Smart Cities Interview Series: Jukka Salmikuukka from KONE

Following up from our first two expert interviews (first expert interview with Prof. Dr. Andreas Herrmann of St Gallen University; second expert interview with Mr. Marko K?rkk?inen of Clewat Oy), we invited Mr. Jukka Salmikuukka, Director of Strategic Partnerships from KONE, to join our third expert interview.

Jukka has been working with KONE for 17 years. In he is current role, he is driving the development of strategic partnerships for KONE’s business. I met him in Singapore in February 2020 as he is on a special assignment to develop the partners in the Asia Pacific region. He is currently back in Helsinki and he has plans to return to Singapore soon.

We are delighted that he agreed to join Niklas and me for the discussion on the Smart Cities topic, which KONE has played a key role in enabling people flow in a smart way through their elevators and mobility solutions.

Ricky: Jukka, thanks for joining us today on the discussion! I saw you last week at the Finnish Business Council webinar where you and your KONE colleagues share on the topic of “sustainable partnerships leading the way to greener and smarter cities”. It was interesting to learn about the initiatives the KONE is driving in Singapore and around the world to make cities smarter.

Let’s kick off the discussion today with our first question: what makes the globally top ranked smart cities like Singapore, Helsinki and Zurich a smart city?

Jukka: This is a big question! The way I see it is that cities need to have a clear vision on where they want to go and they need to have the ability to execute their vision.

All the cities in the world are competing with each other. The key is for the cities to find their strengths, and work accordingly to make themselves more attractive than their competitors. The solutions and approaches may not be the same. Each city needs to find their own way, in order to strengthen their position.

Smart Nation Singapore (watch the YouTube video to learn more)

Looking at Singapore in particular, it is very solid as the development are in all fronts – everyone is working towards the Smart Nation vision.

Ricky: Thanks for bringing up Singapore’s Smart Nation vision. Indeed, the government is driving many initiatives to make the city better and smarter. Since you have lived in Helsinki and Singapore, how would you compare both cities?

Jukka: There are many differences for both cities: size, climate, and geographical position. This means that the cities have different opportunities – and the decision making viewpoints are very different. Even though they are different, both are able to find their ways in driving the digital agenda forward.

One of Finland’s strengths is in the education system. We have learnt how to leverage on our strengths and build on top of that. This is one part of the winning formula.

Making Helsinki a Great Place

Niklas: What can other cities learn from these three smart cities?

Jukka: Continuing the same line of discussion, each city needs to recognise its strengths and build on top of them. It’s important to define the vision and strategy on how to get there. As big cities compete with each other, the cities can benefit by performing a competitive analysis. This is only the starting point.

“Smartness” is a wide topic and it involves lots of digitisation. In Helsinki, it is safe, clean and everything works. The basic infrastructure functions well. Of course we do have some challenges of our own and for example the weather can be sometimes very harsh.

Building an environment where it is good to be (for people) will create good opportunities for businesses to establish and to grow. We have a highly skilled workforce, making it favourable for high tech companies to establish in Helsinki, instead of choosing somewhere else.

Niklas: What is KONE’s contribution to the development of smart cities?

Jukka: Smart cities are very important for KONE. We have a role to play in making it easier for cities to grow, by improving flow of urban life. Everyday, under normal circumstances, more than billion people use our equipment to commute across the urban areas. For example, in public transportation hubs (e.g. airports and metro stations) our solutions play important role ensuring efficient commuting and how people move around.

KONE's People Flow (watch the YouTube video to learn more)

We are also heavily investing in digital solutions, which helps us to solve a wider range of issues our customers might have, or provide something new for them. Above all, digitalization provides flexibility. As an  example, hospitals and healthcare providers around the globe have been under enormous pressure because of COVID-19. We wanted to do our part in supporting their efforts by providing our 24/7 Connected Services for free to ensure that their elevators could operate with fewer disturbances and that technicians could work more safely..

Read more about how smart elevators keep hospitals in motion 24/7.

Another example of digitalization is that we know we cannot provide the most value by ourselves. Smart Cities are about collaboration. We have opened up our APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to enable our partners’ solutions to work more easily with us. By combining their innovation with ours, we come up with smarter solutions.

Ricky: Jukka, I heard that you spoke about the Smart Urban Co-Innovation Lab in Singapore during last week’s webinar. Can you share more with us?

