Towards a skilled digital Finland
11 | 2023 Olli Laine, Co-founder & CEO
TiVi's Antti Leikas wrote a nice article about Kipinä and our "people first" thinking and how to achieve success (link to the article). It's great that Kipinä raises interest and that we could share our thinking in a broader way.
The topic also sparked discussion on LinkedIn, and with a great highlight from Rasmus Roiha (link to post), I was inspired to share more of my own thoughts on the digital world in general, as well as Rasmus' take on juniors vs seniors.
We believe more strongly than cliché that every company will become a digital company. And the pace of this development has accelerated dramatically in recent years and AI is only accelerating this. This means that almost all companies should do their own bespoke software development and seek a competitive advantage from there. The amount of that work will only increase in the future. For example, Helen, S Group, Kesko and Alma Media are investing heavily in recruiting their own experts.
So far, many companies have outsourced all of their software development. The same goes for the government and the public sector in general. This shouldn't be the case anymore in the big picture! This change is absolutely crucial for Finland's success. It is also evident in service companies.
We have set out to accelerate the transformation of the industry in relation to the previous point. We believe that there are still highly demanding needs that require the availability of an exceptionally experienced team, one that considers the human side of the industry and works together through shared ownership. At Kipinä, we call this approach Senior Tech Leadership,
grounded in strong experience, and we believe it brings significant value to our clients in their digital projects.
Mikael, Olli and Laura with Tivi cake
I strongly believe that as team entrepreneurs we can inspire all the companies around us to spark, accelerate and take even more ownership of their digital development. And also lower the threshold for change when they have the support of a partner with particular expertise and experience in the change process.
If all companies really invest in software development, then yes, in the big picture, it will increase job needs and open up career opportunities for juniors too.
We are also involved in almost every client project by training and transferring our expertise and the insights that come with experience to the client's own team. This is how we want to continue, sharing our knowledge with our clients, including their younger and less experienced people.
I'm really excited about this change and believe that, as a country, we have a huge opportunity here. If this happens, it will lead to even more companies investing in software development. There are many opportunities here. The world is not ready yet.