Strong, profitable growth creates a solid foundation for the future
Productivity Leap in brief
Founded in 2018, Productivity Leap Oy is a 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 30% growth per year, half of which we aim to achieve through organic growth and half through corporate acquisitions. Our profitability target is 15% (EBITA).
Productivity Leap’s main areas of business are the public sector; that is, the state, towns and cities, municipalities, joint municipal authorities and wellbeing services counties, and the in-house companies they own, and the financial sector encompassing banks and insurance companies.
Productivity Leap stands out from 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 information and 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
2020 was an exceptional year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Work practices changed when telecommuting became the new normal. Productivity Leap’s customers, like most who work in the IT sector, are used to telecommuting, and the transition to full-time telecommuting as a result of the pandemic was relatively easy. In several industries, this isn’t yet possible, and the pandemic has caused major challenges for business and running an organisation.
Productivity Leap’s customer base has not been severely affected, and only some individual projects have been moved. Our major customers in the public and private sector are mainly dispersed across several municipalities and in countries where telecommuting is often built in to the customer’s organisation as part of its operating methods, especially in IT development. We are very familiar with network-like working methods.
Productivity Leap’s staff have also become used to telecommuting. We operate in several municipalities, so meetings were held remotely even before the coronavirus pandemic. Instant messaging is used effectively for information sharing between employees and to support project implementations and customer relationships. We are in constant contact with our technology partners and other partners in cooperation. This has made it easier for us to work during the pandemic, as no real change was necessary.
Despite being the year of coronavirus, 2020 was good for Productivity Leap due to our customer base, partner network, and the nature of our employees’ work. We obtained many new customers and new, interesting projects, entered into partnership with numerous technology suppliers and integration partners, set up new branches, and hired new employees.
Strong, profitable growth creates a solid financial foundation for Productivity Leap’s future. For the 2020 financial period, the company’s turnover was €2,918,508 (+118% growth on the previous year), and the result before profit-adjusting entries and taxes (EBITA) was €450,246 or 15.4% of turnover (+641% growth on the previous year). At the end of the financial period, the company employed 29 people (52% growth on the previous year).
I would like to thank all of our customers, partners, and Leap employees for 2020. We have been able to work on fantastic projects with fantastic people in challenging conditions. 2021 has also got off to a good start. We currently have 36 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. Long-term and confidential collaborative relationships are formed with customers.
We pay particular attention to employees’ occupational wellbeing, competence development, incentives, rewards, and commitment. Operating methods and models are planned and implemented together and in an all-inclusive way.
Productivity Leap wants to be a responsible actor both socially and environmentally.
Operating environment and market outlook
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 the public and financial sectors. These are both data-intensive industries, where extensive systems form an environment that is challenging for data utilisation, processing, 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 more quickly and more 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 30% annually. In the long-term, half of this growth will be organic growth and half will come from . Growth is continuously profitable and the target is to achieve a steady 15% growth in profitability each year (EBITA).
Financial review
2020’s strong, profitable growth creates a solid financial foundation for Productivity Leap’s future. For the 2020 financial period, the company’s turnover was €2,918,508 (+118% growth on the previous year), and the result before profit-adjusting entries and taxes (EBITA) was €450,246 or 15.4% of turnover (+641% growth on the previous year).
The company’s book-to-bill at the end of the financial period was 1.58 and our order book totalled more than €10m.
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 60% of turnover.
Staff and branches
At the end of the financial period, the company employed 29 people (52% growth on the previous year). In addition to Joensuu, Productivity Leap set up branches in Kuopio, Tampere, and Turku. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Helsinki branch has not yet opened. In the long term, the company aims to grow in these regions due to 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.
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 majority of staff are male.
Share-based commitment and incentive systems
In summer 2020, Productivity Leap’s Board decided to set up a PL Share share savings programme for the entire company. The Board will decide annually on any saving periods under the programme. The first saving period was carried out in the second half of 2020 and the next is under way.
Productivity Leap distributed bonuses totalling €425,856 to its employees during the period under review.
Research and development
With support from Business Finland, Productivity Leap carried out a Fast Track Development project to produce a service concept for the seamless integration of service design and low-code implementations. The company continued to develop its ecosystem both via its own network and by participating in the Clever Health Network.
The company continually develops repeatable, scalable and automated service methods in different services areas, and uses them to achieve better and more effective collaboration with customers in all of its activities.
Impact of the coronavirus pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic has had only a limited impact on Productivity Leap’s business. Customers have already taken great advantage of telecommuting and the pandemic has not stopped any development projects. Productivity Leap’s operating principles include strong independence from time and place, which has been useful while the pandemic restrictions have been in force. Staff are used to flexibly telecommuting with customers and in some areas, this has been more effective than in-person meetings. In the long-term, however, cooperation with partners and customers will require physical presence.