Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Siili Solutions' Capital Markets Day 2024. My name is Anna Eskelinen, and I'm responsible for Siili's communications. I'm really excited to welcome you all here today as we explore the next chapter of our journey. Today, we are going to talk about how Siili is leveraging AI to drive impactful transformation for our clients and deliver value for our investors. Moving on to today's agenda, we will start with an overview of where Siili stands today. Then we will dive into the market dynamics shaping our industry, and then take you through our strategy for the future. You will also hear some concrete case examples of our work. During the presentations, you will meet several key members of our team, and of course, we will end with a Q&A session. But now I'm really happy to welcome to the stage Siili's CEO, Tomi Pienimäki.
Thank you, Anna. Good afternoon and welcome to Siili CMD. My name is Tomi and I'm the CEO of Siili. At Siili, we've always believed in one guiding principle: focus on what you can be best at. Even the name of the company, Siili, comes from Jim Collins' Hedgehog Concept, which says exactly that: that focus on what you can be best at. I assume that most of you think that our name comes from the cute animal, but no, it doesn't. It comes from the Hedgehog Concept. For almost two decades now, we have adapted and reshaped our focus to stay ahead in the competition. And now it's time to reinvent ourselves once again. And this time, we are leveraging AI to take us on the next level. And in today's session, we will go through and show you how we are doing it.
The main thing in today's session is to go through our strategy and how we are executing it. But before I get to the strategy part, let's dive in a bit on how Siili looks today and how we are positioning ourselves in the marketplace. At Siili, we turn digital opportunities into reality. Our value proposition to our clients is impact-driven, AI-powered. Impact-driven defines what we deliver, and AI-powered defines how we do it. We have three key messages to deliver for you today. First, we have a solid foundation to build on and a solid track record to build on. Second, we have a very sharp strategy, and that is leveraging our core strengths and competencies to drive transformation. And third, we have clear initiatives to enhance our operational efficiency and deliver shareholder value.
Siili is an impact-driven, AI-powered partner for creating competitive advantage for our clients, with over 1,000 experts across eight countries. International markets play a key role in our story. For instance, last year, roughly 28% of our revenue came from abroad, so outside Finland. Our key client sectors are services industry, public and finance, and automotive. Our key market regions, Finland, of course, U.K., Germany, and U.S. We have three specialized Siili companies, and each of those is focusing on what they can be best at. Supercharge is an innovation partner based in Hungary. Siili Auto is focusing on HMIs of cars, so the user interfaces of cars. VALA is a quality assurance company. The services we cover, they cover the full spectrum of digital transformation services to make an impact. We deliver end-to-end digital transformation services from exploration to ongoing maintenance.
Our comprehensive approach positions us as a trusted and strategic partner throughout our clients' transformation journey. We do all that as AI-powered to ensure the high quality and productivity gain at every stage of the process. Our client base is strong, so typically we have large and mid-size organizations with a high level of digital maturity. Our client base is diversified, and typically we have very long-lasting customer relations. ESG is something that we take seriously. We are driving sustainable, ethical, and responsible AI. In our own actions, we focus on identifying the key focus areas and have set clear targets for each of these areas. In addition to that, we are supporting our clients on their sustainability journey. Actually, that has even bigger impact.
So the indirect impact we receive through our clients has actually a bigger impact on the sustainability as a whole than our own area. Simply because our clients are large companies and organizations, and we have built several solutions for them to improve their own sustainability. And as they are big organizations, therefore the impact on sustainability is big as well. Next year is a major milestone for us. So next year marks the 20th anniversary for Siili. Two decades of innovation and profitable growth. During that time, we have listened to our clients carefully and transformed our services to be best at whatever has been relevant at that point of time for our clients. Next, let's look a bit at how we have ended up where we are today. Our growth is driven by strong organic expansion and complemented by strategic acquisitions.
Sustainable growth over 20% average annual growth overall and more than 30% average annual growth internationally, so we have a strong track record to deliver international growth. Also, during our journey, our EBITDA margins reflect steady profitability, even as we have scaled during the journey. No news to this audience that this year has been a tough market, and the market cycle has been slow, and that has, of course, impacted our growth as well as profitability, but we are responding, and our response to a slow market, in particular in Finland and particularly in the public sector, is to put more focus on growth pockets in the market and continue the efficiency actions, and in practice, that means that regional-wise, we put more focus on the U.K. as a market, and we will explain this in this session later in more detail.
And the other part where we put focus is the data and AI as a segment. And yes, it's a slow market cycle at the moment, but my key message regarding this is that the market cycles come and go, and now it's a slow market cycle, but the foundation is still the digital transformation, and that is here to stay, and that is a long-term trend, not the market cycle that is a long-term trend. And it's two different things, the long-term trend and the cycle. And as the long-term trend is clearly a growing trend, that's why we are confident that on our ability to deliver long-term value for our stakeholders. But then if we look a bit at our competitive position in the market, so we have a rather unique position based on a few things.
First, we are very industry-focused, and that differs us from, let's say, a typical peer company. The second thing that differentiates us from our typical peers is that we have now put AI at the very core of our strategy. And the third element is the full spectrum of services, and that's, of course, something that our peers provide as well, but that's the full spectrum of services then differentiates us from the very AI-focused specialist companies. And that strengthens our position among our clients, which tend to be big companies and organizations. The other groups in the slide, the global IT generalists, that, yes, they are on the slide, but we typically do not compete with them. That, yes, from time to time, but not the typical case for us. And the same applies for the business consultants.
Now, if we move on and let's shift our focus to markets where we operate. And in this section, we will explore a bit where we see the biggest opportunities in the market and look a bit at the market dynamics and how our market strategies vary and differ across different regions. First of all, the market outlook is strong, and this is, of course, based on the logic that the digital development trend is growing. Growth in the IT services market, in particular in Finland, is modest at the moment. Then, on the other hand, in the same market, so the IT services market in the U.K., the estimated growth rate is clearly faster than in Finland.
And that's why we are putting our focus more on the, as said already earlier, on the growth pockets in the market, meaning regionally U.K. as a region and data and AI, and particularly, of course, the GenAI, generative AI market and market segment. And what are the drivers behind the market growth? So three key drivers. Yes, there are others, but these are the key drivers. First, the digitalization is accelerating, and that's a long-term trend. And companies are seeking competitive advantage through digital transformation. And that's, of course, where we help them to do that. Second, there is a significant talent shortage in the market, not necessarily exactly at this moment in Finland, but again, looking at the long-term trend. And that is something that drives demand for expert partners like Siili.
Then, last but not least, of course, is the rise of AI and especially generative AI, and that is creating opportunities and further fueling the need for specialized services. And that's, of course, exactly what we provide for our clients. Then, if we look at the different regions where we operate, so we operate in a handful of regions. And here I will focus on Finland and U.K., as those are the two key markets for us. Germany is also an important market for us, but in Germany, we focus purely on delivering the user interfaces for cars. And therefore, let's say the general trends in the German market are not that relevant for us, as our focus is very sharp in the German market. And of course, on the other hand, the market trends in Finland and U.K. affect us more.
So if we look at these two markets, Finland and U.K., each of them has their own different unique dynamics. And in Finland, the market size, so the IT service market size is roughly EUR 45 billion. The market growth at the moment is somewhere between, let's say, less than 10%, somewhere between 3%-7%, varying on the various segments of IT services because it's a wide area itself. In Finland, our delivery model is local, so local delivery mainly, and complemented with a nearshore element. And of course, our position in the Finnish market is strong and established. And here, the name of the game for us is upselling to our existing client base as well as seeking growth for positioning ourselves in growing market segments and growth pockets like data and AI.
