Six months before joint projects even began, Nestor Cables’ CFO, Sakari Määttä, called Miikka Määttä at Tietokeskus. They are not related, despite sharing the same surname.
“Sakari told me that they had started considering outsourcing their IT services and were reviewing local providers. He suggested a meeting, and of course, we met,” Miikka recalls.
“After reviewing the options, we tendered the IT services, and the offers were quite close. But Tietokeskus won because they have some of the best Microsoft 365 expertise in Finland. We still have a lot of untapped potential in Microsoft’s cloud services,” Sakari explains regarding their choice.
In addition to Microsoft cloud services, Nestor Cables acquires from Tietokeskus end-user support, onsite support, server and network monitoring and management, workstation management, service management, and print services.
“We have been very satisfied with our decision. Especially our service manager, Sami Kallio from Tietokeskus, is a true professional with a strong background in IT. Whenever I’ve asked him questions, he has never been stumped – we’ve always received excellent suggestions and solutions.”
– Sakari Määttä, CFO, Nestor Cables
Service takeover proceeded smoothly
Tietokeskus began taking over Nestor Cables’ IT environment in the summer. “We constantly considered how to transfer services smoothly and efficiently while minimising the load on the customer,” Miikka explains.
“This summer we also changed our ERP system alongside the IT provider – so it’s been a bit of a hectic IT summer,” Sakari laughs. “Everything has gone very well, even excellently, with Tietokeskus. Of course, minor issues always arise when changing two major systems at the same time, but they get resolved. For example, we just invited a Tietokeskus professional and the ERP vendor into the same meeting room and said that they can leave when the print service in dispatching is back online. It didn’t take long before the problem was fixed,” he continues.
As Nestor Cables does not have its own IT department, the transition has focused on basics. This ensures the organisation isn’t overloaded and employees can concentrate on their work. Now it is time to consider the next development steps. The infrastructure needs updating, and Tietokeskus is preparing proposals to support both the current situation and future business needs.
Getting more from O365 investments
Together, they are also exploring ways to get more value from existing investments, such as O365 licences. “We pay monthly fees for them, but their use has been disappointingly limited. Fortunately, we now have access to Tietokeskus’ expertise in maximising our use of the Office 365 suite,” Sakari says.
In particular, Microsoft Flow workflows and other automation tools could be especially valuable for Nestor Cables. Many tasks are still handled manually in Excel, and they need workflow-style processes where the system automatically moves tasks forward.
“We are optimistic about the future, as we believe Tietokeskus’ experts can help us with this,” Sakari concludes.
