Productivity Leap’s year 2021 in figures
New customers: 10 in public administration and the financial sector
Turnover: EUR 5,487,756 (+88% growth on the previous year)
EBITA: EUR 1,189,105 (21.7% of turnover, +164% growth on the previous year)
Number of personnel at the end of the year: 47 (62% growth on the previous year)
Number of employee-owners: 25 (13 in the previous year, growth +92%)
Book-to-bill: 1.91 (1.58 in the previous year)
Order book, total: EUR 18.8 M (EUR 10 M in the previous year)
Productivity Leap in brief
Founded in 2018, Productivity Leap Ltd is a rapidly growing company providing IT consulting services. We offer our customers end-to-end services from project management, specifications, design and deployment to testing, support, and training.
We are extensively networked and utilise our network to find the best solution for each customer’s needs with regard to both team and technological architecture. Our partners are technology suppliers and other consulting service providers. We work flexibly within the network, as main contractors, subcontractors, and as part of a group.
We aim at least 30% growth per year, half of which we aim to achieve through organic growth and half through corporate acquisitions. Our profitability target is at least 15% (EBITA).
Productivity Leap’s main areas of business are public administration and the financial sector. Our public administration customers include the state, towns and cities, municipalities, joint municipal authorities and wellbeing services counties, and the in-house companies they own. Customers in the financial sector comprise banks and insurance companies as well as the authorities and other actors that steer them.
Productivity Leap stands out from its competitors with its comprehensive approach to projects, agile operations that meet the customer’s needs and consider the customer’s operating methods, utilisation of the latest technology and practices, and an innovative corporate culture of continuous development, growth, and learning.
Our main services are knowledge management, data warehousing, reporting and predictive analytics services, low-code services, integrations and robotics services, and related consulting and project management.
CEO's review
For Productivity Leap, the year 2021 was successful on all indicators. We had the opportunity to participate extensively in various projects with our public administration and private sector customers. There was a robust increase in the number of personnel, and we were able to grow profitably.
With regard to integration services, we continued the development of the rapidly growing Broman Group’s integrations jointly with the customer. The primary target of the integration services projects was the traffic between Broman Group’s automated warehouse control and ERP systems. Understanding and describing the customer’s process and refining the solutions based on increased insight play major roles in the development of integrations.
With one of our partners, we won the tender for an extensive financial sector low-code project that spans several years and launches in early 2022. In the project, we are able to utilise the outcomes of the research and development carried out last year with Business Finland’s funding.
Examples of our knowledge management customer projects include the solutions developed for the upcoming wellbeing services counties, between which there are remarkable differences. Some of the counties have scattered fundamental systems with up to dozens of different customer and patient information systems as well as several personnel and financial administration systems. On the other hand, regional joint municipal authorities have been able to consolidate systems over the years.
The focus areas of knowledge management development vary notably depending on the region. We are technologically equipped to implement data compilation to data pools, data refining and conceptual modelling of data warehouses, and data reporting to end-users. In addition, we have the capacity to produce a number of solutions based on artificial intelligence, advanced analytics and machine learning.
Examples of our machine learning solutions include those implemented for the health and social services sector: the solution predicting how aged people seek regular services and the solution predicting transfers between customer segments in the Suuntima tool/Coper model. The predictions enable regions to develop their service networks, service accessibility and personnel allocation, for example.
To meet the needs of traffic monitoring, we and one of our customers jointly developed a system for observing and correcting deviations in the data generated by IoT sensors in the road network and implemented the system with a neural network. The data enables correcting errors caused by malfunctioning sensors or other problems.
Productivity Leap’s economic result in the 2021 financial period was excellent. In 2021, the company’s turnover was EUR 5,487,756 (+88% growth on the previous year), and the result before profit adjusting entries and taxes (EBITA) was EUR 1,189,105 or 21.7% of turnover (+164% growth on the previous year). The company’s order book totals EUR 18.8 M.
At the end of the financial period, the company employed 47 people (62% growth on the previous year). The strong, highly profitable growth of 2021 combined with the robust order book creates a solid financial foundation for Productivity Leap’s future.
