As digitalization continues to progress, businesses’ IT requirements have evolved significantly. Beyond ensuring system functionality, there is a growing need for a partner who can develop solutions with agility and respond swiftly to dynamic challenges. Our continuous services are designed to meet these needs.
The core of our continuous services is straightforward: our clients focus on their core business while we ensure the functionality, development, and security of their systems.
Customer Feedback as the Foundation of Improvement
Since the beginning of 2024, we have actively developed our support services based on customer feedback. This invaluable input has helped us identify critical areas for improvement. As a result, we’ve developed a more customer-oriented service model that adapts effectively to our clients’ changing needs.
The Three Pillars of Our Continuous Services
Service Desk: Rapid, effective responses to incidents, service requests, and change requests.
Development and Maintenance Services: Tailoring and improving systems based on client-specific requirements.
Technical Maintenance: Ensuring uninterrupted system functionality, and up-to-date security and updates.
Service Management integrates these pillars seamlessly. Through regular meetings, we engage with our clients to review their needs, discuss development opportunities, plan new projects, and assess Service Level Agreements (SLAs). This proactive approach ensures we stay aligned with customer expectations.
Delivering Efficient Support and Seamless Services
Our continuous services provide a reliable point of contact for all needs, whether resolving technical issues or offering quick consultations. By prioritizing service availability and process efficiency, we deliver prompt support, even during high-demand periods.
Our approach is grounded in continuous learning and proactive development. We aim to deliver services that not only support our clients’ long-term goals but also adapt to their evolving requirements. By systematically developing our services, we can meet future challenges today.
I’m Joel Ollikainen, and I work as a procurement consultant at SC Software, working remotely from Lahti. By education, I’m a Bachelor of Business Administration from LAB University of Applied Sciences. I’ve worked in the IT industry throughout my entire professional career.
My first IT job was at a company smaller than SC, where I got the opportunity to try almost all roles in the field. As a jack of all trades, I got to work in sales, training, customer support, testing, and software design and localization. This gave me quite a comprehensive picture of the opportunities available in the IT industry. It was great to try my wings in different roles and find my own strengths, which I still get to work with today working as a consultant.
Business acquisition opened the door to SC Software
I ended up at SC Software through a rather unusual route. The business I was working with before had caught SC’s interest, and I was “sold” to SC in August 2022 as part of a business acquisition. Of course, I was asked already in early summer during the initial stages of the business negotiations if I would be interested in moving to SC with the acquisition. I thought that yes, I would be interested – I had already familiarized myself with SC while doing competitor analysis for procurement software, and the company seemed interesting. During the process, I also got to know my future colleagues in meetings and SC Software’s procurement solutions. Based on these, SC seemed like an excellent career step. When I returned from summer vacation, I got a call from my then-supervisor about the completion of the business acquisition, so I gathered my virtual belongings and jumped on board with SC!
Although the IT industry was familiar to me, the practices in a larger company were more structured than in my previous workplace. However, I quickly learned the company’s ways while working. At SC, I continued working with a familiar system, got involved in designing a tendering system, and worked in support services – so I was again a bit of a jack of all trades, but my goal was always clear: I wanted to do more consulting work. I brought up my wish to do more consulting work in development discussions with my supervisor, and finally in summer ’24, a suitable opportunity arose to move to the consulting team.
Versatility as a strength – from “jack of all trades” to dream job as a consultant
Now I could say that I’ve found the framework for my job role and I’m where I want to be. I still work with the familiar procurement system, but consulting tasks are now my “main job.” What’s particularly exciting about consulting work is the diversity of tasks. I especially enjoy being able to use my creativity and come up with new solutions to problems – that gives me daily small joys and feelings of success. As cliché as it might sound, no two days are alike, and variety is refreshing, which suits someone with such an active spirit!
One of the best aspects of working at SC has been the opportunity to take on diverse responsibilities – from modernizing our service desk to integrating the acquired product line into SC’s support infrastructure and systems. It’s been rewarding to see my own professional growth and ability to transition smoothly between these different roles.
Open and welcoming work community
I like working in a company where I know everyone – SC is just the perfect size for me. What makes us special is our flat organizational structure and open culture. It speaks volumes that you can have casual conversations with our CEO as easily as with your closest colleague. I think we have a great work community here and I’m surrounded by fantastic colleagues.
