Vincit Talks: is Finland a digital pioneer or lagging behind?

In the first season of the Vincit Talks vodcast, female leaders in the IT industry will talk about important topics affecting organizations. Listen in to get insights, inspiration, and tips for developing and renewing the IT industry.

In our second Vincit Talks episode this year, our Business Director Henna Niiranen talked with the Managing Director of Microsoft Finland, Mervi Airaksinen, to discuss the digitalization of Finnish businesses.

How is Finland positioned?

The main question was is Finland a tech pioneer or trailing behind others? According to Mervi, Finland is well positioned because the country is tech-oriented – about 7 percent of the population works in digitalization, whereas the European Union average is 3.9 percent.

Discussing AI was also on the agenda. When looking at the AI index, Finland is number 10 in the world. This puts the country behind the United States, China, and Korea. But in Europe, Finland is only behind Germany when it comes to AI.

Mervi thinks that Finland is very pragmatic about using AI and can take advantage of this technology because the country has skilled programmers and a lot of the needed tech infrastructure already in place.

What sectors does Finland lead in?

Henna then asked where Finland is a pioneer. Mervi doesn’t see one industry in particular where Finland leads. Instead, there are leaders across a wide range of industries including energy, retail, finance, and the public sector.

Mervi also sees an advantage for large companies in Finland as they have the resources to invest in and thoroughly explore new technologies like AI. But that doesn’t mean that smaller companies also can’t thrive in this space as they have more agility to implement new technologies.

Watch the interview to learn more! 👇