I would like to thank all of our customers, partners, and Leap employees for 2021. Over the course of the year, we made good progress in magnificent projects with incredible people. 2022 has also got off to a good start. We currently have 49 work contracts, and our volume of orders has continued to develop strongly. We believe that this year will be just as successful as the last.
Board's review
Strategy
Productivity Leap’s goal is to be a significant actor and trailblazer in its selected service areas and customer segments. Productivity Leap aims at continuous growth in all of its areas of operation, both vertically and horizontally.
Productivity Leap’s service areas support the implementation of organisations’ digital strategies in a pragmatic way. Our operating methods apply to the entire organisation, and they help to achieve practical solutions effectively and productively. The company develops scalable, duplicable and repeatable operating methods in all of its business areas.
Productivity Leap sees flexible networking as an important part of enabling growth. Growth is a byproduct of interesting projects with both direct partners and ecosystems. In ecosystem collaboration, the company is an active player that provides collaborative parties with value in its own areas of strength. In line with its strategy, the company will continue to engage in close partnerships in selected areas with both technology suppliers and integration partners. The company forms long-term and confidential collaborative relationships with our customers.
Productivity Leap pays particular attention to its employees’ occupational wellbeing and to encouraging, rewarding and committing them while supporting the development of their competence. Operating methods and models are planned and implemented together and in an all-inclusive way.
Productivity Leap is committed to being a responsible actor both socially and environmentally.
Operating environment and market outlook
With regard to operating environment and market outlook, things are looking very good for Productivity Leap. Investments into digitalisation are particularly increasing in data-intensive industries, and the market is continually growing. The amount of resources available is often not enough to be able to grow quickly enough to meet this demand. Productivity Leap’s key areas of operation are public administration and the financial sector. Both of these are data-intensive industries, where extensive systems form an environment that is challenging for data utilisation, refining, and integration.
Productivity Leap’s operating methods and models accelerate the implementation of organisations’ digitalisation projects. This is successful thanks to operating methods that involve modelling, automation, and light and agile models, and which consider the overall architecture and tie various parts of the organisation together. Productivity Leap is able to implement projects quickly and efficiently, and to therefore aid the customer with challenging projects. Productivity Leap’s market outlook is good due to changes that are taking place in the operating environment and customers’ needs for new and more productive operating methods.
Long-term financial targets
Productivity Leap increases its turnover at least 30% annually. In the long-term, half of this growth will be organic growth and half will come from corporate acquisitions. Growth is continuously profitable and the target is to achieve a steady at least 15% growth in profitability each year (EBITA).
Financial review
Productivity Leap continued its strong and profitable growth in 2021. For the 2021 financial period, the company’s turnover was EUR 5,485,756 (+88% growth on the previous year), and the result before profit-adjusting entries and taxes (EBITA) was EUR 1,189,105 or 21.7% of turnover (+164% growth on the previous year).
The company’s book-to-bill at the end of the financial period was 1.91 and the order book exceeded EUR 18.8 M.
Customers
Productivity Leap’s customer base grew significantly during the period under review in both the public and the private sectors. Public sector customers accounted for approximately 80% of the company’s turnover during the period under review. The most significant service area was knowledge management, which accounted for approximately 60% of turnover.
Staff and branches
At the end of the financial period, the company employed 47 people (62% growth on the previous year). In the course of the year, Productivity Leap established an office in Helsinki. We now have offices in five localities: Helsinki, Joensuu, Kuopio, Tampere and Turku.
In the long term, the company aims to grow in these regions. This goal is based on customers’ locations and the nearby clusters of universities and universities of applied sciences.
Productivity Leap utilises the framework of holistic success and wellbeing management. To support this, Personal Matrix tools are used for competence development, to promote occupational wellbeing, to manage performance, and to gauge how employees are feeling.
Mood and performance are assessed weekly on a scale from 0 to 5. In 2021, the average of mood responses was 4.2 which is a very good result (goal 4.1). Employees’ estimate on their performance was, likewise, excellent, reaching an average of 4.0 (goal 3.9). In 2021, evaluation of strain was introduced in the surveys. As of August, the average value was 3.8. It is a good value, considering the company’s growth and the resulting workload on personnel.