All in all, I’m satisfied with my career path at SC. I’m looking forward to what the future brings – while looking forward to the Christmas party!
Project manager Mari Torkko at SC Software reflects on how to jump on the bandwagon of digitalization with industry-specific software products.
“Digitalization has been discussed for quite some time. However, I argue that in many organizations, we still too often find ourselves in a situation where applications are attempted to be implemented according to existing processes – what could be called more digitization than digitalization.”
Are you digitizing or digitalizing?
“If you search for a definition of digitalization on a search engine, you will surely find various explanations for the term. In short, digitization happens when an old way of doing things is transferred as it is into digital form. Digitalization, on the other hand, means changing your own actions. That is, changing your own operations to extract maximum value from the application you have acquired.”
“Digitalization means changing your own actions.”
Mari Torkko, Project Manager, SC Software
“So, actual digitalization happens only when processes are adapted to the model provided by digital tools to achieve added value, such as better efficiency. Technological development is the driver of digitalization – for example, instead of a customer sending emails to customer service and inquiring about their matter multiple times, a digital service portal enables secure communication and tracking of the process. This way, customer service avoids unnecessary service request overload, and customers receive better and faster service.”
The illusion of uniqueness can lead to resource wastage
“In the field of trade unions, where my own background lies, there has often been a tendency to develop custom applications. Based on my experience, the underlying reason is often the ‘illusion of uniqueness,’ where organizations imagine their own operations to be so exceptional that no suitable system can be found on the market. As a result, digitizing their existing processes is often chosen over jumping on the bandwagon of digitalization.”
“Although organizations in the same sector may differ in their processes, the question ultimately is whether the implementation of yet another custom application is still sensible or profitable. When plagued by the illusion of uniqueness, wasting resources becomes quite likely. The development projects are financially significant investments with their defining and approval testing phases that burden the buyer organization. Of course, it must be noted that a custom application can be the best solution in situations where a suitable alternative cannot be found in the market.”
Industry-specific software products and a strategic development partner provide opportunities for genuine digitalization
“When acquiring a software product, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel; you can easily adopt a set of functions that support typical processes in your industry. The pricing of products is usually based on the number of users, so it scales for organizations of any size, with predictable costs. Additionally, products usually get vendor-provided updates, without the need of digging into your own pockets every time an update is needed.”
“Choose a strategic partner that has enough expertise and understanding of your industry.”
Mari Torkko, Project Manager, SC Software
“Many organizations are still struggling with the lack of a change culture, as well as a shortage of skills and resources in their IT projects. That’s why it’s advisable to choose a strategic partner as a solution supplier who has enough expertise and understanding of your industry. Such a partner can support the development of your processes. You can then trust that with the help of a partner, you are among the digitalization pioneers, implementing the best practices of your industry.”
“Is the time ripe for digitalization and industry-specific software products?”
Digitization is expected to be a solution to the tightening productivity expectations of business in all industries. Business systems are expected to have high performance, information security and usability, a flexible development project and implementation, but at a moderate cost.
Although progress is constantly taking place, the experiences of many IT buyers are still typical: ready-made SaaS products do not meet their needs, and the price and schedule of traditional software development projects are constantly stretched beyond the original estimates. Visibility into the development work is non-existent, which leads to expensive changes after the system is implemented. In addition, the quality of the end result is often disappointing for the customer.
Codelessness is rising – does it solve the problems of software development?
One of the emerging trends in software production is the Rapid Application Development (RAD) approach, which includes no-code or low-code application development platforms. With them, software is built with visual elements instead of writing code. Codeless methods are developing and maturing at a fast pace; a few years ago, e.g. Gartner talked about High Productivity Application Platform services (hpaPaas). However in their 2023 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms report, Gartner updated the terminology, now talking about “Enterprise Low-Code platforms”.
Low-code/no-code platforms aim for rapid development and implementation of tailor-made applications. They do it by increasing the abstraction level of development and minimizing the amount of programming work. The platforms also aim to improve the fittingness of the final result by letting users build their applications themselves, without the intervention of a software company.
While completely code-free platforms are often aimed at citizen developers with no programming skills, low-code tools that require more technical knowledge are usually intended for professional use. On these enterprise low-code platforms, application code is generated, for example, based on a domain-specific models (DSM). The generated application can be developed further by coding manually. The purpose is to increase the productivity of professional developers, while giving freedom for wider customization of applications.
