Press Release: A Finnish Company That Achieved 42% Record Growth in an IT Industry Downturn Rebrands as Norrin
The company, which recorded nearly €20 million in revenue and a profitable 42% organic growth, is changing its name and positioning itself as an enabler of AI technology adoption.
Founded in 2012, Cloud1 Oy is now Norrin. The rebranding reflects a shift in the IT consulting landscape and addresses practical challenges related to international expansion and differentiation.
“There are numerous businesses both globally and in Finland with names based on the word ‘Cloud’. This created various everyday problems with standing out. For example, we couldn’t register a usable international domain for our website,” says Seppo Kuula, CEO of Norrin Oy.
With the new name, Norrin positions itself as an enabler of AI technology.
“In the era of AI, the value creation capacity of IT companies increasingly relies on developing customer capabilities. This must now extend throughout organizations—from top leadership to all staff. Our technological expertise doesn’t disappear with a name change; on the contrary, it enables our value creation.”
“AI is not just an upgrade to digitalization—it's an enabler of an organizational productivity leap. Productivity gains come from augmenting knowledge workers' capabilities and long-awaited true automation in data processing. Productivity always cuts across the entire company, requiring interdisciplinary approaches,” says Kuula.
Record Growth Amid Industry Transformation
Norrin accelerated to a profitable 42% growth last year.
The company’s revenue reached €19.2 million. The pro forma figures include the entire group, now composed of Cloud1, Devisioona, and Smartbi after two acquisitions.
Norrin’s growth last year signals that the AI revolution demands a new perspective from IT consultants on business, productivity, and organizational development.
“We made the right choices in developing our clients' data-driven AI readiness. We made successful acquisitions—Smartbi brought deep AI expertise, and Devisioona contributed AI-supported user interface capabilities to our group.”
Nordic AI Adoption Still Cautious
The root causes of delays in AI agent deployment and broader business transformation, according to Kuula, lie in the gap between executive leadership and IT departments.
“What companies in Finland and the Nordics expect from AI consultants is specifically the design of AI-driven business—not traditional technical implementation.”
Kuula refers to a recent Microsoft Work Trend Index report showing that Finnish companies are lagging in AI agent adoption.
He explains that the public breakthrough of generative AI, driven by fear, created a massive need among business leaders for rapid experiments and pilots. IT consultants have tried to meet this demand with ideas and solutions.
“Oversized performance expectations from top management fall onto CIOs and IT units, which then seek technical consulting and run a pilot. Results disappoint, the next experiment is shelved, or everyone waits for a silver bullet,” Kuula says of the core issues in AI development.
“This old-world process doesn’t yield results in the age of AI agents. That time has passed—it worked for improving app usability. An AI agent is not just another application.”
“The era of learning agents demands a complete organizational commitment to transformation, where users no longer distinguish between analytics, applications, or automation. Development must start from optimizing how work is done in an AI-era context. The technology for this journey is ready.”
IT Consulting Also Needs Reflection
Kuula adds that the productivity leap enabled by AI cannot be achieved using old-world methods. In Finland and across Europe, AI is still often seen as a mere technical upgrade.
“You can’t drive the required AI transformation by only developing IT. The business side must truly take responsibility. Increasing productivity is one of the core responsibilities of business leadership,” Kuula states.
Enterprise Intelligence Enables Transformation
Achieving results in AI development requires a new perspective, which Norrin addresses through “enterprise intelligence.”
Enterprise intelligence is built on four elements: business and process design, data usability, AI solution development, and a technology architecture and governance model that supports continuous change.
“By developing enterprise intelligence, organizations can reach a new level in AI adoption and join the accelerating competition. Last year, we demonstrated how critical this is to the impact of our work and our clients’ ability to embrace AI as a deep opportunity for business and organizational renewal.
Seppo Kuula
CEO at Norrin
+358 40 370 0032