Then, if we look at the market in the U.K., the obvious difference, of course, is that the market is completely different. The size of the market is completely different, so roughly a 10 times bigger market than the market in Finland. Also, the growth rate in the IT service market is estimated to be more than 10%, so clearly faster growth than in the Finnish IT service market. In the U.K., we are leveraging our Supercharge brand. And there, of course, our position is obviously not as strong as in Finland, so there we are a challenger with a small and rising position in the market. And there, a big difference from our perspective in the U.K. market and Finnish market is our delivery model. So in the U.K. market, our delivery is purely based on nearshore. So everything we provide in the U.K. is delivered from Hungary.
That, of course, gives us a cost-efficiency benefit in the market. In the U.K., we are focusing on selected client segments, and as said there, we use our Supercharge brand. Why, of course, I don't have exact numbers and I cannot prove this, but I would, I mean, the reason why the U.K. market is growing faster than the Finnish market, and this is purely my own estimate now, that I would estimate that in the Nordics, typically we are early adopters of digital different things, and it's a modern society. Therefore, I would assume that the U.K. as a market, and I've lived there for some years, so in that sense, I have proof of that, that the U.K. as a market tends to be clearly behind in digital development, and therefore I would assume that they have digital development depth.
And that's why the market is probably growing faster than in Finland. And of course, the market cycle thing might be another thing that affects that. Then, if we look at the IT service market from a bit different perspective, so this framework describes the different kind of services provided and available in the IT service market. And particularly, this describes the different drivers the clients have for different types of services. And in this picture, the left side of the picture describes the part where a client, the driver, is typically cost or slash efficiency. And then on the right part of the picture, the driver is typically differentiation slash impact. And our ball game is the green part of the picture. And first, a brief explanation of the left part of the picture. So that's typically the basic IT services, capacity services, networks, PCs, all that.
So that's the bottom left corner of the picture, the set and standard IT services. And then the top left corner is the operational systems, ERP, CRM, etc. And the common thing for both of these is that the driver is always, or the aim is always, to try to standardize as much as possible to get the cost benefit. And then on the right side of the picture, so the green box, there the driver and the motivation is completely different. So there the driver is differentiation and competitive advantage. And that's why clients typically use tailored solutions to get that. To put it very simply, that if everybody would use SAP for all their processes, then it's quite difficult to differentiate yourself in the market.
That's why companies typically do not do that. Instead, they use the tailored solutions in parts where they are seeking the competitive advantage. That's our playing field. If we look at the green box a bit more detailed, the growth drivers in our area of expertise, the green box, first of all, like I said, the companies and our clients are seeking competitive advantage to differentiate themselves based on tailored solutions. Second, the AI drives demand for data and data infrastructure and advisory services. Why is that? It's simply because AI practically is rather useless if you don't have the kind of solid and proper data foundation layer in the bottom. That then, of course, the AI now drives the demand for basic data services as well.
Advisory services, of course, because the clients need advice that how to use AI in their own and create their business cases. Additionally, the third point, the AI productivity. It's of course likely that the AI will increase the productivity. That productivity boost sparks the demand for new digital use cases. Now it's cheaper to build software and solutions. Therefore, that there is a business case and it makes economical sense to build something that was not viable some years ago simply because the cost of building it, let's say per feature, is now cheaper. That actually increases the amount of use cases to be built. That increases, of course, the demand for software development.
As a consequence of all this, it's, let's say, very likely that the enterprise architectures will get even more complex than what they are because you have more software, more bits and pieces to be integrated and managed. Therefore, it adds the complexity and also adds the need for integration and managing the architectures. The architectures and integrations is also something in what we do and provide as a service for our clients. By the way, we just acquired a company called Integrations Group some weeks ago. As the name says, they are focusing on integrations. That's our specialty as well now. Right. Now, if we move on to our strategy. Let's next dive into Siili's strategic direction. As I said in the beginning, we have adapted and reshaped our focus to stay ahead in the market almost two decades now.
And now it's time to do that once again, to explore our next big thing where we can be best at. And now I will explain what that next big thing is for us and how we are doing it. And this time, we are leveraging AI to take things to the next level. And where we come from, from a kind of strategic point of view and perspective, our focus has evolved as the world has changed. And meaning in practice that we started as an IT sourcing company, then we moved to software solutions. And at that time, we needed to add the business process know-how. Then the next step for us was the data solutions. And again, we needed to add the more business impact and business process know-how. And equally, our technical competencies and ways of working have evolved and developed during our journey.
And therefore, the next step for us, the AI. It's not a leap for us. It's more a natural step, which is building on our existing expertise, meaning the data solutions, which we have been doing several years now. So AI is simply the next logical step in our journey and building on our proven ability, which we have had already. Siili is a very execution-oriented organization. And what that means is that we get things done. We turn clients' visions into reality. And our previous slogan, "Make it real, make IT real," describes that actually very well. And that reflects our commitment to deliver. And now, as the world evolves, of course, so do we. And our next thing, what we can be best at, is AI. And that's why we have also updated our slogan accordingly.
And now our slogan is "Make AI real." And if you remember one thing from today's session, this is that one thing to remember. So "Make AI real" in very, very briefly describes our strategy. And it captures the essence of our strategy in three words. And what do we mean in practice? At Siili, we aim to be the preferred AI partner for our clients to guide them through their own AI journey. And similarly, at the same time, for ourselves, that means that we aim to become an AI transformation leader in our own fields of expertise. And by making AI a practical and impactful reality. So "Make AI real." Now, if we next look at our strategy in a bit more detailed, so here are the elements in our strategy that remain. So we haven't changed these elements of our strategy.
First of all, our values: ambition, joy, humane, and responsibility. Those we haven't touched: our values, and we'll tell more about those later, but those are here to stay. Also, our target client segment, so large and midsize, high digital maturity organizations, that remains key markets. Yes, we put a bit more effort on and focus on the U.K., but the basic market regions as regions are or they remain, and the third element that remains is the focus industries, so no changes there. Then moving on, the new parts of our strategy, community of top talent. Now, that's the black box in the picture, so that's not actually a new part. That has been there for a long time already, and I'll tell more about that, but that has been there and will be there also in the future.
And now I will be focusing on the two new parts of our strategy. So the blue box is in the picture. And, meaning the significant growth in data and AI business. And the other part, the pioneering, the AI-powered development. And what we mean by these two elements. First, the data and AI as a business. So it's a business extension for us. It's not a new thing. So we have been providing the whole chain or full spectrum of transformation services for our clients earlier. And data is one part of that chain. So nothing new there as such. For us, the AI part, of course, is the new part. But the new thing for us is that we put more focus and effort on that than we have done before.
And to give you a bit of scope where we are today, so roughly 10% of our consultants are now on the data and AI services. So roughly 10% of our consultants, let's say that number was clearly smaller earlier this year. So we are expanding that quite rapidly. And what all this means for us. So for us, the driver is growth through this extension, so business extension in the growing market segment for us. And for our clients, this means AI transformation services provided by us. Then the second new part in the strategy, the AI-powered development. And what that means is that the driver for us is the innovation and operational excellence. And the driver for our client is the faster time to market. Then if we look at our strategy from our clients' perspective, what this all means for our clients. Three key things.
