It’s common knowledge that for a business to survive, let alone thrive, it must adapt to change.

Vapo Oy, one of Finland’s leading energy suppliers, is taking a head-on approach to evolving its practices to deal with change. Between critical factors of sustainability, climate change, government regulations and the ever-changing technology landscape, Vapo must stay on top of these issues and evolve accordingly.

In order to facilitate new practices and more efficient solutions, Vapo partnered with our company, Enfo Group, a full-service solution provider and IBM Business Partner.

The need to adapt to climate change

February is usually Finland’s coldest month, with temperatures averaging from -22° to -3°C (-7.6° to 26.6°F). For the communities Vapo serves, having reliable heat is critical, especially in Lapland where winter temperatures can drop to a staggering -50°C.

How can AI revolutionize your decision-making?

One of Finland’s main fuel sources is peat, a naturally occurring deposit resembling soil and comprised mostly of decaying organic material. Working with us, Vapo has begun to see the benefits of a more sustainable business model by changing how they utilize peat.

As of 2019, the Finnish government has enacted stronger environmental laws to combat the climate crisis. To shrink its carbon footprint, Vapo is looking to use peat even after it has been burned by turning it into activated charcoal. It can use this new material for both air and water purification, which in turn provides numerous benefits to its business, the environment and adhering to government regulations.

The future of energy is a sustainable business model

Our relationship with Vapo was established to help meet its long-term business goals, and that is the reason for using IBM Planning Analytics powered by TM1 to the solution. We were able to build an entire sales and planning environment based on ever-changing customer needs, as well as solution ops for Vapo’s different businesses that feed their planning models. Because of this, they are able to move from a legacy model to a sustainability model.

The results? Planning Analytics has reduced the complexity of the old models. This new model has already had an immediate impact on daily processes. In fact, as of 2019, Vapo was able to cut its processes by 50 percent.

Another immediate benefit of Planning Analytics is that Vapo can build a capable analytics console with powerful visual aspects that its artificial intelligence (AI) team can utilize. As a full-service solution partner, we will help in those decisions for the future of the business.

Supporting client journeys to AI and better decisions

IBM Planning Analytics powered by TM1 is an integrated planning solution designed to promote collaboration across the organization and help keep pace with the speed of modern business. With a powerful calculation engine, this enterprise performance management solution helps users move beyond the limits of spreadsheets, automating the planning process to drive faster, more accurate results.

Enfo’s more than 100 employees provide services based on IBM services and solutions. An IBM Business Partner for more than a decade, our commitment to service excellence, skills development and customer satisfaction helped us achieve IBM Gold Business Partner status. We also achieved Expert-level competency in Cloud Integration and Development. Expert is a designation identifying business partners with the deepest capabilities and the highest competency levels.

A fruitful partnership for sustainability and AI

By partnering with Enfo, Vapo can use data and AI to help create a new business model driving profitability through sustainability. Through the partnership, Vapo is well-positioned to add AI capabilities like decision optimization for predictive analytics.

To put it simply, AI alone cannot save the world, but it can help predict the future; and it can create change by empowering organizations to react faster and make great decisions.

Watch executives from Vapo Oy and Enfo discuss technology for a more sustainable future: