Case NRC Group: Continuous Service Ensures Data Quality

NRC Group is the leading rail infrastructure operator in the Nordic countries, employing about 2,000 professionals in Finland, Sweden, and Norway. In Finland, the company is the country's largest builder of rail and tramway infrastructure as well as a maintainer of railway tracks.

Reliable data in use for business operations

Chief Information Officer Anu Asikainen is responsible for the IT infrastructure of the NRC Group's Finnish subsidiary. In Finland, a long collaboration with Cloud1 in the development of data warehousing, integration platforms, and reporting solutions has naturally evolved into a partnership for continuous services.

A key factor in the smoothness of daily operations is the reliable integration between business systems. The reportable data, which is used to manage the business, must be up-to-date and reliable. Data must transfer between different systems in a timely and uninterrupted manner. Disruptions in integrations could, at worst, affect the organization's critical operations. For example, it would be damaging if reporting data were missing, or if errors occurred in payroll calculations. IT's role is to prevent errors and increase operational reliability.

In the integration platform, disturbances can be caused by things like network outages or errors in the application interface.

– IT exists so that the daily life of the business can be as smooth as possible and so that as many things as possible are handled automatically, Anu explains. It's important that the business can trust its data; that the data is correct and the same everywhere.

In the event of a disruption, the IT organization's ongoing support service plays an important role. The service ensures that if deviations occur, they are resolved as quickly as possible.

– The sooner error situations can be detected, the better, Anu summarizes. The goal of Cloud1's continuous service is to notice challenges through automatic monitoring and respond to them before the business even becomes aware of the issue.

From Development Cooperation to a Partnership for Continuous Services

Thanks to a long-term partnership, continuous services and development work have now been integrated. Implementing maintenance and development simultaneously brings many synergistic benefits. Critical business processes and applications, as well as their characteristics, have already been learned as part of earlier project work. Resolving different error situations is faster when the environments and processes are familiar.

Understanding the root causes of problems is essential to anticipate deviations and to set automatic alerts at the right points in the process.

In addition to the smoothness of continuous services, synergistic benefits are also gained in development. Processes can be more easily accounted for when they are already familiar. Moreover, administrative time usage is efficient when both development and maintenance can be coordinated in the same meetings. This saves calendar time for both the client and the supplier

Open Dialogue is at the Core of Cooperation

Anu highlights open communication as one of the key factors in successful cooperation with Cloud1. It is important to jointly identify critical processes that require immediate response.

Feedback from the business is very important and is reviewed together with Cloud1. Open communication also works reciprocally – the partner provides valuable development suggestions and ideas for enhancing and improving operations.

When things run smoothly, the business can focus on what's most important – IT and continuous services ensure in the background that the data is of high quality and error-free.