AI advisory as a service, then the AI-powered development, and third, the AI transformation support. AI advisory is basically the why and what part. And that's where we guide our clients to discover and unlock the business value. And identifying the opportunities and helping them to build their AI strategies. The second part, AI-powered development, that's the how part. And that's where we provide the AI-powered development services to increase productivity and quality. And the third part, the AI transformation support and services, that's basically the sum of the first two. So that's where we realize the impact and implement it. So we guide our clients through the whole journey of their AI transformation. And we implement the actual solutions, implement and integrate. And as said earlier, this differentiates us from the very, let's say, specialized AI specialists because we have the full spectrum of services.
And therefore, we can implement the whole chain and integrate the solutions to the rest of the client's architecture. Then what our strategy means for us as Siili. And this is our journey and road to become an AI transformation leader. So our strategy helps our clients on their transformation journey. And it's a transformation journey for us and ourselves as well. And our road to become an AI transformation leader has two avenues. First, extending the data and AI business. So that's the growth driver for us. And then the AI-powered development, which is the innovation driver for us. And these two avenues, if you like, they complement each other. And when we succeed on both, then that builds our way and reputation as AI transformation leader. And how we are implementing our strategy. We have three strategic priorities for ourselves.
And those are in line with the new elements of our strategy. So grow with data and AI business, pioneer in AI-powered development, and the community of top talent. For each of these, we have three streams. And for each of these streams, we have clear objectives and KPIs that we follow regularly. The objective for the first one is to grow the data and AI business. And that we measure by the sales of the revenue of data and AI business. On the AI-powered development, our objective is to position ourselves as a thought leader in our own field of expertise. And how we measure ourselves, there are the KPIs. First is the average price per hour. And with that, we measure the value we can bring to our clients. And then the productivity gain per hour, per output.
So that's how we measure the productivity gain in test environments as well as in real cases. And the community of top talent, I will explain that in more detail later. But there we have a systematic training program to make sure that all of us in Siili are using AI. And we have different levels of training and various, of course, different roles that how extensively we use AI. And the other objective there is to attract and retain the best talent. And that we measure by ENPS. Then to summarize the strategy part, that what all this means for different stakeholders. For clients, it means that we enable business opportunities through our advisory and transformation consultancy services. And it means that the AI-powered development we provide for our clients for productivity gain and faster time to market.
For employees, we are already among the best communities for digital professionals. And we aim to be there also in the future. And also, if and when you join the Siili community, this is now the place where you are shaping the future of AI. And this is, of course, very motivating for all of us as Siilis. Then for investors, this means that our new strategy means that we have a competitive advantage with strong positioning and the value creation opportunity as we proceed in our strategy execution. And next, Maria will go through our strategy execution and how we are executing our strategy. So please, Maria.
Hi. I'm Maria Niiniharju. I lead private business at Siili. Today, I'm excited to take you on a journey from vision to value, where we will explore together how Siili delivers impact as an AI transformation leader.
This isn't just about implementing AI. It's about delivering real impact for our clients across their key business areas we have 20 years' experience from. Let's dive in. At the core of our approach are our clients. Let's look at the three critical drivers that shape their journeys and how Siili is uniquely positioned to respond. First, the cost of implementation is decreasing. With AI becoming more accessible, clients can unlock the full value chain across their ecosystems faster and more efficiently. Second, winning with AI demands more than technology. It requires reinvention of core processes. Clients need to embed AI at the heart of business operations to drive real transformation. Third, data has become an even more critical asset. Many organizations struggle to harness data effectively. Siili helps clients turn their data into actionable insights, laying the foundation for long-term impact.
By addressing these interconnected drivers, we deliver measurable outcomes that drive business success for our clients. Let's then take a look into the unique priorities of AI-native leaders: business, IT, and operations. By understanding their distinct challenges, we can ensure our approach and solutions are strategically aligned and impactful. Operations are tasked today scaling economies with the increasing cost pressures across industries. Leveraging AI, we can optimize processes through smart resource allocation and automation, ensuring compliance. This year, we have seen that many AI experiments start actually from operations, from some of the support functions. IT leaders need to build future-proof, scalable architectures and cost-efficient operations. They need to revise their IT strategies in order to support the enterprise-wide transformations. For business leaders, AI is all about growth, standing out in the market, unlocking access to top-line growth, and adapting to shifting dynamics more agile.
By aligning with each group's priorities, we can ensure we deliver value at every level for our clients. This table outlines how Siili integrates AI across three most impactful application areas: sales, customer service, and marketing. For sales, with AI, we can enable hyper-personalized strategies for business leaders. We can support for needed seamless system integrations for IT. We can help support functions to automate reporting sales needs. In customer service, we can leverage AI to enhance 24/7 personalization, real-time secure data, and compliant workflows for all the support in the back office. For marketing, we can drive more personalized, more competitive campaigns, advanced analytics, and streamlined data compliance. By bridging strategy, technology, and execution, we empower our clients to succeed in these transformational and impactful areas. Let me share some real-world examples of how we have delivered measurable impact.
For Gate retail, our innovation team, Supercharge, achieved a 10x return on investment by streamlining workflows, reducing manual processes, and improving decision-making. With ESL Shipping, we optimized operational efficiency using AI-powered scheduling, improving profit margins significantly. While exact metrics cannot be disclosed, this showcases how AI can enhance logistics and drive bottom-line results. These client examples show how our approach doesn't just work in theory. We can drive real measurable business outcomes. Our commitment to AI doesn't end with our clients. We use AI to improve our own software development processes. We have just recently prepared a white paper based on our own AI journey and researching it. In our research, we found that tasks can be now completed up to 37.5% faster. This example highlights the speed at which AI can accelerate development timelines.
We also experimented that the code quality has improved by 40%, ensuring alignment with best practices. This reinforces the importance of AI in raising the bar for development standards. We also found that we can improve consistency, making our teams more scalable and impactful. This demonstrates the compounding benefits of combining AI with tailored upskilling. Our white paper will go live in the upcoming weeks, reflecting the AI journey we are on and which we want to share with everyone. Our impact-driven, AI-powered approach focuses on three key pillars. We first reimagine client workflows to fully leverage custom AI solutions. We then seek for end-to-end alignment. Connecting customer-facing systems with operational tools ensures enterprise-wide efficiency and agility. Finally, in implementation, we focus on delivering tangible outcomes. This can mean faster time to market, cost savings, and improved customer satisfaction, what matters to our clients most.
Our structured framework in AI advisory ensures we drive value across every stage of our clients' transformation. As organizations increasingly adopt AI, Siili is evolving its business models to better align with client needs and delivering sustainable, scalable value. This transition reflects our commitment to driving measurable outcomes through innovative revenue strategies. Traditionally, many services in the digital transformation area have been built based on time, hours or days of work. We are now shifting towards value-based and recurring revenue models. For example, this year, we have presented fixed-fee advisory services, AI agents that bring real outcomes to our clients. We are also enforcing our predictive maintenance services and updating that to an AI era. This scalability of different revenue models ensures predictable costs and long-term impact for our clients while aligning with their evolving needs.
To wrap up how we are turning our vision to value, here are the three key takeaways. Siili is uniquely positioned as an impact-driven, AI-powered partner. We are committed to delivering measurable outcomes across critical business functions, making AI real. Our scalable revenue models enhance value creation and support Siili's profitable growth. With these strengths, we are helping businesses transform also their vision into value, unlocking their full potential. Thank you for your time. Next, my colleagues, Juha-Matti and Tommi, will share our joint success stories with our clients.
