With over 20 years of experience from leading international positions in software, cloud services, and mission-critical enterprise solutions, IFS gains in Mattias Bolander a strong leader with a documented ability to build and scale businesses in the Nordics. PLM&ERP News readers have, not least during his time at SAP and also Workday, been introduced to IFS’s new Nordic base.
Aiming for Continued
Growth in the Region
In his role as Head of the Nordics, Mattias Bolander (pictured right) will have overall responsibility for IFS’s continued growth in the region, with a focus on strengthening the company’s position with companies in mission-critical, service- and asset-intensive industries. With his background from both established global players and fast-growing technology companies, he will play a central role in translating IFS’s strategy into concrete customer value in the region.
”I have followed IFS for many years and have always been fascinated by the company’s strength in its core industries,” says Bolander. “I am convinced that the future lies in a clear industry focus rather than in generic ERP solutions to deliver sustainable value to their customers. As more and more organizations operate in complex, service- and asset-intensive environments, I see great potential for IFS to take an even clearer leadership position in the Nordic market.”
Which areas are prioritized on the way forward?
“Industry specialization in manufacturing, energy, and service-intensive industries. While competitors try to be general, we go deeper into industry-specific processes, where we are now also developing integrated AI. In the Nordics, we also see great opportunities in sustainability-driven transformation as Nordic companies are at the forefront of ESG.”
The Value of a Cloud-Native solution
The cloud is important – how do you assess IFS’s position?
“IFS Cloud is truly cloud-native, not a “lift and shift” of old systems. We also offer flexibility. Customers choose between IFS Cloud (SaaS) or their own cloud environment, which is crucial for Nordic companies with security or sovereignty requirements, especially in the defense industry. The majority of new sales are now cloud-based.”
Are there some areas where you see great opportunities for rapid commercial success for the company?
“Yes, three areas in particular stand out,” he says:
- Energy sector: Nordic energy companies are investing heavily in renewable energy. IFS is the market leader in EAM for this sector – AI-driven predictive maintenance reduces downtime and extends the life of equipment.
- Manufacturing industry: IFS provides end-to-end visibility from order to delivery, with AI that predicts bottlenecks before they occur.
- Service transformation: Product companies are moving from selling products to making their money on peripheral and end-customer services, and we have an excellent field service solution to optimize and solve cases faster.
How do IFS Customers’ AI Initiatives Work?
Today, AI pieces are rightly seen as central to the future. However, the number of truly successful initiatives still seems to be limited. How do AI pieces work among IFS customers?
“We see a couple of use cases in particular that customers are asking for,” says Bolander pointing at:
Predictive maintenance: Analyzes sensor data and predicts errors before they happen.
Intelligent scheduling: Automatically optimizes technicians based on skills, availability, and geography. Huge cost savings.
AI Co-pilot: Helps users navigate the system and suggests the next step – all within a secure IFS environment, no data leaks. Because our AI is industry-specific, it understands, for example, the difference between a manufacturing order and a service order, between maintenance on a wind turbine and a gas turbine. It is this knowledge – not just the algorithm – that creates value and makes a difference in our solution,” concludes IFS’s new leader for the Nordic movement.
Challenging, but IFS’ AI Looks Promising
Overall, a realistic stance in the AI context, which is still in its infancy. The respected analyst IDC points out, among other things, that unclear goals, insufficient data readiness, and a lack of internal expertise are slowing down many AI POCs, Proof-of-Concept. POCs play an important role in this context as extremely useful strategy models for testing use cases: In short, you can test AI solutions without having to rely on existing and functioning platforms.
This fits perfectly into a situation where the explosive pace of development has increased the number of pilots that industrial companies are launching in order not to risk missing the train. At the same time, the analyst IDC points out that a bit of pilot fatigue has developed in many companies today. There is a certain resistance to seeking practical results, among other things, because they do not believe that the lessons learned from these experiments will be enough. It is also the case, according to new IDC research, that 88% of the observed POCs are not capable of large-scale distribution. For every 33 AI POCs that a company launched, only four were upgraded to production, IDC found. That’s barely 13 percent.
”The high number of AI POCs but low conversion to production indicates the low level of organizational readiness in terms of data, processes, and IT infrastructure,” IDC reports.
Not least in light of this, new models for introducing AI are well worth looking at before moving forward with investments. IFS models in this area look promising in this regard, and the Nordic market, traditionally among the most mature internationally, could very well be the right place to establish the new AI solutions.