Jukka: The lab was a great initiative led by CapitaLand (a large Singapore real estate developer). We are very proud to be part of the lab. The lab has multiple focus areas, including Smart Agri, Intelligent Estates and Smart Mobility.

Photo: CapitaLand

The Lab is a great example of the ecosystem approach. It brings like-minded organisations to work together. We are excited about the partners who are there with us as it gives us a nice platform to collaborate and to test drive the joint innovations in a real environment. At this point, we are still in the beginning stage. Hopefully, we can demonstrate some cool outcomes soon.

Personally, I feel privileged to work in collaboration with all these forward-looking, innovative companies we have built relationships with.

Niklas: You definitely have in interesting job! What are the challenges that you see in the process of becoming a Smart City? How can cities overcome these challenges?

Jukka: I’ve been thinking about this question a lot. It is very much about digital transformation. Just like any traditional organisation which needs to renew itself, the same applies to cities. In some cities, you have the decades or centuries-old structures. Creating new digital capabilities on top of the old structures is not necessarily easy and may require changes in the basic structures as well.

Just like in (digital) transformations more general, you need to be able adjust the way you think and be open to collaborate. Sometimes it may require an even wider change in organizational culture. This can be sometimes painful but I believe that the ability to rise to the  challenge is something that everyone has to be able to do in order to be successful in the future.

The Smart Cities is all about ecosystem game. I believe cities that succeed in creating well-functioning city-level ecosystems shall be more successful. Successful ecosystem is also something that is very difficult to copy. Once you get further ahead from your competing cities, it creates a big advantage for that Smart City in the future.

Niklas: Having lived in both Helsinki and Singapore, do you see something that Helsinki could learn from Singapore?

Jukka: In Singapore, the strength is in very efficient execution and implementation of new things.

The decision-making process and structures are very different. Many cities, including Helsinki, have a lot of legacy to carry on and keep on running. It is not always easy to make big shifts. I believe Singapore has been very successful in this sense.

Singapore is also strong in the interplay between public and private organisations. It has worked very well as everybody is sharing the same vision and going into the same direction together. It is one of the reasons that it is so efficient and developing rapidly.

Ricky: What is your personal vision for smart cities in the next 10 years?

Jukka: 2030 can be a long time, but also a short one.

In many cities, you have 100-year old (or more) infrastructure and that is not something that you can change in 10 years. The old infrastructure will put some limitations on new technologies. The key question is how well the cities modernize their core infrastructure and processes allowing them to fully leverage digital capabilities.

Photo: Barcelona (example of a >100 year old city that is becoming smart). Source

In 10 years, I think we will start to see different types of smart cities. Cities are competing on different type of resources – some are targeting young tech talent, and some perhaps on commercial capabilities.

Technologically, cities will be built with more seamless technology – hidden in the infrastructure and running in the background. It will enable all of us to do things more fluently in our daily lives.

In city planning, there will be a shift towards a combination of multiple functions within a district or region. We will see less pure industrial or residential districts. There is less need to commute from one side of the city to another.

Old cities will do their best to renew themselves, while new emerging cities have more freedom to decide how they shall grow. I believe there will be a lot of versatile approaches.

Smart Buildings as the Building Blocks for Smart Cities

Ricky: We are coming to an end of our interview today. Do you have any final words for us?

Jukka: KONE sees that Smart Cities play an important part for KONE’s growth. Our home court (core capabilities) is of course in smart buildings, but I see smart buildings as the building blocks for smart cities. Therefore, I’m confident that KONE has a lot of value to offer for smart cities and we want to be actively involved in the development of smart cities.

As a one concrete example for this direction, we just very recently announced plans to start a program in Finland, focused on harnessing global research and development expertise, to create more sustainable, resilient and inclusive cities.

The new program will draw on expertise from a variety of companies and organizations, to address some of the key ecological, social and economic challenges and opportunities created by urbanization on a global scale. Finland’s efficient industrial and research ecosystem provide excellent preconditions for the achievement of these goals. 

Niklas: KONE is one of the flagship companies of Finland and it’s great to hear that you have a forward looking approach, not only ‘in the building’, but also ‘outside of the building’. It will be interesting to continue to keep an eye on the new developments.

Ricky: Jukka, thank you very much for joining us for today’s discussion! I look forward to seeing you in Singapore again soon!

Miss the introduction of why we started this Smart Cities article series? Read it here.