Growth in all areas in 2020 – even better delivery in 2021
2020 was a year we will remember for many reasons, some of them being growth and investments for us at SafeBase. As we summarize the year and look forward towards 2021, with CEO Lars Erik Gjervan and COO Jan Ødegård, keywords are steady growth, fast rollout of features, new markets, and ever-improving operational intelligence for our customers.
Over the past year we have seen a 40% increase in staff, allowing us to customize our technology (May 2020) faster, and to an even greater degree than before.
— Our solutions are extremely well suited to the market in which we work on the whole, while also being adaptable enough to fit each individual client. This is a main reason for all our clients, who are scaling up their use of SafeMon – and why we haven’t lost a single customer to date. Our solutions are in extremely high demand by the market, which is why we needed more skilled employees to ensure we could maintain our high customer satisfaction, says CEO Lars Erik Gjervan.
Strengthening our team with specific expertise
The development of our own artificial intelligence platform for AI and machine learning for operational intelligence support, and the development of new database technology to effectively handle streaming data, brought forward the need to strengthen our team with specific skill sets and expertise (March 2020).
– In accordance with our philosophy, we always strive to possess professional in-depth knowledge across all our market areas. At the same time, we aim to utilize the newest available database technology, data analysis technology, and visualization solutions. To ensure we keep moving forward, we need even more specialists within their respective fields, says COO Ødegård.
Our work on big data and artificial intelligence has, among other things, materialized in a R&D project where we are working with Tensio to predict faults in power grids (June 2020).
Profitable growth
In addition to growing in terms of employees, we also increased our top-line and bottom-line significantly.
– Profitable growth has always been at the forefront of our business model – in that order. Profitability precedes growth. We strive to remain a secure and stable company. That way we ensure stability for all our employees – new and old, and we can guarantee our customers that they can rely on us as a partner today – as well as in the future, says Lars Erik.
The goal of a top-line growth of more than 30% in 2020 has been reached, and the bottom-line growth is even better than it has been in previous years.
Remote controlled presence becomes increasingly important
Today, SafeBase deliver software and services to the energy and telecom industries. These sectors are heavily involved in facilitating the functions of critical infrastructure; the events of 2020 accelerated their dependency on our technology and remote-control systems. Climate change has also driven up the demand for our services, as companies strive to fly less and require remote controlled solutions.
– When travel became difficult due to the pandemic, many companies found themselves in need of systems which would allow them to monitor their infrastructure and establish a remote presence. These are services we have delivered to the energy industry for a number of years (March 2020), which enabled us to quickly roll out our services to the telecom industry. In addition, companies have started realizing it is both profitable and climate-friendly for technicians and repairers to travel less, says Lars Erik.
Jan tells us that the work of making “dumb things smart” becomes increasingly important – for everyone delivering critical infrastructure.
– The common denominator for all our customers is that they have thousands – often tens of thousands – of components that needs monitoring. It is literally an unhuman task. When tens of thousands of components, often positioned atop the highest mountains, at the end of the deepest fjords, and in the middle of big cities, are to be monitored, it either requires a lot of people – or excellent technology.
– We collect and utilize information from components connected to networks. We also collect data from things that are not connected, – like whether a door is open or not, if there are high wind speeds, or low humidity. All you need is a sensor and a SensorHub. Monitoring these external factors means that we can, to a greater and greater extent, recreate the experiences a human being makes while in the field. This enable our customers to free up human resources – allowing them to be ahead of any problem that may emerge and make better and more informed decisions, rather than waiting for error messages or traveling around the country making unnecessary checks, says Jan.
In addition, there is significant added value in gathering all available information in one software system, like we do in SafeMon. Applying machine learning, artificial intelligence, eliminating noise, and visualizing meaningful data allow us to operate networks in a proactive and sustainable way (October 2020).
Increased dependency on critical networks
As providers of energy- and telecom services strive to minimize trips to inaccessible infrastructure, the consequences of operational interruptions grow ever larger for the users of these systems. With a significant part of the population working from home offices, stable and robust internet- and telephone connections became crucial throughout 2020 – not only in commercial buildings and in the cities – but in regular homes in towns and hamlets. In July we secured a contract with Telia for almost 100 MNOK, to provide remote telecom base station monitoring (July 2020).
– The tools we provide are important for our customers and the work they do digitalizing our infrastructure and the construction of data-driven decision support, says Jan.
The electrification of society also means that we are becoming dependent on steady and secure access to high-quality electricity (August 2020). Electric cars need charging, as do ferries and busses – the need for electricity and stable power grids, for private individuals and the business community, is constantly increasing.
Excellent indications for 2021
SafeBase is embarking on an exciting year, with several exciting partnerships at hand. In addition to several new collaborations with Norwegian energy companies, we are noticing a significant increase in demand for our technology and services coming from abroad.
– We will continue to grow cautiously, to ensure we are taking good care of our existing customers. At the same time, it is an advantage for our existing customers that we are growing, especially when considering our Software-as-a-Service principle, which means that any new software function we develop – often ordered by our new clients – is also offered to our existing customers, explains Lars Erik.
– We are looking forward to the new year and expect further growth to our team, an increase in SafeMon features, exciting additions to our client list and growing both the top- and bottom line further, he concludes.
From us to you – our customers, partners and employees – we wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. See you in 2021!
