Blog postBy Iiris Lahti
AI Roots supporting Barona data journey
Barona, the leading private employment agency in Finland, and AI Roots first started their cooperation 1,5 years ago. The Barona data journey kicked off with refreshing Barona data vision and opportunities. Since then, a lot has happened in Barona’s data journey. Leveraging work-life data has become a central factor in executing their mission, creating a better, fairer, and more successful work life. According to Barona’s Data Development Manager, Kristiina Juurmaa, Barona has taken big leaps to better make use of their data assets and to become more data-driven.
“Our data maturity is growing rapidly and AI Roots has supported us in every step of this process. During the past year, we’ve had many projects that enable us to do more complex and advanced use cases in the future.”
In addition to investing in data competencies, Juurmaa sees that the organization’s whole relationship with data has shifted: “We have come a long way in the way we relate to data as an organization. For example, the vocabulary in which our people talk about data has changed majorly.”
Partner in strategy and practice
As companies’ data journeys are not always easy, AI Roots has walked beside Barona and helped them to remember that the process often contains similar steps regardless of the industry, and the execution requires a sense of patience. However, with carefully selected professionals, a lot can be accomplished in a few months or a year.
Jussi Ropo, operating as Barona’s CFO, has been happy with AI Root’s approach and sees the company holds a special capability to understand both the big picture and the practical issues. ”AI Roots’s process comprehends both the strategy work and the execution. They not only draw us a fine data vision and leave us alone with that but help us to carry things through. That is something we highly appreciate.”
Ropo also sees that their cooperation has been seamless since it is always easy to ask for help regardless of the situation: “We have an exceptionally low threshold to ask for help, whether it’s about high-level things or basic daily stuff.” Ropo adds that certain data projects have taken more time than initially planned but believes that careful execution will benefit them in the future.
Seamless teamwork as a premise for success
The AI Roots data entrepreneurs working for Barona have been happy with how Barona has welcomed them as part of the team. The seamless teamwork has been a driver of successful cooperation and recognized also at Barona. “We have been extremely happy with the AI Roots professionals, and they are now a central part of our team”, says Kristiina Juurmaa.
Barona is utilizing several data engineers with various backgrounds to build up their data platform, integrations, data models and data visualization solutions. Barona has also started to explore possibilities for Machine Learning with the help of a data scientist for the AI Roots network.
Barona tends to interview all partners with technical skill set requirements, and they have always found the appropriate people from the AI Roots network. ” You can sleep well at night when you know you’re working with AI Roots professionals”, Jussi Ropo adds. He has not noticed obstacles regarding the entrepreneurship model but sees it as an advantage: “As an entrepreneur, you must maintain your reputation and have a natural incentive to deliver.”
Barona tends to interview all partners with technical skill set requirements, and they have always found the appropriate people from the AI Roots network. ” You can sleep well at night when you know you’re working with AI Roots professionals”, Jussi Ropo adds. He has not noticed obstacles regarding the entrepreneurship model but sees it as an advantage: “As an entrepreneur, you must maintain your reputation and have a natural incentive to deliver.”
People related data as a tool for creating better work life
Iiris Lahti, the founding partner of AI Roots, has been impressed by Barona’s ambition to leverage work-life data and develop capabilities in HR-analytics: “It is great to see how Barona is becoming one of the HR analytics forerunners in Finland. After all, we don’t see that many companies developing competencies in HR analytics, as many are focused on sales, production, or logistics”, Lahti describes.
Juurmaa agrees that Barona has high ambitions in terms of data and reaching their strategic objectives:
”We want to be the forerunners of developing people-related data responsibly. In a way all our data is human data, and in that sense, everything we do with the data can have a big impact on people’s work-life experience.”
Partner with us to boost your data journey
We at AI Roots support companies in various industries and phases of the data journey. We can help to scale up a more mature data team or help in establishing one. If you would like to explore our talent base and different ways how we can support you, book a 30 - 60 minute introduction meeting with Iiris or Max or send a contact request using this form.