Fireside Chat with Jyrki Suutari

We move to Oulu, the Northern part of Finland, this week to have our chat with Jyrki Suutari. Oulu has an established a reputation in Finland and abroad as a city of advanced technology. Other than a legacy of its Nokia history and foundation of radio signal talent, it has these days a vibrant ecosystem of wireless, healthcare, 5G as well as the €35 million Northern Startup Fund managed by Finnish VC and?events as Polar Bear Pitching, one of coldest and craziest startup pitching events in any continent.?

Jyrki Suutari is working currently as a Sales Director at Haltian in Oulu, Finland. Earlier, he has been working for Nokia 11 years, Elisa 4 years and a software company. He has been running businesses, ventures, product management, programs and sales. His leisure activities are different outdoor activities in the wilderness to hiking, jogging, cycling and skiing.

Nicole: What is your passion in work and business?

Jyrki: I like understanding market behavior and needs to find out disruptive solutions for the market. Working in international environments and looking for needs from practical perspectives, by adding spices and flavor to provide high value, interest me very much.

Willing to help others in IoT, digital twins and running businesses in early stages.

Nicole: Which are the areas where you could help others in the Kaato group?

Jyrki: I have a long experience in different business areas and markets. I have been working a long time with IoT in data collection and digital twins. Smart facilities and digitalization of facilities is a very much a focus today. Amongst these, I have been working with IP television, video on demand and streaming, pay TV, mobile SW, mobile networks and mobile services. I have experience in running businesses in the early state and in growth phases including productization, offering development and sales. I would be happy to give pointers on the above areas.

Nicole: You have worked in B2B services and solutions for decades, what do you see as the most interesting part of business development?

Jyrki: In the early phase of a business, it is very challenging to find out what is the right kind of offering to provide and the right kind value. By developing the offering and focusing on the right market segments during the growth phase, it is possible to reach good results. It is rewarding to see how a business can evolve.

Nicole: Are there any frustrating parts in B2B that has not changed in 20 years?

Jyrki: I do not see the frustrating part. I see that there is always a time for new challenges that become new opportunities. Life would not be so exciting without new opportunities. Let’s keep the change going and experience more and more towards a brighter future.

Nicole: Do you think cloud computing is the future and why?

Jyrki: Partly yes. There are lots of time-critical computing needs and therefore there are more and more computing on the edge. At the same time, there are lots of low value data that can be processed and filtered on the edge. So, the answer is that the right kind of architecture will spread the computing to the right place around the internet.

Nicole: Apart from what is being implemented for IoT (connecting machines/devices, people and services in real time), what could be a use case that we have not seen yet in the market/real world?

Jyrki: Million dollar/euro question! If it is disrupting minds or changing use case and having a solution for it, I would be working and making patents for it. So, let’s leave this to the future ??

Nicole:?Can you tell us more about your idea of a new age themed amusement park in Northern Finland? What gave you this inspiration in the first place?

Jyrki: At that time, I was working with Elisa’s new age home experiences. The company was changing strategy from services to experiences. I was running the most interesting new experience business inside the organization. At the same time, I saw that Northern Scandinavia is missing a good new age themed amusement park. Why not innovate towards a new kind of experience economy business in Oulu and raise the attraction of Oulu to a new level? Actually, there are not any real themed amusement parks in the entire Finland. So …

Nicole: If there is one thing that you can do to change about how Finland is promoted, what would it be?

Jyrki: A very hard question. What I wish is that Finland will be seen around the world as a country with expert knowhow such that people will naturally start to look for new technologies from Finland. People should get to know the many talents from Finland and that the highest value solutions come from Finland.

Nicole: What do you do in your down time?

Jyrki: I have been for the whole of my life very interested in wilderness and especially in moose hunting. I have a moose hunting dog, called Ukko. We go moose hunting a lot during autumn. In winter, I like skiing and in spring and summer, I go cycling and jogging.

Oulu has a reputation for mischievous humour from its residents and Jyrki is a good example of the going gets tough, the people get together. Thank you, Jyrki, for being an invaluable Kaato member.

https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/jyrki-suutari/