Netcontrol’s focus areas in a rapidly changing energy sector

The energy sector is evolving faster than ever before. Unprecedented challenges, such as humanitarian and environmental crises, have made it much harder to forecast the future of energy production and consumption. Netcontrol is committed to staying on top of the change by focusing on improving our product portfolio and expanding our service offering to new geographic locations and business sectors.

Netcontrol offering and markets

Netcontrol is a leading international provider of services, products and systems for power network automation, especially in the Nordics and Baltics. Our customers mainly include electricity and energy distribution companies, electricity producers and other companies with high-voltage power networks, such as railway operators and the energy intensive industry. They use our solutions to supervise, monitor and control their power distribution systems and related automation equipment. Our product portfolio includes SCADA systems and remote terminal units (RTUs), compliant with the latest standards and protocols. Today we also offer extensive service agreements for our SCADA and RTU customers as well as for operators of OT networks under the VALVOT, ONE and DOME service concepts, launched in 2022-2023.

Netcontrol’s focus areas and strategy

Our no. 1 priority is to serve our customers in the best possible way, providing them with comprehensive solutions and services.

The basis for Netcontrol’s development is firm: we have a strong position in the Northern European power network automation markets and provide high quality solutions in an increasingly unpredictable world. We also have great opportunities for international growth and are extending our customer base as well as our offering. As the CEO, I am excited to take Netcontrol forward and focus on the long-term success of the company by developing and implementing our growth strategy and operational improvements. The key elements to make that happen are as follows.

We develop innovative new service concepts for our customers

This has been our focus during the past year, with the following examples of service agreements:

• VALVOT for SCADA systems
• Netcon ONE for RTUs
• DOME for OT network cyber security

We continue to develop improved new products

• The Netcon 200 RTU for secondary substations
• Netcon Application Manager (NAM) to enable the remote maintenance and updating of RTUs

We recruit competent employees with the right skills

• To better serve our customers and to continuously increase our service capabilities and resources, Netcontrol focuses on recruiting highly qualified people.

We aim to grow beyond our core business

• Expanding our service offering and capabilities through acquisitions (recently acquired Voltyx, a Swedish engineering company, in May) and partnering (e.g., with Nozomi Networks, to provide cybersecurity services)
• Expanding our product portfolio with relevant synergistic products through partnering
• Expanding our market coverage into new geographic locations and business sectors

In 2022 and early 2023, the global component crisis hit us hard, and we faced challenges in procuring components for deliveries. During 2023, we succeeded in many operational improvements and now have a stronger and better functioning company.

Recently our key focus areas and developments have included, for example, the following:

• Improved sourcing, with a better access to components and materials
• Increased capacity in product cabinet assembly, both internally and with external partners
• Improved competitiveness with a fixed cost structure and competitive products
• Resources for growth, with the recruitment of 6 project engineers in 2023 and 2 project managers in 2024
• Improved internal systems and processes, including new ERP and CRM systems

Deep dive into service development

The buying behavior of both consumers and businesses is changing, with especially consumers moving to subscription-based services. There is also a trend in various industries where the service maturity level and the demand for wider service agreements is growing. During the past few years, we at Netcontrol have seen this trend in the electricity distribution industry and among our customers. Companies want to focus on their core operations and find partners to support the management of their noncore activities.

Netcontrol’s managed services

To respond to this growing demand especially among our SCADA customers, we have been developing our SCADA maintenance agreements for several years, with the introduction of our new VALVOT “SCADA as a service” concept in the summer of 2022. Under VALVOT, we take full responsibility for maintaining the customer’s SCADA system, with software and hardware updates and continuous monitoring.

Currently most of our SCADA customers have a maintenance agreement with us. We believe that in the future even more customers will opt for at least this, and some will upgrade to a “SCADA as a service” agreement. We also understand, however, that some of our customers prefer to continue with the model of ordering upgrades, updates and services separately.

At the same time, we are receiving more requests from our RTU customers for RTU maintenance agreements and for tools enabling them to centrally manage their RTUs as well as RTU configurations and software updates. With these requests in mind, we introduced the Netcon ONE RTU maintenance service concept in early 2023.

Service maturity levels with SCADA & RTUs

Netcontrol responds to trends and customer demand with maintenance and VALVOT agreements.

A large share of our customers on the RTU side today buy only the products, with the possibility of occasional engineering support or updates. We do believe, however, that a demand is developing even here for maintenance agreements and possibly even for an “RTU as a service” model (which we cannot offer yet but may develop in the future based on customer demand).

With the changing geopolitical environment and increased cybersecurity threats, all businesses must invest in improving their security. This is especially important for companies within the field of critical infrastructure. The NIS2 directive came into force in 2023 to boost the overall level of cybersecurity within the EU, and the deadline for its national implementation is in October 2024. To help our existing and new customers meet that deadline, we introduced the Netcon DOME service concept for OT network cybersecurity in late 2023.

We are ready to serve our current and future customers with our solutions and continue to develop our product and service offering to meet the needs and requirements of our customers.

Author

Tommi Roine joined Netcontrol in October 2021 after close to 10 years in different managerial and leadership positions at Valmet. He held the position of CEO of Netcontrol Group from 2022 to 2025.