All right. Yes, that's us, so hey, everyone. I'm Juha-Matti Kosonen, Head of Design at Siili. I've been with the company already for almost 10 years, and we're definitely in a super interesting and inspiring moment of time yet again, and I'm here together with Tommi.
Hi, my name is Tommi Pajala. I'm an AI Principal here at Siili.
Yeah, and yeah, we are here to talk about recent work showcasing our strategic direction, meaning cases from data and AI domain, cases related to the community of top talent, and AI pioneering in AI-powered development. And before jumping into the cases, we still want to just briefly revisit our value proposition. So just to give a framing for the cases. So it's the client impact that drives us, and AI-powered is how we aim to deliver for improved time-to-market quality and productivity. And looking at the value proposition in a bit more detail, we help our customers to drive growth, profitability, or to adapt to a prevailing situation in order to really turn the digital opportunities into reality and to capture lasting value. And as mentioned, we do this by offering a full spectrum of digital development services from strategy to design, innovation, and development.
The cases that we're going to look through today really kind of highlight this full spectrum. Attitude-wise, as we're tackling a new and fastly developing topic of AI, we really aim to lean into what's next and really help our customers to do the same. To highlight this a little bit more, in order to implement our chosen strategy and to really live up to our value proposition, we aim to apply these certain principles in client work. Principles being that we want to serve our clients proactively, seeking for the next opportunities, really want to work in this partnership mode, working closely together with clients. As was mentioned earlier, we have selected these specific industry domains that we focus on.
And in client work, it really means diving really deep into those domains to understand what kind of logic and challenges our customers are tackling with.
As a data and AI-focused consulting house, I don't think it comes as a surprise to anybody here that we're all in on the AI opportunities and all the new capabilities, how it can change us and how it can change our clients. And how it can change our clients is that we want to help them shape their own future. Instead of the client just taking the future as it comes along and passively accepting it, we want to help them decide what's in it for them and how their future is going to look like.
So to do that, we try to be the signal within the noise, not just some random LinkedIn influencer that you can follow online, but a stable resource of data, insights, and expertise that our clients can follow with confidence.
Exactly. And with all that, we're aiming to create the impact for our clients. And then let's check what it looks like in the form of actual cases.
All right. In this case, we're talking about Microsoft on a global scale. So Microsoft is one of our key clients. We've been working with them on this case for a long time, and this is something super cool. So Microsoft, obviously, they have massive amounts of data, right? And if you've ever worked with market research data, you know how complex and complicated it is to analyze and get good insights out of it.
To use a metaphor, the data is very raw, right? What you have to do is you have to cook it to get proper insights out. This is where we come in. We created this data platform with a full suite of analysis tooling from Microsoft, which now enables them to get market research data from globally, all across the world, get it in one place, get it analyzed, present the insights to their business stakeholders and decision-makers.
Pretty cool. Another case from data and AI category. This is a true maritime innovation. We have worked together with Finntraffic, ESL Shipping, and a bunch of other maritime organizations to design, vision, and build this innovative approach and a POC that basically optimizes the port arrival for ships and on results side leads into reduction of CO2 emissions and energy consumption.
As you see there on the material, so pretty convincing and impactful results both for the shipping operators, well, and also the environment.
All right, let's go from shipping containers into shipping energy. So if you know anything about energy trading, you know that energy trading requires you to have microsecond data and capabilities to act fast. If you can't do that, you're not in business. So we've been working together with BritNed, which is an energy trading platform that manages energy trading between the U.K. and the Netherlands. And the connection there is a gigawatt level direct connection, so we're not talking about something small even. So BritNed had this problem, right, that they had three different platforms which didn't have proper APIs. So making any kinds of new functionality or for their clients to integrate this platform into their applications was extremely difficult. It made things slow.
It was just bad for business all over, so BritNed asked us for help, and we came in. We tore down the three old platforms and replaced them with one. Now this one new platform obviously has all the right stuff, so it has proper APIs. The clients can integrate it to that easily, and now this enables BritNed also on their own to develop new functionality much faster and much easier than before.
All right, and then into the field of legal services. We've been working together with Fondia for quite many years already, partnering on their digital transformation journey. But this is a new, a bit more detailed case, so we teamed up with Fondia and Textia AI to develop an AI-powered legal service, a.k.a. AI lawyer for Fondia's clients, and this solution really aims to further boost Fondia's customer experience.
Concerning the community of top talent. By building and developing a community of top talent, we're able to provide our customers with even very wide-scoping development partnerships. Partnerships make sense because those enable faster learning, more efficient collaboration, and finally leads to more impact. Next, let's look at briefly what a few of our customers have to say about working with us.
Olen Nikola Stubb, digitalisaatiosta ja teknologiasta vastaavana johtajana Holiday Club Resortsilla. Meidän toimialan nopea teknologinen kehitys asetti meille haasteen, ja meidän oli löydettävä tapa lähteä taklaamaan tätä haastetta. Lähdimme etsimään kumppanuutta, pitkäaikaista strategista kumppanuutta. Meille valikoitui sitten Siili, ja olemme heidän kanssaan pystyneet kehittämään uusia digitaalisia palveluita ja konsepteja tässä matkan varrella. Toistaiseksi näyttää erinomaiselta tulokset, mitä ollaan saavutettu yhteistyössä heidän kanssaan. Tämä pitkäaikainen strateginen kumppanuus Siilin kanssa on osoittautunut erittäin toimivaksi. Meillä on erittäin hyvä yhteistyö.
Sekä meidän tiimi että Siilin tiimi pystyy hyvin avoimesti puhumaan asioista ja kehittämään asioita yhdessä. Näemme, että pitkälle tulevaisuuteen tulemme jatkamaan tätä erinomaista yhteistyötä Siilin kanssa. Joo, tervehdys kaikille. Mä oon Turo Mäki ja mä toimin Sanoma Media Finlandin CTO:na. Me valittiin Siili meidän strategiseksi IT-yhteistyökumppaniksi tämän vuoden alusta meidän digitaaliseen tuote- ja palvelukehitykseen. Siili tarjoaa meille kyvykkäitä sovellus- ja datakehittäjiä sekä tarjoaa strategista näkemystä meidän toimintamme kokonaisvaltaiseen kehittämiseen sekä uusien teknologioiden täysimittaiseen hyödyntämiseen, kuten tällä hetkellä generatiivisen tekoälyn kanssa sparrataan Siilin kanssa. Olemme olleet erittäin tyytyväisiä yhteistyöhön Siilin kanssa tämän ensimmäisen yhteistyövuoden aikana.
All right. As you see, these testimonials hopefully highlight the scope of our services all the way from the advisory into development closely together with clients. At least personally, it's heartwarming to hear such comments coming from our clients, and we're super proud and humbled to be able to work with such companies. Absolutely.
But can we just look at one more case, please?
Sure. Into the third category of pioneering in AI-powered development.
So AI-powered development. So this case is really special because this gave us the opportunity to live fully and fully realize our values of joy, humane, and responsibility, and knowing how we work, of course, ambition. So now we're talking about the domain of logistics in animal byproducts. So it's a complex chain of logistics where we're working. And Honkajoki is actually one of the biggest players in this field. So knowing how logistics optimization is, it's super complex. It's difficult to manage for people because you have to know how all the differences are moving around. So it requires a certain amount of tooling and help because you can't handle it all in your brain.
