DEFTeam sets up its European home base in Finland

DEFTeam, an Indian provider of big data, business intelligence and predictive analytics solutions, has chosen the Helsinki region as the location of its regional headquarters and R&D unit. The company views Finland as a path to the Nordic market and the wider European market and is now in the process of hiring staff for the new unit.

DEFTeam’s journey to the Helsinki region began in 2016, when Helsinki Business Hub invited the company to visit Finland.

“We were so very well looked after. Helsinki Business Hub introduced us to various people in the business and offered us access to networking events. The visit was an important factor in our decision to set up a unit in Finland because we saw that the country and the Finnish government provided a very friendly and helpful business ecosystem,” says CEO Gurpreet Singh from DEFTeam.

“Finland seems as the right choice for our European office as we find that the people have the desired educational background and skillset. Basically, we find that our synergies match,” says Kiran Soin, Chief Delivery Officer of DEFTeam.

DEFTeam is a Red Herring Global 100 company (2011), a Silicon India 100 company (2013) and a CIO Review BI-20 company (2018). Its customers work in fields like banking, financial services, insurance, logistics, technology, supply chain management and retail. DEFTeam provides them with big data, business intelligence and predictive analytics solutions – both on-cloud and on-premise. The company currently operates in the United States, several Middle Eastern countries, and APAC countries like Singapore, Australia and India.

“Most of our business comes from international clients because we offer offshore based services which provide labor arbitrage and because work is shifting to the cloud and becoming virtual and can be executed from anywhere. DEFTeam also offers value addition by advising clients on architecture and choice of technology platforms based upon their business requirements, so the relationship goes beyond labor arbitrage. We have also developed some new platform solutions targeted for the global market, so it is a good time to further expand our business operations on the international market as well,” Gurpreet Singh explains.

An accelerated path to the European market

In recent years, many Indian companies have been drawn to Finland because of the country’s long history of ICT research and development. India is rich with innovative technology and companies, some of which see Finland as a good place to further develop their solutions – a place with a solid and marketable reputation in hi-tech that could potentially lead to more profitable business. The availability of tech expertise was also important to DEFTeam.

“The Helsinki region provides lots of talent for hiring as well as a stable environment for business. Getting visas is not much of an issue, so traveling for work is quite easy. The area meets our needs well, and we are currently developing our partner ecosystem here,” says Gurpreet Singh.

“Helsinki Business Hub helped us at each step of setting up the new unit. They introduced us to the Finnish business ecosystem and their wide partner network, offered consulting and advice, and connected us with various service providers, such as accounting and legal services.”

DEFTeam’s Finnish unit is now up and looking for sales personnel to launch its business. The new unit will continue to serve DEFTeam’s clients with big data, business intelligence and analytics needs, and the company is also planning to market its IP-based platforms UPRAiZAL, myLOGISTICZ and Data2Mobility in Finland. Furthermore, the Finnish unit will offer DEFTeam easy access to other European countries.

“We plan to hire about 10 people in Finland in the next two years. The new unit will also help us access the wider European market. We plan to cover the entire Nordic area to start with and will then look at the UK and Irish markets. In the future, we are looking forward to making Finland the home base for all our European operations,” Gurpreet Singh says.

Text: Anu Jussila