Oulun Energia
Oulun Energia – Effective sales channel and data protection improvements with GDPR gap analysis
Oulun Energia is a large energy group which provides all services related to the value chain of energy and heat production. Products for households include electricity, district heating and solar energy solutions. Corporate customers are serviced via intelligent energy solutions, including heating and lighting solutions. Oulun Energia Group’s annual revenue is roughly 235 million euros.
Effective sales channel, easy to maintain and create content
The starting point for development was a collection of three independent websites, all of which were outdated both technically and from a sales perspective and did not fulfill the needs of modern usage routines by end users. The customer had also identified a need for a more effective sales channel and for easier maintenance and content creation.
The development work was started on the client side with an internal research project to discover customer and business needs for the new website. This was identified as one of the key criteria for the projects success during the implementation phase.
Sales channel & GDPR gab analysis
Ambitious project
Website renewal for Oulun Energia developed and delivered in ambitious schedule alongside with GDPR gab analysis.
Exove was responsible for the technical implementation of the website. Drupal 7 was chosen as the content management system because of its flexibility and capability to handle complex and changing customer requirements in larger web projects. The site was implemented based on the designs of, and in close cooperation with, the design agency Ambientia.
Well planned development sprints made controlling the schedule easier
Post-project feedback praised Exove’s ability to effectively plan development sprints so that development work was strictly controlled at all times. Despite the ambitious schedule, the new site was launched in a controlled manner without need for major fixes afterwards.
Oulun Energia now has a very good responsive website which fulfills the requirements set before the project. Initial statistics also show that end users have found the new site, and their feedback indicates that a majority of them were able to easily find the information they were looking for.
GDPR gap analysis provided a good review of the current state of data protection
Together with Law Office Bird&Bird, Exove analysed information systems and policies related to personal data to meet the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Survey was executed with questionnaires aimed for Oulun Energia’s personnel. Answers provided Exove information about used technical systems and current state of those over GDPR. Bird&Bird’s role was to analyse consistency of practises, processes and documentation.
As a project outcome, Oulun Energia got a list of used systems that are compatible with the Data Protection Regulation and accordingly, of those that still require more investigation. Exove also provided them recommendations and guidance on how their practices should be modified to correspond the regulation. Also, Oulun Energia got an inclusive report of the most fundamental observations, risks and actions of using personal data. In a workshop, the project group went through GDPR’s general requirements for Oulun Energia’s operations.
With the help of the project, we got quickly a very good review of the data protection. Based on these results, it is much easier to plan the follow-up actions for GDPR.
Pasi Takalo, CIO of Oulun Energia
