant work. Technology is advancing at breakneck speed, and customers’ needs and purchasing behaviour are changing. CERTEGO must therefore change the way it serves its customers.

Adding to the challenge are the company’s 19 offices around Finland: for CERTEGO to be able to deliver excellent customer service, the entire organisation needs to follow the same procedures.

Outsourcing IT frees valuable resources in-house

CERTEGO’s ICT Manager Markus Nuorento is well aware of the pressure that the industry is under and keen to explore a deeper partnership with, for example, Advania. The two organisations have been working together since 2003 and have slowly transitioned from a project-based relationship to a continuous development model. The partnership has grown from data centre capacity and managed services to cloud service deployment and telecommunications.

"For me, using a single IT service provider for everything makes the most sense’, Nuorento says. ‘A straightforward approach suits our small IT department, and having multiple partners or operating models would be an unnecessary burden. We would very quickly run out of hours in the day."

According to Nuorento, the decision to outsource was ultimately about costs and resources.

"CERTEGO has nineteen offices around Finland. If each of these had its own IT department, it would take a huge amount of time to run and manage them. When we mirror this to our cooperation with Advania, with the same contribution, we would not hire very many people in-house. Working with a comprehensive partner is a clear saving in resources and costs for us."

A close partnership model keeps CERTEGO moving

Since development must be continuous, CERTEGO and Advania meet monthly. Together, the partners think about how the operation can be developed further in the future. The work includes, for example, harmonizing workstation environments and enabling the smoothness of everyday life at all locations. In cooperation, they build different models, which are then tested and developed at offices in Southern Finland. When a working concept is found, it can be duplicated and implemented throughout the country

Nuorento especially praises Advania's adaptability.

"The collaboration has been agile and still competent. They have always been able to respond quickly to the needs and wishes we have had."