Strategic IT partnership empowers 3stepIT to focus on customer value

If you do business in the Nordics, it’s not unlikely that 3stepIT is somehow involved in managing your IT assets and devices. But it wasn’t always like that. Our established long-standing partnership showcases Capgemini’s broad capability to provide strategic and technological expertise on several fronts, which enables the customer to focus on their top business priorities and to scale internationally.

Impact in a nutshell

• Overall improved ability to focus on generating business value
• Infrastructure services have solidified technological foundations
• Automation solutions have reduced manual work in Finland and abroad
• Localized services have improved client intimacy and support quality
• Capgemini’s global presence supports future expansion to new markets

Background

In 2019, 3stepIT signed a strategic partnership with BNP Paribas to extend its IT management solutions across corporate Europe, where it operates as BNP Paribas 3 Step IT.

Since we began working with 3stepIT in 2019, our primary objective has been to provide valuable strategic and technological expertise to help the Finnish company prosper in the home market and abroad. This has allowed the customer to free their hands from secondary priorities and focus on what they do best.

Sami Rintakumpu

Director, Information Technology Operations, 3stepIT

“Capgemini has brought structural clarity to our IT work and allowed us to focus on our core business enabling operations by covering selected parts of the whole.”

Combination of strategic thinking and technological expertise

No single bright insight or technological solution can secure long-term success. This case is no exception. The growth and 3stepIT’s current state are a sum of smart choices that have built knowledge and helped them to deliver customer value more efficiently.

Key contributors in growing from a local player to an internationally trusted partner in IT lifecycle management have included infrastructure services, service desk, robotic process automation (RPA) and other strategic advisory services for 3stepIT.

“It wouldn’t be smart for us to run everything on our own. The extra hands give us time and focus, and Capgemini’s thinking and collective knowledge are also highly valuable to our business.”

– Sami Rintakumpu, Director, Information Technology Operations, 3stepIT

“Our partnership with 3stepIT is a small-scale representation of Capgemini’s abilities as a transformation partner, able to cover strategy, technology, and ways of working.”

– Mika Tuohimetsä,  Head of Cloud Infrastructure Services, Capgemini Finland

Managing a reliable and scalable infrastructure

The backbone of our partnership – and any digital initiative, for that matter – is a solid foundation to build on. As a key component of this cooperation, the customer trusts us to run the infrastructure and guide related technological decisions. Having a well-organized setup, starting from infrastructure, adds coherence to everything that 3stepIT does on a daily basis.

“It’s not enough that applications and services scale if the underlying infrastructure cannot handle growing pressure or conform to increasing complexity. Our job has been to secure that the foundations don’t become an obstacle.”

– Mika Tuohimetsä,  Head of Cloud Infrastructure Services, Capgemini Finland

Localizing functions including the service desk

Most of our customers find value in our Global Delivery Model, which combines nearshore and offshore to achieve the optimal service delivery balance. With 3stepIT, we saw that bringing certain support services back would yield higher client intimacy and support quality.

The first achievement was service desk localization from nearshore back to Finland. Previously offshore Infrastructure Management services followed more recently. Both moves have contributed to more centralized operations and improved service, removing concerns that could otherwise distract 3stepIT from their top priorities.

From what we see, private and public organizations in Finland have increasing interest toward combining the best possible delivery model, which often includes elements of local, nearshore, and offshore services. Our cooperation proves that shifts in the model can be achieved with unnoticeable disruption and measurable returns.

Finding efficiencies through Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Another central element in our cooperation is robotic process automation. We help 3stepIT automate predictable and repetitive tasks for information workers across the organization.

This includes creating, testing, and implementing automations, resolving issues, and making sure that automations function as intended also when surrounding systems or processes change. Automations are mainly built using originally Finnish providers’ solutions that focus on open-source technology and are considered by many companies moving from manual IT tasks towards RPA.

Juhani Rajala

CIO at 3stepIT

“Sogeti’s automation expertise has made a big difference in our capability to build automations and to understand the possibilities of what challenges RPA can solve in our context in the first place. The work has helped us to make smart technological choices and to reduce time spent on manual tasks that we can handle better with automation.” 

“I am really pleased with the trust that we have received from 3stepIT in automation topics. Even though their preferred process automation technology has been changing during our years together, we have been to support them with automation development, migration to the new automation tool, and daily maintenance and operations.”

– Jaakko Lehtinen, Automation and Technology Director at Sogeti Finland

3stepIT is a pioneer in sustainability, having built business around circularity already before it became mainstream. At Capgemini, we see process automation as one way to advance sustainability in the form of reduced IT-related energy consumption and emissions.

Benefits & impact

Over the years, our work has made a difference through single achievements, but also in the bigger picture, enabling 3stepIT to do what they do best. Some of the most noticeable successes include:

• Overall improved ability to focus on generating business value
• Infrastructure services have solidified technological foundations
• Automation technology and expertise have reduced manual work
• Localized services have improved client intimacy
• Capgemini’s European and global presence supports internationalization

“Capgemini’s European footprint was one of the reasons to work with them. We are expanding outside of the Nordics, so their presence is very helpful as it enables us to use local competence before building our own team in a new country. Without them, we would need multiple partners to cover what Capgemini does.”

– Sami Rintakumpu, Director, Information Technology Operations, 3stepIT

Experiences from working with Capgemini Finland

It has been a journey full of learnings, and we look forward to delivering more business-critical solutions as 3stepIT continues their path as a leading IT lifecycle management company. Here’s how the customer views our role in the progress and achievements so far:

Juhani Rajala

CIO at 3stepIT

“Capgemini is a strategic partner that can suggest and execute the right things, which frees our resources to business enabling activities . We conduct the orchestra, and they help us produce the music, so to speak. The cooperation saves us a lot of time and effort.”

Sami Rintakumpu

Director, Information Technology Operations, 3stepIT

“We have been positively surprised by how nimble both Capgemini and Sogeti are to work with. Their active approach keeps us moving forward, and it’s impressive how such a large global vendor can be so adaptive locally, too. Capgemini’s network with other partners like Microsoft also brings additional possibilities and helps maintain smooth collaboration with other third parties in a multi-vendor environment.”

Get in touch

Are you spending too much time covering corners of IT that don’t generate direct business value? Looking for a local partner with strong global muscle to hold your hand on the growth path

We’re happy to help you find and deliver the ideas and solutions needed to get you where you want to be. Send a message – let’s start by getting to know each other.

Sohvi Puro

Client Manager at Capgemini Finland

“From our point of view, 3stepIT is the epitome of a small Finnish startup that has grown into a world-class, multinational success story. Being able to support such a transformation is exciting and humbling.”