No-code/low-code platforms have also received criticism. Especially on no-code platforms, manual editing of the code is often very limited. That’s why they are mostly suitable for creating simple applications. The templates offered by the platforms cover the most common business processes, but they do not adapt to more versatile workflows, integrations or analytics. Platforms that often promise extreme speed and ease also often require more technical know-how than their marketing suggests.
Low-code and no-code platforms thus eliminate many problems of traditional software development by making it more intuitive, bringing in business experts as application builders and reducing the amount of programming. However, due to the shortcomings of the platforms, it is still common to implement more demanding business solutions together with professional software suppliers. However, the supplier can use enterprise low-code platforms successfully in their own operations, making its benefits available to the customer as well.
Automation and manual coding seamlessly combined in SC Software’s application production
Both traditional and codeless application development methods have their own pros and cons. At SC Software, we have approached the problem by choosing the best aspects of both ways and developing our own SoulGen software production platform around them. When the customer wants a certain kind of system, we model its information content, and generate a basic application based on that model. In the modeling, we use our self-defined domain-specific language (DSL), to which we have selected common application structures and functionalities that are found in all our systems. We proceed to develop the generated application manually according to the customer’s needs. Automating too far would take the end result further away from the customer’s needs.
Our SoulGen platform is comparable to enterprise low-code platforms, but instead of selling user licenses, we use it to increase our own productivity when building software. In this way, we standardize and speed up our software deliveries, which is reflected in the high quality of the solutions and in the holding project schedule and budget. At the same time, we are able to function as a comprehensive development partner that takes care of the systems’ information security, functionality, maintenance, environments and other technical stuff that customers usually don’t want to spend their time on.
A working application is generated from the model, and the development proceeds by coding manually.
It is easy to think of our technology only in terms of producing new tailor-made applications, but in practice it also works well for the renewal of legacy systems (see the project we delivered to Industrial Union), the implementation of large mission-critical systems, the expansion of existing systems or the rapid deployment of product innovations and go-to-market. In this way, we are able to have an agile operating model, where all these services belong to our offering.
The platform tackles the changing digital needs of organizations – now and in the future
Laura Fadjukoff’s diploma thesis – made in collaboration with SC Software – compared the effectiveness of domain-specific modeling and traditional programming in application development. As a result of the case study, it was found that generating an application from a model took up to 80% less total time compared to programming a similar application by hand. According to the study, working time was saved especially in creating the database, programming the application logic and editing the user interface. Although the study discussed just one case example, which as such cannot be generalized to every project, its results nevertheless give some indication of the time savings produced by our technology.
However, our own philosophy is not based on the pursuit of extreme speed, but on meeting the customer’s needs within the given limits. Our technology enables a larger part of the project budget to be used for so-called “higher value work” instead of routine coding, meaning e.g. refined processes and usability, extended device support or better reporting tools. In addition to saving time, we have also found other advantages of utilizing our platform:
We are able to make a more accurate estimate of the time and resources needed for a project. Therefore the budget and schedule estimates we give to our customers are correct in almost all of our deliveries.
Customers understands the application better when they see the visual model and the base application generated from it. Specifications can be refined at an early stage, which reduces the need for future fixes.
The code is always consistent and of high quality, as it has been tested in all our delivery projects. In addition, we are constantly developing the platform further.
We develop the delivered systems further with the same technology, and changes are quick to implement by editing the model.
The generated application is a standard system following a usual multitier architecture, which can be further developed using traditional methods. This way the customer avoids vendor lock-in.
Our SoulGen platform also offers many future possibilities. The operation of organizations requires more and more information-based decision making; therefore the critical data must be possible to combine, analyze, share, enrich and cleanse. We have recognized our technological capabilities to e.g. implement ready-made API interfaces and create customized masterdata management solutions, as well as various BI data warehouses and their user interfaces. In addition to the digitalization of core business processes, our technology supports the utilization of core data for different purposes – across system boundaries.
Customer satisfaction is pivotal
As said, all application development methods have their pros and cons. With SoulGen technology, we aim to reduce the bottlenecks of traditional and codeless methods, but even our platform is not suitable for the creation of any kind of application. Competent software developers are still a key asset for the development of our solutions as well as our own technology. Numerous successful deliveries and the positive feedback from our customers encourage us to move forward on this path. Technology is a tool for us, but our customers’ satisfaction is the most important measure of success.
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