Now, what we did with Honkajoki was that we created a custom new platform for them, which helps them manage this very complex optimization chain and all the patterns inside it. And we did it with the help of AI-powered software development. So that means that we were able to do this much faster than I think anybody expected. But also in the time that we saved, we could then implement some features that were on the list of, as Tomi said before, it was on the list of like, can you make this happen or can't you make this happen? We're right on the border, but with the help of AI software development, AI-powered software development, we can make the bar lower so we can implement more things which create more benefits. Things like direct integration to regulatory reporting.
Pretty cool. All right.
So what we want to leave you with to wrap up our segment. So as the cases highlight, we're truly driven by the impact that we can create to our clients. And we work in this AI-powered manner to maximize quality and productivity. All right. But next, we have Teemu and Aleksi talking about steps towards profitable growth. Welcome, and here you go.
Thank you. Thank you, Juha and Tommi. So my name is Aleksi Kankainen. I'm CFO of Siili, and I've worked in the company since 2018. Improving our profitability will be the key target of Siili in the coming years. In order to reach that, we will need both data and AI-driven organic growth, strong focus on operational efficiency, and also support from the overall positive market cycle. Let's take a look at some of the key elements of our future growth path.
So as we've heard today, Siili is a well-established digital development powerhouse with 20 years of history next year. From the beginning, we've been able to capture different market opportunities by developing our offering, covering the full lifecycle of our clients' digital development demands. The company was originally created around IT expert sales, and today we serve our clients with end-to-end IT services offering. M&A has always been a crucial part in creating the Siili as we know the company today. Via acquisitions, we've been able to bring in new competence, geographies, and a wider range of services to our clients. And earlier this month, we announced our latest acquisition Integrations Group, which will be consolidated into Siili figures from the beginning of next year. All this has taken us to over 20% annual growth since 2010.
Obviously, we've had challenging market conditions around us during the last two years, but going forward, we're not going to hold back. Our target is to grow annually 20%, whereof organic. We have the capabilities to deliver this ambitious growth target, and our data and AI-based strategy, together with improving efficiency, will be the foundation for the growth and profitability path. Here, I'd like to highlight two main areas of our growth strategy: strong loyal client base and proactive competence development to meet our clients' evolving needs. As you can see on the left, almost 90% of our quarter three this year revenue came from clients who've been with us for over two years. And actually, out of total revenue, 75% is coming from those where the relationship extends to over five years.
This clearly shows the strength and stability of our client relationships and also the trust that clients place on our services. Then, on the right-hand side, you can see the balance of our workforce, where the majority of our services are delivered by our own consultants. This approach allows us to maintain the quality and consistency of our services. A smaller portion of our capacity is allocated to subcontractors to allow flexibility and fast scalability of services when needed. Siili consultants bring a diverse skill set across tech, data and AI design, and quality assurance, with data and AI in the focus going forward. This really broad competence base enables us to proactively meet and anticipate the client needs, which creates further growth opportunities. Building on this foundation, let's move on to our international business and see how that has become a powerful growth driver for Siili.
Since 2016, our international business has achieved an annual growth rate of over 30%, as you can see from the green arrow. This growth has been a critical factor in Siili's expansion, and this continues to gain momentum. On the picture, you can see the key milestones: Siili Auto offering in 2016, which really kicked off our international expansion. Then again, Supercharge acquisition in 2021 further boosted our global capabilities and has since then driven substantial growth in the international markets. Today, our international revenue amounts to over 28% of the total group revenue, and we're actively expanding this share. Siili is truly an international company. Our main markets include the U.K., U.S., Germany, and we have focused on these markets due to their demand for our key competencies around the digital development.
To summarize, our international business not only diversifies our revenue base, but also provides significant growth potential, and we are already now well positioned to capture the opportunities in these market areas. Looking at the profitability, we have faced a tougher market environment, particularly in the software development sector during the past two years. Economic headwinds, client cost cutting, limiting budgets, and as a result, increasing competition are impacting the profitability across the industry, and Siili is no exception. For the first time in Siili's history, we've seen declining revenue, and this is obviously putting our profitability under pressure. What have we done to secure our profits in this tougher environment? Our approach has been to focus on operational efficiency. This approach is aimed at protecting our profitability during the more challenging times. However, it will support our margins when we're back on the growth track.
Improvement in this area includes a wide range of activities across the group, and this will now be presented to you by Teemu.
Hello. My name is Teemu Pesonen. I've been working here at Siili for eight months now as a vice president of operations. My background is from Vala. Vala has a unique culture, exceptional employee experience, and industry-leading profitability, and the same philosophy applies here when we talk about Siili's profitability turnaround, so in essence, excellent profitability is only a byproduct of doing everything else really well. If we think about our operational excellence, we have some key components on that. The first one is capacity management. Basically, it is the ratio between internal and external workforce and our ability to optimize and balance that capacity.
In practice, the closer we are going to our strategic focus areas, the more we will apply our own workforce, and the further away we are from our core competencies, the more we will use our excellent subcontracting network. Utilization. This is something that I tend to look at every week. Good utilization is one of the key drivers for excellent profitability. Basically, it means the share of consulting and customer billable hours in relation to all the target hours. In addition to that, we need to be good at the time to project. This means that our ability to find or assign a project to a new Siili starting in Siili or an existing Siili transitioning from a project to another is essential for us. To create stability, we need to have low enough attrition. Basically, this reflects our ability to keep the best talent here at Siili.
Then, we are coming from the world where almost everything was priced in time and material manner. Now that we are entering the era of AI, we need to come up with new business models, new pricing models together with our customers. We need to find the ways to distribute and share the value of the productivity increase together with our customers. In some cases, we still need to be competitive in pricing. For that, we have excellent nearshore capabilities in Poland and Hungary. Lastly, we need to build the cost efficiency within Siili's organization and our culture. Whatever the market situation is, we need to be ready to adapt. For that, the cost management is the key. So, what does this all mean in practice? How do we make profitability real? I started in the springtime in Q2.
We started in looking at the whole Siili, looking at the organization, different business models, kind of forming the wheel that how are we doing right now. On top of that, we initiated a culture development program together with Taru Salo. We visited 10 offices across Finland and Europe. We met hundreds of Siilis. We discussed our culture, our values, our strong points and weaknesses, and how to move forward to develop a Siili 2.0. This was just to build the foundation. During the summertime, we made a bit of a cost analysis and looking at the cost structure. Also, we were looking at our different business models, and on top of that, we were actually financially modeling our different business areas and sectors. One concrete example of this is our public sector here in Finland. There are severe challenges in cost cutting and price pressure at the moment.
We might need to be a bit more defensive on that field. Luckily, we have several other very good sectors that we need to be aggressive on to capture the growth together with our customers. During the fall time, it became quite evident that we need to have more visibility to run our business better. In practice, we are now evaluating our internal systems to make them support data-driven decision-making even better. The start of the next year, we will introduce a new operational and leadership model that will make Siili even more self-directed. We will give more power to the team leads, the teams, and the team members themselves. The new operational model emphasizes the need to integrate the business to our internal systems and processes even better. By smart usage of data and analysis of that, we are able to optimize our prices better and build forecasting capabilities.
