Ixonos Sharpens its Strategy to Become a Leader in Digital Disruption

HELSINKI, November 30, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

Ixonos's Board of Directors and management have revealed the company's strategy for 2016-2018.

     (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120911/559727 )

Ixonos will enter 2016 with a new strategy after undertaking three years of significant change to expand its offering from conventional IT services to a focus on design and development.

This transitional period required major operational changes for Ixonos and much stronger focus on sales than during the previous years. With the acquisition of Cresense in August 2015, Ixonos is now able to offer clients a unique set of user insights and deeper customer engagement.  

BUILDING TOMORROW'S EXPERIENCES  

In 2016-2018, digitalization, connectivity, mobility and IoT will continue to evolve rapidly, blurring the lines between the digital and physical world. Around the world, businesses are adapting to digital disruption, creating an increasing demand for usability and user experience.

According to industry analyst Forrester (Age of Customer, Predictions for 2016) customer-facing organizations that approach business development with design thinking and service design best practice will benefit the most from the waves of digital disruption facing every business sector in the coming years.

This is an unprecedented growth opportunity for Ixonos: organizations globally are beginning to rethink their business models and key assets to leverage disruption by developing digital technology to their advantage.

To meet this need, Ixonos is choosing to take the lead in the digital disruption market worldwide, striving to establish long-term partnerships with its key customers, addressing their underlying business drivers and delivering unique and long-term business value through new creative digital solutions and business models.

Ixonos is building a thought-leading portfolio which includes business design as well as service design. These are underpinned by Ixonos 'Friction Point' thinking which seeks to recognize both positive and negative outcomes resulting from friction in business or service design.

DISCOVER - DESIGN - DELIVER  

In 2012 strategy, Ixonos took 'Dream - Design - Deliver' as an ethos to embody the variety of the Ixonos offering, which includes services across the digital design journey, from initial concept design to the final delivery of a product or a service.

For 2016-2018, this statement of core values has been changed to 'Discover - Design - Deliver' to include the importance of gaining a deep understanding of end users around the world through research. Research then informs the definition of strategic and business goals for clients, enabling excellence in product or service experience design.  

This positions Ixonos at the meeting point of consulting, design and technology, creating unique value for a broad client base.

END-TO-END SOLUTIONS WITH REAL DIFFERENTIATION   

Ixonos introduces a new end-to-end solution (E2E) portfolio, meaning a combination of unique in-depth competences and turn-key platforms to build digital experiences with high differentiation potential and high business transformation value.

Ixonos leverages its expertise, experience and third party assets in these E2E deliveries. This approach underpins the award-winning InVenue offering, which stands alongside similarly holistic solutions:

• InVenue: combining the physical and digital user experience in retail and services 
• Video: designing and implementing solutions for distributing motion picture in new value chains 
• Smart Devices: designing, managing supply chain and creating new era of Internet of Things devices 
• IoT and Smart data: innovation and implementation of the next generation IoT solutions

RENEWED FOCUS THROUGH SELECT PRACTICE AREAS  

In 2016-2018, Ixonos will also focus on building a steady position of select industry practice areas including Industrial Internet, Media, Retail, Travel and Smart Devices, where Ixonos has well-established clientele and industry knowledge.

AN ORGANISATION NOW POISED TO LEAD  

Finally, as part of this new strategy, Ixonos has internally aligned its organization to enable efficient sales as well as agile solution creation and competence development.

The new organization is built to generate a strong drive for new business and growth and a well aligned E2E delivery capability. The new organization, which will become effective on 1 November 2015, will consist of:

• Consulting Services, focusing on user insight-driven business and service design, helping clients to build new strategies and business opportunities, enabled and enforced by disruptions facing their established industries. The unit is headed by Marko Rapeli. 
• Design takes the lead across award-winning user experience design and usability innovations, creating high value design solutions for the connected world. The unit is headed by Esa Nettamo. 
• Technology is responsible of delivering state-of-the-art technology solutions and service lifecycle management in omnichannel environments, for all platforms. The unit is headed by Niklas Penttinen. 
• New Sales, Marketing and Regions is in charge of generating new growth both among existing customers and the new prospects in chosen market segments by activating the high value E2E offering. The unit is headed by Sami Paihonen. 
• Group Services function manages all support services for the Group, including Finance, HR, Legal and IT. The unit is headed by Kristiina Simola.

Sami Paihonen is the President and CEO, and Teppo Kuisma serves as the Chief Operating Officer, as announced on July 1, 2015. Kristiina Simola serves as CFO. Consulting Services, Design and Technology units report to COO.

This reorganization has greatly improved the internal efficiency, enforcing new level of synergy and speed across the company, as well as elevating competences and capabilities to make Ixonos exceptional from competing organizations.

A global presence in key markets IS also important for the coming implementation of strategy. Ixonos has locations in Finland, US, UK and Singapore.

IXONOS PLC   

For more information, please contact:   

Sami Paihonen, President & CEO, tel. +358-50-5021111

SOURCE Ixonos Plc