The four-year ICT program DIMECC Need for Speed (N4S) shortened significantly the cycle time of program participants. The product development of certain participants speeded up even 100-250% without loss of quality. This also meant increased delivery capacity and customer satisfaction. Thanks to the program, the total sum of yearly savings of six big DIMECC shareholders (Nokia, Tieto, Ericsson, Elisa Appelsin, F-Secure, and Bittium) rise to 40,7 million euros. Because DIMECC is an open ecosystem, all companies operating in Finland are able to reach similar results.
In the N4S program, 40 leading Finnish software-intensive companies and research organizations tested real-time business models in practice. The program compiled the results and experience, forming a large-scale collection of advice and tools accessible to everyone. This N4S Treasure Chest located on the program’s website helps companies to make use of the possibilities of digitalization and advises upon post-digitalization activities. The program also published 3 guide books and a total of 268 scientific articles.
Competitive, software-intensive industry is based on utilizing continuous customer feedback and data analysis, quickly and with agility. Old and hierarchical organizational structures do not work in real-time business. Products and services are no longer developed by a single company, but more and more by networks of companies working together as so-called co-creation networks, where each company offers various pieces from both old and recently developed products, thus creating a new and more appealing supply for customers.
The efficiency of the development work of certain N4S program participants has increased up to 250%. The efficiency of infrastructure improved 50% thanks to cloud services. In addition, dependency on maintenance from outside sources decreased 50%. Changing over to software using free source code decreased expenses of licensed products by 30%.
Some participant companies of the N4S program have managed to speed up their product testing almost 500%, because manual testing is no longer necessary. The test time of the final code has shortened from a month to two weeks. In one company, their delivery capacity has accelerated – depending on the team and the product – from quartiles and weeks to a couple of days and even hours. The result is similar to the one implemented by mechanical engineering companies in the I&N program of DIMECC in 2012. It has now been proved that with the approach of DIMECC, companies can radically shorten the planning cycle from an idea to the product and to the market, regardless of the branch of industry.
“In the N4S program of DIMECC, we were really pioneering Digitalization 2.0, where the business is continuously driven to new levels of competitiveness by a rapid experimentation culture using advanced concepts including the founding of internal startups within companies”, states Janne Järvinen, the Focus Area Director of N4S program from F-Secure.
The results and instructions of N4S program: https://n4s.dimecc.com/en/treasure-chest-for-business/
Articles: https://n4s.dimecc.com/publication/
For more information:
Janne Järvinen, DIMECC N4S Program Director, F-Secure Oyj, +358 40 754 4738, janne.jarvinen@f-secure.com
Ülo Parts, EVP Operations, DIMECC Oy, +358 50 483 7311, ulo.parts@dimecc.com
DIMECC Ltd is an innovation hub for digitalizing industry in Finland, bringing together top expertise from research and industry.