All of this should make us more proactive than ever. In the upcoming years, we are committed to get back on the growth track. Basically, it means that we as a Siili, we need to lure the best talent to execute our strategy well. On top of that, we have excellent portfolio companies that we need to be better at facilitating the growth of. One concrete example of this is the Integrations Group acquisition earlier this month. Integrations Group is a company of 13 people with a clear focus on integrations and Boomi platform and excellent and capable management. Our job is to help and support them in their growth story. Lastly, growth is nothing without the component of profitability.
We need to make sure that our operating model is efficient enough that when we are growing our top line, we are not going to let our costs rise too much. That was my part. Now back to Alex.
Thanks, Teemu. Let's summarize the key elements of our profitability improvement plan. As Teemu presented, the profitability plan is built on improving operational efficiency. By active capacity and utilization management, cost efficiency, and focus on hourly margins, we are working to improve our gross margin and respectively EBITDA. This foundation of efficiency will support all other areas of our profitability plan. Secondly, as presented earlier, our target is to capture the growth in the data and AI sectors. This is a high-demand area both in Finland and internationally, and we see clear potential for expanding our market share here.
This move further diversifies our revenue base and positions us into these high-value, future-oriented services. Finally, we're anticipating the software development market to pick up during coming years after the drop. We expect increased demand for our core services in more normalized market conditions. So, our ambition is to achieve an adjusted EBITDA margin of 12%. This is a clear goal guiding all our operational and growth initiatives, and we aim to achieve it by the end of 2028. As we work towards our financial targets, a strong balance sheet remains to be important. It supports our ability to invest in growth, but also enables us to reward our shareholders with dividends. The picture on the left is showing Siili's equity ratio from 2020 until the end of quarter three this year.
Our equity ratio has consistently improved from around 30% in 2021 up to around 50% at the end of quarter three this year. So, we've been able to develop our capital structure also during more challenging market situations. Going forward, we want to maintain a strong balance sheet to allow room for both M&A-driven growth and dividend payments. Then, on the right-hand side, you can see our dividend per share and dividend payout ratio from the net result, and both have steadily increased from 2021. From last year, 2023, Siili paid roughly 42% of dividend from net result, which was in line with our long-term financial target. While we obviously want to invest in our strategic growth, we're committed to maintain this attractive dividend policy also going forward. So, our financial targets regarding capital structure and dividend policy remain the same as previously.
We want to maintain net debt/EBITDA ratio below 2, and the dividend policy remains in 30%-70% of net result annually. So, to conclude our presentation, going forward, improving efficiency with a wide variety of initiatives is crucial, and these actions are already taking place, as presented earlier by Teemu. Our core areas are capacity and utilization management, cost efficiency, and margin management. Having these actions in place, there's a clear road to improving profitability, and we see a lot of potential on this side. As communicated today, we have ambitious yet achievable long-term financial targets in place until 2028, including annual revenue growth of 20% and a target of adjusted EBITDA margin of 12%. Finally, and most importantly, people are the key of our business. It's ultimately our people who deliver value to our clients, drive the efficiency, and execute the growth initiatives.
We're committed to building a community that attracts and retains the top talent. But you will hear more about these topics in our next presentation by Taru Salo. Thank you.
Thank you, Alex, and thank you, Teemu.
Yes, building a community of top talent. Come as you are, grow with us to make AI real. I'm Taru Salo, Siili's Chief People Officer. I have been on this adventure for four years at the moment, and I have to say that I really love it because Siili is all about the people and actually executing this strategy, making this transformation happen, international growth, and operational efficiency. It's all about the people. And that's why we believe that heart needs to like it, even though we are in this AI age. Our ambition is to become the best community for humans powered by AI.
How we are making it happen is actually understanding both AI and human. We are building this on our own 6C model or framework that actually we launched several years ago already. We have been developing the employee experience based on this model for years already. Starting with the company, even though we are international, we wanted to keep the hierarchy low so that each Siili can feel included. Then career and the competence part. I will shortly explain it because it's super important for us that all the Siilis have the knowledge and skills in order to make this strategy happen. We have been developing our own growth ecosystem for that. I will tell you a bit more about that later.
Then compensation-wise, we have several different compensation models which are tied to the company performance and profitability, and those are driving the high performance of the Siilis. Culture, it's based on the values. You heard those already. Ambition, joy, human, responsibility, combined with the leadership promise, which is actually based on the neuroscience. So we have selected that our leadership is based on the neuroscience, and we have took that as a part of our leadership practices so that each Siili can have the best possible leadership support. Then customer cases, like Juhis and Tommi told, they are actually an excellent platform for learning and engagement for the Siilis. And then care. We are actually taking excellent care of the Siilis, and we have this sense of community, which is a sense of belongingness, which is essential in our culture. We have many Siili clubs.
We have well-being benefits and that kind of things, and actually, how does it look like? Is that 73% of Siilis says that leadership reflects the company values, and 78% says that they have excellent or good work-life balance, which is excellent for the innovativeness. This high employee engagement actually lowers the attrition, which is important from the profitability point of view. From the growth point of view, we need to attract the talent, and it's driven by our strong brand. Only during this year, we have got over 8,000 applications, and actually 39% of new hires came through internal recommendations, so Siilis are proud that they are Siilis, and they are ready to recommend us as an employer, and because of that, we have been able to grow this year, our data and AI expertise with 43%, which is quite amazing in this market.
We have got also these external recognitions. We ranked 10th in the most attractive employer, YPAI, Young Professionals in Finland, and also Duunitori, this is a bit funny, but we want to mention this because Duunitori is this kind of top recruitment agency in Finland, and they named us as a gaming-friendly organization, and joy is one of the company values, so we decided that this is something that we really want to mention, then the capability development and competence development. Like I already said, that it's super important that Siili's have the skills and knowledge that they need in this kind of fast, rapidly changing environment. We have been building this kind of growth ecosystem, which actually means that the company structure is based on the capabilities and competencies.
We have competence communities, tribes, and like you can see in the pictures, our own seniority model, growth paths, individual learning plans. Then we have Siili Toolkit, Siili Academy. We are supporting certification programs, offering a lot of this kind of OpenAI licenses for Siilis to use. And just this kind of latest example, how we are sharing the knowledge is actually this AI-powered handbook, which is written by our own experts. So this kind of latest example how we are sharing the knowledge. But I'm pretty sure that actually this ecosystem allows and ensures that we Siilis have the relevant capabilities and competencies matching our future needs. And how does it look like? 74% of the Siilis says that company offers good or excellent support for competence development.
92% of Siilis got promoted just during this year based on the fact that they have been able to continuously learn and also deliver deeper customer value, and like Tommi already said, we have this program ongoing that all the Siilis have got AI foundation training, and over 200 Siilis have got this kind of role-based depth training in AI, and this is something that we are continuously doing all the time, then in our culture, the productivity, engagement, and innovativeness is driven by psychological safety and sense of belongingness. We are proud to say that 89% of the Siilis says that they can be their authentic selves at work, and 91% says that Siili cares about their mental and physical well-being. I think this is something that we can really be proud because customer cases are quite demanding, and it's quite a fast-paced environment where Siilis are working.
We ranked first in the Nordic Business Diversity Index this year, but still we are not pleased with the female ratio at 23%. We are working with that topic all the time, promoting female careers. And finally, one example of the engagement that Siili's have is that actually the average length of the employment is now five years four months, which we are also quite proud of. So to summarize, we are enhancing the culture where people and AI together create lasting value. We can see that the environment is quite uncertain. The AI is changing how we are working, but it also creates a lot of new opportunities for the growth and for the businesses.
