HiQ announces today that the tech-consultancy firm appoints Janne Ahonen as the new Managing Director of Helsinki based HiQ Finland and the digital commerce specialist Lamia, that was acquired in 2021. This marks the start of an integration between the two organizations that share many synergies, bringing an even stronger offer to the local market. “I’m very happy to welcome Janne onboard and to the team! Janne’s impressive and extensive experience in the consulting industry, where he’s held multiple leading positions, will bring tremendous amounts of value to HiQ. Janne has many years of experience behind him from different management roles, a skill set that will be a great addition. Any company needs to have a sharp offer in place in this uncertain market. With Janne at the helm of HiQ Finland and Lamia, we will continue to build and develop our offering locally,” says Samuel Skott, CEO of HiQ.

Janne Ahonen has a MSc. degree in Finance from the Helsinki School of Economics and holds a long career within IT and Digital Business, with a stronghold in the Financial Services Sector. He most recently held a role as Country Manager Finland & Baltics at Atos, where he has been overseeing operations in Finland, Estonia, and Lithuania. Before that, Janne held other leading positions, such as Partner EMEIA Financial Services at Ernst & Young and a distinguished 17-year career at Accenture.

“Having worked for many years in the IT consulting industry, it’s very exciting for me to become a part of HiQ. I’ve admired HiQ for many years and have always been impressed by the high level of innovation and creativity whilst keeping at the technical forefront. I’ve kept a close eye on the development of the group over the last couple of years. The company culture really stands out, something I’m looking forward to experiencing firsthand. I also look forward to contributing with my experience and expertise and, more importantly, to join the team at the beginning of 2023,” says Janne Ahonen.

Joining HiQ, Janne Ahonen will head up HiQ Finland and Lamia and drive the integration work to further leverage the strengths and synergies of the two organizations, continue sharpening the local offerings and lead the teams in creating value for new and existing clients. The Finnish region within the HiQ Group, that consists of HiQ Finland, Lamia and integration platform Frends, is a strong one with great employees, a solid company culture and a broad client base. Jukka Rautio has held the Managing Director role for HiQ Finland and Lamia interim for a few months and will now focus solely on being the Head of HiQ’s iPaaS business Frends, where the focus is to expand and scale up the business globally.

“I’m very excited to continue my journey with HiQ with a full focus on Frends. I will always cherish the Finnish organization and the group as we enter this new era for the Finnish region. We will continue to build the powerhouse Frends is growing into and capitalize on all the capabilities we have built up in recent years. Our focus and goals remain the same: we will continue to grow our client base globally, we have recently started investing heavily in APAC, for example. At the same time, we operate globally, growing our client base worldwide. And we will always work closely with HiQ Finland and Lamia as we create a sharper offer and strive to be an even more important player in Northern Europe,” says Jukka Rautio, Head of HiQ’s Frends.

Janne Ahonen starts his new role on January 1st, 2023.

Software company Zenseact, which develops autonomous driving, needs help scaling its offering and making it easy to integrate into other car models than what is currently being used. HiQ works with Zenseact to realize the project. “The future is autonomous. We see rapid development in autonomous, and at HiQ we have broad experience in autonomous driving. Such as software solutions for trucks, buses, cars, and vehicles for the mining industry. With the software’s help, we develop both safer and more precise vehicles. With a proactive approach and always being one step ahead, it is not uncommon for a function or feature to be developed, even before requested. We are happy to work together with Zenseact to develop a safer world,” says Samuel Skott, CEO of HiQ.

Zenseact is a software company developing autonomous driving (AD) and driver assistance systems (ADAS). Zenseact envisions a world with zero vehicle collisions, which is captured by the company’s motto: Towards zero faster. Zero collisions, zero fatalities. The way to achieve that vision is by deploying the software in as many vehicles as possible.

Zenseact needs help to make its software offering scalable and easy to integrate into other car models. Zenseact’s main product, OnePilot, is the application that will ultimately run in the customer cars and perform AD/ADAS functions. HiQ helps develop the Integration Suite, a software meant for integrators and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that want to integrate OnePilot in other cars, from scratch and supporting Zenseact’s partners to integrate OnePilot in their vehicles. The Integration Suite is a complex product, touching almost all parts of OnePilot.

