Solita (company)

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Solita
Genre
  • Technology
  • data
  • design
Founded1996 in Solita
HeadquartersFinland
Websitewww.solita.fi/en/

Solita is a technology, data and design company established in Finland.[1] In 2021, Solita had over 1,100 employees in six countries: Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Germany, Denmark and Belgium.[2][3] Solita is participating national projects in Finland[4] such as Koronavilkku, a mobile application to track exposure to COVID-19.[5][6] The company is developing IT service management, e-services and +knowledge management solutions for companies and public administration organisations. It offers for example, strategic consulting, service design, digital, AI and analytics services, as well as cloud services.[7]

History

Heikki Halme established Solita in 1996.[8] The company started out as a software developer for Nokia[9] which remained its only customer during the first five years.[10] Halme was elected as Finnish Software Entrepreneur of the Year 2010. At the time he was the main owner and the chair of the board.[8] In 2008 Jari Niska followed Halme as a new CEO.[11] Tivi magazine placed Niska on the list of top 100 Finnish IT influencers in, for example, in 2013,[12] and 2015 and 2019.[13]

In March 2013 Vaaka Partners bought 75 percent of the company whose products were related to digital business, information management and e-services.[10] Solita got the seventh place in the Best Places to Work competition arranged by the Great Place to Work Institute Finland[14] while in 2014 and 2015 it ranked sixth.[15][16] In October 2014, Solita set up an office in Oulu.[17] In March 2015, Solita established a new business unit, Solita Design, which focused on for example in service design and user experience design.[18] Within a year the company's personnel grew by 26 percents while its turnover grew by over one third to[19] 49.7 million euros.[20]

In 2017, Solita started offices in Sweden and Estonia.[21] In February, Solita, with over 500 employees at the time, announced its intention to get listed.[9] In the spring, it acquired Palmu,[22] a service design company doing business in Singapore and Finland.[21] Solita hired an in-house couch for coach the employees with their work as well as their private life which was not common in Finland.[23][24]

In April 2018, Apax Digital Fund, a global private equity firm, announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Solita from Vaaka Partners. Solita had 650 employees.[21] After the acquisition a share issue for Solita employees was arranged and over 300 of them participated. In May, Solita established a new unit, Solita Health, focusing on the health and well-being sector[4] and started maintaining an Internet of things, whose participants included AWS, IBM, Azure, Tableau Software|Tableau and Wazombi Labs. The system had services used for testing, AI applications, data logging, analytics, visualisation and cloud solutions.[25] In September, Solita informed that it had abandoned its plan to get listed. It had employees in Helsinki, Tampere, Oulu, Stockholm, Tallinn, Turku and Lahti.[7] In October Solita obtained Machine Learning Competency status from Amazon Web Services (AWS) for machine learning solutions and expertise.[26]

In 2019, Solita acquired two Swedish companies, Sparks AB[27] and Ferrologic, a digital services consultancy. Ferrologic empoloyed about 100 persons in Sweden, Denmark and Belgium. The mergers increased the number of Solita employees to approximately 1,000 people.[28]

In 2020 Solita's operations were grouped into three business areas: Finland, Sweden, and other international markets while its business units were focusing on development, cloud & connectivity, design & strategy and data.[2] In June Solita won a competition for a mobile application to track exposure to COVID-19 arranged by the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare with the aim of combating the COVID-19 pandemic in COVID-19 pandemic in Finland|Finland.[5] The application, called Koronavilkku, was published on 31 August 2020.[6] During the first 24 hours, the application was downloaded one million times,[29] and over 2 million times during the first two weeks.[30] For Kone it created a cloud based analysing system collecting data from its elevators with the aim to prevent their hardware failures.[31] In October Finnish State Development Company Vake, Yleisradio ja University of Helsinki started collecting 10,000 hours of speech in Finnish to develop AI voice recognition. The collection technology was planned and created by Solita.[32]

In 2021, CEO Jari Niska was followed by Ossi Lindroos.[3] Operations were managed by Timo Honko in Finland[3] and by Johan Thyblad in Sweden.[33] Solita employed over 1,100 people in Finland, Gothenburg and Stockholm in Sweden, Copenhagen in Denmark, Tallinn in Estonia, Berlin and Munich in Germany and Leuven in Belgium.[3][2][34] Approximately 450 employees are part owners of Solita.[3] The company headquarters are in Tampere and it has Finnish offices also in Helsinki, Lahti, Oulu and Turku.[34]

