It’s common knowledge that if any business is going to survive, let alone thrive, they must adapt to change. The energy industry in particular has always been at the forefront of evolving its practices for a multitude of reasons. Vapo Oy is one of Finland’s leading energy suppliers, and they are taking a head-on approach to how they deal with change. Between critical factors of sustainability, climate change, government regulations, and the ever-changing landscape of technology, Vapo must stay on top of these issues and evolve accordingly. In order to facilitate new practices and more efficient solutions, they partnered with our company Enfo Group, a full-service solutions provider and IBM business partner.

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The need to change for the climate

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

One of the main fuel sources used in Finland is peat, a naturally occurring deposit resembling soil and mostly comprised of decaying organic material. Working with us, they have 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 their carbon footprint, Vapo is looking to use peat even after it has been burned. By turning it into activated charcoal, they can use this new material for both air and water purification. Which in turn, provides numerous benefits their business, the environment, and adhering to government regulations.

The future of the energy industry

Our relationship with Vapo was established to help meet their long-term business goals, and that is why they began using IBM Planning Analytics powered by TM1. Thanks to the solution, we were able is able to build an entire sales and planning environment based around ever-changing customer needs, along with solution ops for Vapo’s different types of business 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 their old models in use. This new model has already had an immediate impact on their daily processes, as of 2019 they were able to cut their processes by 50 percent.

Another immediate benefit of using Planning Analytics was that Vapo is able to build a capable analytics console with powerful visual aspects that they can utilize for their endeavors with their AI team. As a full-service solutions partner, Enfo will help in those decisions for the future of the business.

Supporting our clients’ journey to AI

IBM Planning Analytics, powered by IBM 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 provides services based on IBM services and solutions with over 100 employees. We are a longstanding IBM Business Partner for more than a decade. With commitment to service excellence, skills development, and customer satisfaction we have achieved an IBM Gold Business Partner status. We were also awarded Expert level competency in Cloud Integration and Development. Expert is a designation for a Competency identifying Business Partners who have the deepest level of capabilities and are identified as being the most competent.

By partnering with Enfo, Vapo can use data and AI to help reach their goals to create a new business model driving profitability through sustainability. Through their 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 predict the future; and it can create change by helping organizations react faster to make great decisions.

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Learn how to integrate AI throughout your business