Our Finnish subsidiary has turned 15, and is now a medium-sized company. In this rapidly evolving era of AI, IT business shakeup and general market confusion, what’s next?
Captain’s log, 2026-08-28: I am assuming the command of this vessel, Zure Finland, at a time of turbulence and thickfog, but a rising tailwind. There are 103 crew onboard, the morale is high, and we are well stocked for the voyage.
The best of times, the worst of times
The Finnish IT ecosystem has lived through some turbulent times. In my 30 years in the field, I have not seen such systematic cutbacks in IT spending, particularly in development of new systems. The job losses, the pricing pressure, the salary slump – all true phenomena, and something the field doesn’t have much experience with.
These times test our resolve, culture, and capability. The companies that have fared best typically have unity, differentiation and resilience, often gained from an agile approach to management.
It wasn’t smooth sailing for us either, but we made it through with minor bruises. Right now, all the crucial KPIs are picking up: sales pipeline and consultant utilizationare on the rise, without having had to sacrifice our roots, culture or wellbeing.
Why do I think this is relevant? Because a well-used quietmoment is a springboard into the light. The need to optimize your processes, the opportunity to use non-billable hours to polish your offering, the ingenuity unlocked by scarcity – there’s a reason why resource-poor startup culture often produces quite lean solutions.
Ready for the next era
We are simultaneously riding a massive wave of change. It started with AI, but it’s much wider now. Demand for AIforces all-over digitalization: AI yearns for curated data, needs modernized processes, requires fine-grained security – and of course, runs on modern cloud.
Organizations face questions they hadn’t heard of five years ago. Do we need to ontologize our data platform? How do we provide shared AI services and governance? Should data sharing between systems leverage AI-specific conventions like MCP? What’s our solution for monitoringagentic behavior?
Even from the perspective of somebody who has been dealing with enterprise technology for three decades, I find the current situation quite complex - and often increasingly so. What used to be a single app is now a family of solutions with interconnectivity. Login dialogs are being replaced with distributed authentication systems. Simple firewalls give way to cloud-based intrusion detection and prevention services.
Climbing ever higher
This ups the game for us: We need to become better at explaining the technology and translating the change into business value, every day.
Zure is a partner that enables our customers to do more. Achieve better productivity, unlock digital business,redirect funding from legacy maintenance to business modernization. The goal is clear: we must know the best practices, not just for the geeky bits, but also for snapping together the pieces of tech excellence, high-class deliveryand business value.
Zure is also a company that enables our employees to learn and evolve. We must be best in that as well: five years ago, nobody had the ability to offer consultancy ontoday’s problems, because the problems didn’t even exist.Now, to stay relevant in our field, a solid pace of continuous learning is table stakes. Working together, spreading information and sharing our learnings are crucial elements that must remain a consistent part of our work, despite all the pressure.
Defending these values and improving on these principles is my solemn task as the new CEO. We expect that work to provide fulfilling jobs, meaningful projects and satisfied customers. I welcome you to join the voyage.
Jouni steps into Zure Finland CEO role while founder Sakari Nahi will focus on Zure's increasing international growth as Group CEO.