“I usually talk about the team from HiQ as one of our best-case scenarios when it comes to our bought services. We are very pleased with the team’s performance and that everything works quite smoothly,” says Mehrnush Ostad, Department Manager at Zenseact.

The HiQ team works cross-functionally across competence areas and geographical regions. The team handles everything from setting up hardware, hands-on testing and debugging to high-level tasks like software architecture, system analysis and optimization. Additionally, a part of the team is involved in Zenseact’s API governance group, a formal decision forum tasked with overseeing Zenseact’s public APIs.

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The Swedish Sports Confederation (Riksidrottsförbundet) needs a new website built in Sitevision. The project, related to websites for the Swedish Sports Confederation, the sports study and education organization SISU, and the 19 RF-SISU districts, is assigned to HiQ. “This assignment aligns with our continuous efforts to simplify people’s lives through digital solutions. So, we are excited to work on this project with the Swedish Sports Confederation,” says Samuel Skott, CEO of HiQ.

The Swedish Sports Confederation (Riksidrottsförbundet) needs to change its online platform and plans to build a new website in Sitevision. The contract relates to a delivery project for creating websites for the Swedish Sports Confederation, the sports study and education organization SISU and the 19 RF-SISU districts. It includes operation, support, licenses, and administration for the next five years. The Swedish Sports Confederation assigns HiQ the project.

The assignment focuses on modern technology and available solutions for editors and users. Specific requirements include content, accessibility, design, search function, interactivity, integrations, security, and performance. The contract runs until 31.12.2026.

About the Swedish Sports Confederation
The Swedish Sports Confederation (RF) is the collective organization of the Swedish sports movement, tasked with supporting, representing, leading, and coordinating the movement on common issues both nationally and internationally. The organization’s 19 RF-SISU districts have the equivalent assignment at regional and local levels. The Swedish Sports Confederation has 71 member associations for specific sports representing approximately 19,000 sports clubs and associations all over Sweden. In total, the Swedish sports movement has approximately 3.3 million members. 

HiQ announces the next step on the company’s expansion journey today. The tech consulting firm is growing in the German market as Scandio, that HiQ acquired in 2021, welcomes the consulting unit of Atlassian experts K15t. With the transaction, HiQ and Scandio establish its first presence in Stuttgart, Germany. "I’m happy to welcome the teams from K15t to HiQ and Scandio! Adding to the digitization powerhouse that Scandio is strengthens not only Scandio but also HiQ as a group. To see us expand our expertise within the Atlassian ecosystem and boost our positioning in the local market is great,” says Samuel Skott, CEO of HiQ.

It was only in May 2021 that HiQ acquired German digital transformation consultancy Scandio. With the headquarters in Munich, the company focuseson IT consulting, agile software development, and cloud technology. Scandio is an Atlassian Platinum Solution Partner, a partner to Amazon Web Services and has been appointed partner of the year several times. In addition, the company has a strong track record in growth, driven by digitization, its employees and unique culture.

Today, HiQ announces the next step on the tech consulting group’s growth journey in Germany. Scandio is acquiring part of Atlassian expert K15t. The unit includes specialists in customization of Atlassian Software and offers consulting services covering rollouts, custom app development, app and operations support, integration, and consolidation services. K15t will continue to build and deliver their successful apps for the Atlassian Marketplace, focusing on the company’s platform and the app business.

“We are happy for this unit of K15t to become part of Scandio and HiQ. It is a great opportunity for our employees to become part of a larger group with a presence in more countries and a broader business area. It enhances their opportunities to get better assignments. We will continue our great relationship with Scandio, as we always have. As a company, K15t will now be able to focus entirely on building apps for the Atlassian platform to help our customers unleash the potential of their products,” says Stefan Kleineikenscheidt, founder of K15t.

The unit of K15t being acquired has an office in Stuttgart, thus being the first Scandio office in the city. The department, consisting of 12 employees, will be fully integrated into Scandio, which grows to nearly 150 employees through the acquisition. In addition, culture-wise the companies are a great match. K15t strives to work better together by embracing a value-driven culture of openness, innovation, and empowered teams, something very aligned with HiQ Group’s value-driven culture. 

“We aim to become leading within Atlassian in the German market. This acquisition is an integral part of that goal. We are super excited to welcome these teams to Scandio today and keep our great relationship with K15t flourishing, now with a Scandio team that’s more geographically close than ever!,” say Christoph Köberle and Christian Koch, founders of Scandio.