Our response is to develop and maintain top talent, continuously learn and adapt AI skill sets, grow our proactive foresight and consultative skills, and of course we are living up to our values, adopting a partner mindset to grow and learn together with our clients. And we keep on doing these investments to the leadership skills in this neuroscience-based leadership in order to have this deep human behavior understanding in the company. And for the customers, actually, we can see that there is a clear link between these people investments that we have done and with the customer satisfaction. We can create clarity for the customers regarding the future. We can be the trusted partner to learn and transform with. And also when you are working with Siili, you are actually tapping into a pool of AI age experts from strategy to design, data development, and continuous services.
That was my part, and maybe Tomi, you will then wrap up the CMD. Thank you.
Thank you, Taru. So time to wrap up. We have the Q&A, but time to wrap up the presentation part first. So key takeaways of today. The first, we have a proven growth foundation, meaning that solid foundation to build on the next steps for Siili. We have a very focused strategy execution, so very sharp strategy, leveraging our core strengths to drive transformation. And as we went through today, the strategy and of course the execution of the strategy as well. And third, as Aleksi and Teemu went through, we have clear initiatives to enhance operational efficiency and therefore deliver shareholder value. So that was all we had to present today. And next we will have the Q&A. So more than happy to have your questions, and we will answer those.
So maybe the rest of you, if you can join me, and we will answer the questions here in the audience as well as online.
Hi, Jaakko Tyrväinen from SEB, and thank you for the presentation. Firstly, you noted and you are expecting the market to kind of recover or pick up in the coming years. On what kind of assumptions you are building this view and what needs to happen outside there in order for the market to recover in your view?
Yeah, no, there's quite a lot of, maybe not evidence, but estimates based on different market research studies that the digital transformation trend is a growing trend. And like I said in rather the beginning of the session, that the market cycle is a different thing than the market trend.
Digital transformation is at least our expectation, and we are not alone with this view that there seems to be, let's say, a common view that the market trend of digital transformation is clearly growing and globally, regardless of where you are. Yes, of course, there are variations on the phases different regions have, but as a global trend, it is clearly a growing trend.
When the market picks up or recovers, do you think it will be driven by the private sector or the public sector? How do you view the Finnish public sector for the, let's say, coming one or two years from now?
Yeah, when the market will pick up, that's of course much more depending on the macroeconomics and not my or our expertise to estimate that.
Then, regarding the public sector and public sector in Finland, at the moment, our government in Finland is driving cost savings in public sector, and that impacts, of course, the digital development as well. And at least in the kind of short time frame, the impact has been already negative. Then on the other hand, as the public sector and government is driving cost savings, but they are also driving efficiency actions, and that's where the digital development comes into play. And meaning that they are pushing their point of contact towards digital point of contacts rather than physical and mobile contacts. And that drives the digital demand. And when the market will pick up, maybe I'm not going to guess here, that when that will happen. And like we explained today, our focus is now making sure that our own operational efficiency is on a good level.
And then whenever the market will pick up, then we are ready for that. And maybe if you want to add something.
Yeah, I would agree that the Finnish public sector is slightly different than maybe the going to the, what Jaakko, your question, that probably we will be seeing maybe more demand from the private side. But anyway, it's hard to estimate when will that happen. Anyway, we are working with our profitability improvement plan, including many other areas.
Okay, good. Then do I read correctly that you still have in your overall growth ambition of 20%, of which some 10% organic? Will it be driven by the international growth rather than the growth in Finland?
Yeah, no, already now our international. So during the whole time frame of Siili's existence, our average growth overall has been a bit more than 20% average annually.
The international growth has been clearly faster, so a bit more than 30%. We do not expect changes on that. So we still expect that the international growth will be faster than the growth in Finland or in the home market. And again, the market cycle is impacting that, but now we are talking about the long-term targets.
Right, continuing on the international growth, you talked a lot about the U.K. markets. Could you still once more elaborate a bit what will be your competitive edge in that rather competitive market going forward? How are you going to stand out in that crowded place?
Yeah, no, what we have done already so far, and I have to say that quite successfully, the main thing is of course the competencies. And then the other thing is the delivery model, which is based on cost-efficient delivery from Hungary.
So there we get the cost benefit and complement it with the high value proposition, what we can provide for our clients. And also that we have a quite kind of focused approach. So like we heard today, the energy marketplace is something, one of the examples of the very focused approach. So those are the key elements, how we differentiate ourselves in that market.
Okay, then to the AI topic more closely. Can you repeat how much the generative AI-related business is now? Did you say 10%? And how much of that is the kind of new innovations, totally new projects that you are generating for your clients? And how the current kind of demand is forming? Is it coming from you innovating proactively towards the client, or is it coming purely from client side?
No, like I said, so roughly 10% of our consultants are doing the data and AI. So that's the ballpark. No, we haven't disclosed, as you know, we haven't disclosed any revenue numbers. I'm not going to disclose those here either. Then where the demand comes from, the whole AI thing is rather new also for our clients. So typical cases are small proof of concepts and then from their minimum viable products, and then in some cases scalable production environments. But in most cases, still at the moment, it's advising our clients and building those proof of concepts. And still the volume is, let's say, rather small, but as you would expect, the estimated market growth in that field is obviously clearly faster than in many other fields. And that's why and how we are preparing for that market growth. Anything you maybe want to add?
Yes, maybe answering to your question about the ratio of being proactive ourselves versus relying on customers coming to us. People at Siili have been very active throughout the year, grasping into the potential of AI and really pushing themselves to be very proactive to clients, utilizing AI to bring value already in the exploratory phases and helping the clients to signal to noise, as Juhis and Tommi were putting it. So there is increased activity levels of the proactiveness. And that's also something clients have been thanking us. Obviously, we have long-term client relationships. Our reputation is very strong in our focus industries and focus clients. So they also can already ask this kind of support from Siili.
Are you seeing some kind of hurdles or obstacles during the journey to become a kind of this AI transformation company?
Meaning that how ready the clients in general are for the change? Are there regulatory obstacles or architecture-related obstacles? And when will we see the kind of a ketchup bottle effect?
Yeah, of course, it varies if you look at the society as a whole. Then our clients tend to be the, let's say, the high digital maturity organizations, and they are leading this in their own fields of business. Like we heard today, that Sanoma is, of course, one of the cases which is rather developed in this field. And like I said, most of the cases are still quite small. And that applies to what we know in the marketplace among our clients as well as other clients in the market. Then will there be a ketchup kind of event? No, of course, I don't know.
But based on all the, I guess, estimates of the market, there is a clear common view that the market will be growing fast. And we are preparing ourselves and trying to prepare our clients for that.
Yeah, and maybe it's not like either/or, because data and AI can be seen as enablers to do the green transition cost-efficiently. So actually, the regulation even boosts the investments to digitalization and using new technologies to answer the regulatory demands, as we have also seen today in our customer examples.
And I would say that it would be, or at least I don't believe, that the regulation, okay, it's maybe not driving this AI change, but that the world wouldn't kind of transform as the AI enables that because of the regulation. I don't believe that, okay, it may slow it down in some cases, but the world will find a way.
Okay, then finally, on the margin side of your targets, you are currently around 5%, so 7 percentage points to go there. How much of that 7 percentage point journey will be coming from self-help, so to say, self-help, and then how much you are leaning on improved market situation?
