It is a sunny afternoon, when Mallow’s CTO Teemu Tapanila answers the call and greets the camera from Mallow’s office in Vallila, Helsinki
Finding a good time to set up the interview needed some organizing, as Teemu is a busy bee in and outside his job. Besides being a CTO and team leader of a company full of experts, he also educates and does public speaking about the possibilities of Azure and technology.
“I like to travel and do a bit of speaking in conferences, meetups and other similar events” says Teemu. I have been training people from Microsoft staff to other Azure-powered companies in places like Vegas and Singapore, and I also lived in Stockholm for a short while”.
All the roads leading to fresh solutions.
What led Teemu to Mallow was the spark of ambition, as working as lone consultant started to become tedious after years of travels. Finding fresh solutions and making real changes became joyful and more efficient by founding Mallow.
“While I enjoyed being an Azure consultant on my own, I also started to feel a bit limited at the end of each project. Around that time, I met Jani and Jaakko, and soon we had the idea and foundations for a company, that focuses only on Azure consultation, as a great team to drive the changes which we want to see.”
Highly motivated by creating solutions to customers and being inspired by positive changes, Teemu is set on developing change and being the driver behind the success for Mallow’s customers. Setting goals and ensuring technical development in the role of CTO suits these aspirations well.
“The things that motivate me are making a real change for each customer we have, and that you don’t have to be alone during the process. Those are the biggest values Mallow has”.
The drivers of change
Inspired by positive changes, Teemu enjoys talking about how processes and use of technology can be improved in any company. According to Teemu, companies usually do not plan to add more internal processes, although sometimes new operational processes can lead to smoother results. Challenging the old patterns and adjusting to modern technologies often requires a lot more than just Azure: the adaptation also requires updating protocols, operations and other technologies used in companies.
“Not all companies often challenge their old processes and realize how much improvement and more efficiency could be achieved by simply updating not only systems, but the whole thinking process behind operations. And it is not always that easy to do either. Being able to challenge the old patterns of thinking and to offer new tools is a great personal motivator why I enjoy my job”, explains Teemu.
The process usually starts by understanding the client and mapping out what are the actual needs for new tech. The early discussions aim to establish why certain technology is needed, and what the client wants to achieve with the updates they are asking for. Sometimes certain methods and solutions are asked without clear understanding about their effectiveness as tools, and that’s where Teemu wishes to pinpoint the problem to find the best solution.
“I really want to understand the clients’ needs and visions deeper. To achieve the results wanted, I need to be able to see why the client wants the thing they are asking for, so I can tell if it is the right solution for the problem, or if a better alternative can be created. I want to make sure that everyone could get the best results from collaborating with us.”
Buying cloud services can be tricky especially for companies who have no prior experience of them, and that’s where Teemu wishes to clarify all the possibilities and value that Azure can give for a company. “The problems our clients face are usually not exclusively technological issues, but multifaceted challenges. This is why we have lots of specialists to examine the challenges from several angles. And of course, to provide direct support in sudden situations. There is never a shoe that fits everyone the same, nor a cloud solution – we take each case offered to us individually and push the best outcome of it”.
Azure as an opportunity
The opportunities of Azure are excellent, especially for modernizing. For example, if a client has an application which runs a bit poorly, it can be transferred to a cloud and modernized to make further development easier. Azure also gives a lot of ready-made tools for monitoring, which helps in maintaining smooth running of the said application. Even data security is a built-in feature of Azure, minimizing risks of data breaches with low costs.
“If you do not have a functioning application just yet, it is advised to build it on Azure. It is more efficient with less costs, and it is also fast to operate. Of course, cloud services itself will not be a tool for creating direct extra revenue for any company, but the ultimate strength of them is in how much easier time management, faster services and creating added value becomes.”
explains Teemu.
Right now, demand for cloud technology and especially Azure services have been growing both in Finland and globally. The reason behind this is the positive experiences, which feed the curiosity of companies to try Azure as a part of their systems. Azure has also developed a lot as a service during the past 10 years, making it a completely new system compared to what it was in the past. Nowadays Azure has features to cater more for the varied needs of developers.
“Of course, it is easy to say that Azure is the best platform ” Teemu laughs.
Some of the projects that Teemu has been leading are Aidon and Stewardship, and more about both of them can be read on our website. In both cases, use of Azure has helped in stabilizing and enhancing the performance of the applications and websites, enabling publishing updates every day.
The future is here, so what´s next?
Some of the conversations happening online regarding the possible futures of cloud services involve discussion about AI (Artificial Intelligence), and the possibilities it will bring. AI itself is not a recent innovation, but the way it has taken massive leaps in its development in less than a year, is what makes it now such a hot topic of interest.
Microsoft collaborates with OpenAI, which is an AI company famous from its ChatGPT. Through this collaboration Azure offers a possibility to create your own ChatGPT.
“Through the collaboration, Microsoft offers the user access to OpenAI’s interface. You can use that to create your own ChatGPT. It is a very smart way to use the application in a data secure way. Microsoft is also increasing the use of AI in all its tools, and for example, you can even ask from AI if someone is targeting your systems to breach data.”
With all the recent developments when it comes to AI and machine learning possibilities, and all the advantages in cybersecurity, Azure is a potential frontrunner to be the cloud computing service of the future for many industries. Positive experiences that several companies have had are a great indicator for good things to come, and also a great advocator of cloud services for anyone who wishes to stay onboard the latest advantages.
“Through the collaboration, Microsoft offers the user access to OpenAI’s interface. You can use that to create your own ChatGPT. It is a very smart way to use the application in a data secure way. Microsoft is also increasing the use of AI in all its tools, and for example, you can even ask from AI if someone is targeting your systems to breach data.”
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