In the autumn of 2021, we carried out a personnel survey on the company’s operating methods. The responses highlighted freedom, flexibility in time and place, low organisational level, work equipment, atmosphere, competence and salary as the most valued things.
A possible explanation for the appreciation of salary can be seen by comparing the salaries to average salaries in the industry. On average, the employees of Finland’s 250 largest IT companies earn approximately EUR 5,000 per month. In 2021, the average monthly salary of Productivity Leap’s personnel was EUR 6,243.
Productivity Leap treats its employees equally, regardless of their age, gender, ethnicity, religious beliefs, or other equivalent characteristic. Employees are distributed evenly across different age groups. The company has both experienced mentors and rising new talents. The birth years of our personnel range from the 60s to the 00s while the largest group comprises those born in the 90s. The majority of personnel are male. The proportions of women and men are 17% and 83% respectively.
Share-based commitment and incentive systems
In summer 2020, Productivity Leap’s Board decided to set up a PL Share share savings programme that enables personnel to invest 1–3% of their salary in the company’s options that are converted into shares at the end of each financial period. In 2021, we organised two savings periods as part of the programme. In the wake of the periods, the company has 25 employee-owners. The share savings programme will be continued in 2022.
Productivity Leap distributed bonuses totalling EUR 742,750 to its employees during the period under review.
Research and development
Productivity Leap participates in the Clever Health Network, which is led by the Helsinki University Hospital (HUS), and its steering group as well as in the Kuopio Health ecosystem that operates in the Kuopio region. Both ecosystems are based on productising the refining of health data jointly with university researchers and clinics in the health care districts.
The company’s objective is to develop a globally marketable, artificial intelligence-driven health technology product that enables launching the company’s internationalisation. Another goal is to provide the ecosystem’s members with added value through Productivity Leap’s IT expertise.
In 2021, we completed the business-level EHDEN OMOP certificate (Certified SME). In practice, controllers of patient data registers may receive EHDEN funding (IMI_EHDEN) for their projects and use certified partners for project implementation, that is, to combine data with the OMOP data model. The OMOP certificate is a significant enabler of health data utilisation and can also be used as a foundation for the company’s research and development activities in various ecosystem projects.
Productivity Leap engages in cooperation with various universities by commissioning student theses. In 2021, we cooperated with Tampere University and the University of Eastern Finland. The cooperation is beneficial to all parties – customers gain access to the most recent knowledge along with university connections, universities receive concrete customer projects and contacts in the business world, and students are provided with real-life problems to be examined in their theses. In 2021, three master’s theses were completed as part of the university cooperation, leading to three fresh Masters of Science joining the company.
Over the course of the year, the company continued developing repeatable, scalable and automated consultancy service methods. The focus areas of development activities were knowledge management, data warehousing, machine learning and integration services.
Management Group and Board of Directors
Kari Natunen
CEO, Member of the Board
Management Group member since 2019
Board member since 2020
Master of Science, born in 1964
Approved Board Member (ABM) degree 2021
Essential experience: Vice President, Welfare and Local Government 2016–2018 and Vice President, Business Intelligence and Information Management 2015–2016 at CGI, managerial duties of various units at Logica, WM-data and Novo Group 2000–2012 Essential positions of trust: Board member at TIEKE Finnish Information Society Development Centre 2015–2018
Jari Pekkanen
CFO and CHRO, Chair of the Board
Management Group member since 2018
Board member since 2018
Licentiate of Philosophy, Master of Social Science, born in 1964
Approved Board Member (ABM) degree 2021
Essential experience: CEO at Productivity Leap 2018–2019, Director Consulting, Business Intelligence and Information Management at CGI 2008–2018, managerial duties of various units at Logica, Wm-data and Novo Group 2000–2008
Jukka Tarkiainen
Member of the Board
Board member since 2020
Master of Science, born in 1964
Essential experience: CEO at FIUGE 2018–present, Vice President, Financial Services, Nordics at CGI 2015–2018, CEO at LTC Otso 2013–2015, CEO at eFennia 2003–2012