Well, obviously, market situation is something that we cannot really have an impact. So the main focus now on the short term is to work with the operational efficiency. And there we have still a lot of room on that side as well, even though we have taken a lot of actions during the past two years. But we're not leaning kind of to the market pickup. So we are working on our foundation to build a more profitable company and to reach the target.
Excellent. Thank you.
Thank you for the presentation, Joni Grönqvist from Inderes. Tomi.
I have also several questions to different presenters. Thank you. But I'll start with the ladies, I think, and first to Taru, who hasn't been asked a question yet. Taru, HR is probably one of the most important roles in a company, or the ones we want to talk to after the CEO and CFO. Now, going from a talent war for I don't know how many years, but many, maybe 10 or 15 years, going to a softer market. So firstly, how does HR calm down the software developers that leave and make a good impression so they come back when the market picks up a little bit? And the second follow-up question, how is Siili able to attract the highly appreciated data and AI specialists in the market?
Good question, Joni. Thank you.
First of all, of course, we have had some software developers leaving the company because of the market situation. And like all the people, we treat with the dignity and we have the exit discussions and all that. And we have, and there has been quite many Siilis actually coming back as well. And we have even this kind of celebration on Remake It Real slogan that when you come back. Also in this data AI market, I think we have done quite well. We have a compelling story. And those experts, they really want to be on this kind of journey and doing this kind of transformation. Like Tommi is one of the examples that we have been able to recruit talents. And those talents actually are like magnets. And we are having at the moment quite good applicants in that area. I'm not that worried.
We have a good story and good company and good culture.
Then a question to Maria. This year we've seen a trend in the private sector that companies are cutting the amount of IT consultants or suppliers in this case. So can you give some examples of the wins that you have made and analysis of why you won those projects? And on the other hand, also on the losses in these kind of projects and maybe why you didn't get through in these cases.
Okay, great question. And to the deep end, I think that I need to ask a bit of help of colleagues since this is my third week at Siili. So I don't have the full year history yet. Those cases I've been involved in during the three weeks at Siili.
What I have learned, despite the fact that the private sector customers have been cutting costs during the year, we have seen a gradual shift that maybe the bottom would be there, and we have also seen a new kind of demand. For example, Siili's nearshore in Poland and Hungary is very attractive to Finnish local clients at the moment. We have a strong foundation in the nearshore. It's over a decade journey. Teams in nearshore, they are very close to our local quality standards. We have a cultural fit between the local market and Poland and Hungary, so that's something that has been proved to be a very good advantage for Siili, and then what I have also learned is our amazing journey in data and AI. The opportunities we have won.
Just a couple of weeks ago, we won an AI strategy for one notable local client, and we are now delivering it, and it shows like a promising future on the, like looking at the capabilities we have and what we are developing and how clients are trusting us to go to that journey. Is there some cases like earlier this year answering the question of notable wins or losses?
Yeah, no, it varies. I wouldn't say that there is this common denominator X or Y. It varies, of course, depending on the client, so some clients, and maybe the common denominator is that it depends on the business where the clients are, so in some businesses, the market trend is already much better, and then they are investing in growth, so client portals, things like that.
And then some other segments are more in a kind of cost cutting and efficiency. So the driver is efficiency rather than differentiation in the client or the customer end. And then that's maybe that impacts mostly on where the clients are investing. And then that, of course, impacts us as well.
My next question is maybe to our. I give it to Teemu, but I don't know if Alex is joining. You mentioned in the presentation. You meant the utilization rate, which is, of course, one of the most important parameters to monitor. And especially in this market situation where we see rapid changes towards the customer demand and also employees are more sticky. So my question is, what kind of platform is it, your own platform that you use? Or if it's some other technology that you use to monitor all the different parts in Siili?
Because you have like Siili Auto, you have Supercharge, VALA Group, and how well are they integrated now to this one Siili? And the visibility, what frequency do you have? So thinking about how you can react and watch the frequency. Can you elaborate a little bit on this?
Yes, thank you, Joni. So basically, currently we have one platform that we have developed ourselves. It's basically running the business here in Finland and in Poland. And we are now looking for different opportunities to integrate these systems. So VALA has their own system, Auto has their own system. But in Siili Finland and Siili Poland, we have a common system. So now we are kind of finding new ways. How can we integrate the data, analyze it better, and get the synergies within the whole group?
Follow up on this. What kind of data parameters do you have?
The skill set? Do you have projects there also in the same platform, or is it a separate platform for that one?
Basically, there is a platform for kind of a project-based business, so meaning that we allocate people in different projects and different clients. And there we have an integration to another application where our CVs and all the competencies are. So we get the data, we have the data, we just need to utilize it better. And together with Maria, actually, we've been already discussing in the three weeks she's been in the house that we need to integrate also the sales data better to our overall system so that we can forecast better in the future.
So these developments that you will still make, when do you think you have them implemented and like a platform for the purpose that you want to be ready?
We are now evaluating the system, so I cannot really say when we are ready with that, but.
Thank you. Then a question to Tommi. You had in your presentation, you have these pricing models for AI projects. So my question is maybe how long have you been still probably in POC phase in many clients, but you've been in discussion regarding these pricing models. How have the clients or what are the comments from the client side of these new pricing models where you divide the efficiency gains from AI?
In the discussions, I've been to, it varies by client. I don't think I can say much more than that. I don't think if Tommi or Maria has more insight on what the reception has been to newer pricing models.
Yeah, I think there is curiosity, especially like when we are able to increase the level of predictability in the costs. And obviously, there are some applications areas we have already identified with clients where we can shape the models. And then in some areas, we still remain on the more traditional ones. It's a journey that is ongoing at the moment.
When you have you, Tommy, here on the stage, I'd like you to ask what's your, now you can like freely, I think, speculate. How does the IT market look in 2030? And now I'm thinking like what's the role of IT consultants? What's the role of the buyer and software companies?
I'm not sure if I'm in the position to answer that question. I'm not a fortune teller, unfortunately. Maybe Tomi is.
Yeah, no, I'm not either.
So, no. I said how the macroeconomics goes. That's not our expertise.
I'm thinking more like AI and like not the macro perspective, but if we like think about the past seven, eight years, the technology development has been more rapid all the time. Companies need to adapt more. This is a little bit what I'm looking forward to because I'm not a software developer or don't know technology that well. What could AI do to the market so that?
Yeah, the honest answer to that is nobody knows. If somebody had told me two years ago that, you know, in two years, AI will be writing most of your code, I would have thought they're a fraud or a liar or just laughed. Here I am. AI is writing most of my code.
So I don't think I have any idea what's going to happen in the next six years.
And Tommi, by the way, has a PhD in AI, so he knows.
And I still don't get what's going to happen.
Something about that.
But that's a good answer, I think. Then maybe to the strategy part, the other things. I noticed one, or you didn't mention Netherlands or the U.S. as markets. What role or does they still play a role for Siili?
Yes, they have a role. We were talking about all the wording was key markets for us. So yes, we operate in the U.S. and Netherlands as well.
And we didn't talk about the U.S. market today because our, no, it's of course a huge market and there our presence is so small that we didn't thought that that would make sense to, I mean, to describe the U.S. market as a market. And the U.K. is more relevant from our perspective as a market. Thank you. Now we are actually a bit over time already. So maybe time to wrap up. Right, so thank you for being with us today. It's been truly a pleasure that we had the opportunity to go through our strategy and how we execute it. And we had several interesting cases to go through. And now for us, it's time to go and execute the strategy. So we get back to the office and execute. And thank you for being with us today.