References

  1. ↑ Ossi Kurki-Suonio. "Koronavilkun kehittänyt Solita kasvaa nyt Ruotsissa – "Asioita on esitelty ja keskusteluja on käyty"". Kauppalehti. Retrieved 2020-10-28.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Aleksi Kolehmainen. "Solita kierrätti johtajiaan ja pani rakenteensa uusiksi". Tivi. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Ari Karkimo. "Solitan uusi maajohtaja aloitti 22 vuotta sitten ohjelmistokehittäjänä". Kauppalehti. Retrieved 2021-05-26.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 TIVI. "Solita perusti terveysyksikön". Tivi. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Jutta Sibakov. "Koronavilkun kehittämiseen on kulunut 6 miljoonan budjetista vain alle miljoona – Sovelluskehitys oli huomattavasti edullisempaa kuin muissa maissa". Talouselämä (in suomi). Retrieved 2020-10-07.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Tamperelaisen Solitan kehittämälle Koronavilkku-sovellukselle tavoitellaan miljoonaa käyttäjää kuukaudessa – käyttö ei vaadi henkilötietoja". www.aamulehti.fi. 10 August 2020. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Olli Herrala. "Kaikki eivät pyri pörssiin - Tämä yhtiö harkitsi pitkään ja päätti pysyä poissa". Kauppalehti. Retrieved 2020-10-06.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Emma Kauppi. "Vuoden ohjelmistoyrittäjä on Solitan Heikki Halme". Tivi. Retrieved 2020-10-06.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Olli Herrala. "Vauhdikkaasti kasvava Solita aikoo listautua". Kauppalehti. Retrieved 2020-10-06.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Kolehmainen, Aleksi. "Solitan perustaja pani firman lihoiksi". Tivi (in suomi). Retrieved 2021-07-13.
  11. ↑ "Solitan johtaminen Niskan harteille". Ilta-Sanomat (in suomi). 2009-01-13. Retrieved 2021-07-13.
  12. ↑ "Sata it-vaikuttajaa 2013". Tivi. Retrieved 2016-02-08.
  13. ↑ TIVI. "Tässä ovat 100 it-vaikuttajaa 2019". Tivi. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
  14. ↑ "TOP 30: Tässä ovat Suomen parhaat työpaikat 2013". Ilta-Sanomat. 2013-02-15. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
  15. ↑ "GPTW". pp. Suomen parhaat työpaikat 2014. Retrieved 2015-03-02.
  16. ↑ "Tässä ovat Suomen parhaat työpaikat – katso onko oma työnantajasi listalla". Ilta-Sanomat. 2015-02-06. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
  17. ↑ "Solita Oy perustaa toimipisteen Ouluun, töitä 50 henkilölle". Kaleva.fi. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
  18. ↑ M&M. "Solita perustaa uuden yksikön kehittämään palvelu- ja käyttökokemusta". M&M. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
  19. ↑ "It-firma kovassa kasvussa - henkilöstö +26 %, liikevaihto +35 %". Tivi. Talentum. 2016-02-01. Retrieved 2020-10-06.
  20. ↑ "Tämäkin on Suomi: Yritykseen 100 uutta työpaikkaa, liikevaihto +35 %, käyttökate +43 %". Talouselämä. Retrieved 2016-02-08.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 "Solita myytiin ulkomaille". Tivi. Retrieved 2020-07-02.
  22. ↑ Ville Perttula. "Solita laittoi tunnetta peliin brändiuudistuksessa – "Ilmeen pitää vastata sisäistä paloa"". M&M. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
  23. ↑ Piritta Palokangas. "Oman talon sisällä työskentelevän henkilöstövalmentajan kanssa voi puhua melkein mistä vain:"Usein tuntuu, että työpöydällä on koko elämä"". M&M. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
  24. ↑ "Tarja Kivistö keksi uudenlaisen ammatin: Nyt johtajat ja alaiset käyvät hänen työhuoneessaan purkamassa huoliaan työstä ja yksityiselämästä". Helsingin Sanomat. 2019-05-19. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
  25. ↑ Ylä-Anttila, Aleksi. ""Yritykset ymmärtävät jo hallussaan olevan datan potentiaalin"– DNA ja Solita aloittavat IoT-yhteistyön". Kauppalehti (in suomi). Retrieved 2021-07-13.
  26. ↑ - (2018-09-10). "Amazonin koneoppimistunnustus Solitalle". Uusi teknologia. Retrieved 2020-10-28.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  27. ↑ Tanja Piha. "Solitan Petronella Postin mukaan monen suomalaisyrityksen suurin virhe Ruotsissa on se, ettei maiden eroja tunnisteta". M&M. Retrieved 2020-10-28.
  28. ↑ "Solita ostaa ruotsalaisen it-talon ja laajenee samalla Tanskaan ja Belgiaan". Kauppalehti. Retrieved 2020-07-02.
  29. ↑ "Kuukauden tavoite rikki alle vuorokaudessa: Koronavilkku-sovelluksella jo yli miljoona latausta!". www.iltalehti.fi. Retrieved 2020-10-28.
  30. ↑ "Koronavilkulla yli kaksi miljoonaa latausta – 218 ilmoittanut tartunnasta". Ilta-Sanomat. 2020-09-16. Retrieved 2020-10-28.
  31. ↑ Samuli Leppälä. "Jumiutuvat hissit kuriin tekoälyllä – "Dataa ei kerätä vain käppyrään"". Tivi. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
  32. ↑ Aleksi Ylä-Anttila. "Lahjoita puhetta -kampanjassa kerätään tekoälyä varten 10 000 tuntia suomenkielistä puhetta". Tivi. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
  33. ↑ "Solita appointed a new Swedish boss: Johan Thyblad". Tek Deeps. 2021-01-14. Retrieved 2021-05-26.
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 "Solita - technology, strategy and design company". Solita. Retrieved 2020-10-28.

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