Järvenpää Invests in Data and Automation

Järvenpää is one of the fastest-growing municipalities in Finland, and it is investing heavily in improving the efficiency of its operations and developing its information capital. Its strategic orientation includes focus areas such as knowledge management and the use of hyperautomation, which will significantly improve the efficiency of the municipality's internal work. Local residents will also benefit from smoother digital services.

Toni Pallaspuro, Chief Information and Digital Officer for the City of Järvenpää, says that the most important thing is to understand the overall architecture and harmonise the operations.

"It's natural that, as industries and service areas become independent, operations become fragmented over time. Now is the time to build shared, centralised systems and services with an integration platform as the basis for all management," Pallaspuro concludes.

The fundamental questions are how information flows, who has access to it and how problems are located. Pallaspuro points out that the municipalities’ customers are often shared between different service areas.

"The same customers build a house and enrol their children in daycare, visit museums and swimming pools, and enjoy a well-maintained urban environment. Data should be easily utilisable by services, between services areas, and in management and decision-making."

Järvenpää's and HiQ's cooperation focuses on office automation, which consists of integrations and process automation implemented using the Frends integration platform, and Ui-Path software robotics. The acquired raw data serves as a basis for knowledge management.

Järvenpää chose the Frends integration platform because it provides good visibility into the environment, supports documentation, and improves data utilisation in the most cost-effective way.

"Frends has been on the market for a long time. We were convinced by its results and the comprehensive solution combined with the visual interface," says Pallaspuro. After selecting the most suitable integration platform, the City of Järvenpää put the partnership out to tender. HiQ won the tendering twice in a row.

"HiQ is a very diverse and innovative company that does things in a different way, with high-quality results. The cooperation has been smooth from the beginning," says Pallaspuro.

Common Goals, Seamless Teamwork

Pallaspuro says that the collaboration with HiQ has been significantly expanded using agile methods in line with the scrum model.

"We started small and have increased our resources. The more we work together, the faster we get results. The most important thing is to have common goals and a control model for managing the work, so it doesn't matter whether the people involved are employed by HiQ or the City of Järvenpää."

Chief Information and Digital Officer, the City of Järvenpää

Toni Pallaspuro

Stefan Sirkiä, HiQ's Sales Manager, says he admires the courage and efficiency with which the city of Järvenpää has gone about reforming its operations.

"They are willing to try different, innovative approaches to sprints. I believe that we will create an impressive reference implementation that can inspire many municipalities or organisations with a similar organisational structure", praises Sirkiä.

Pallaspuro estimates that in many municipalities, improving automation and knowledge management will require radical developments in the operating environment in the coming years.

"Centralised solutions such as our integration platform play an important role if we want to expand the use of data, enable process automation, and improve data management on a large scale. This can increase manageability, reduce manual work, and improve the customer experience."

Pallaspuro wants to set an example of how even a medium-sized municipality can radically transform itself with the resources available.

"I have never wanted to hide behind the idea that historically, this is just the way it is. We have not yet come across anything that cannot be developed. It's more a question of resources because you have to accept that you can't develop everything at the same time."