Secapp and Telia’s strategic partnership strengthens the critical communications chain

Secapp and Telia began working together in 2023 through a reseller agreement. In three years, their cooperation has expanded to include joint customer work and the development of critical communications solutions. Telia’s networks, devices and management services are combined with Secapp’s critical communications solution in a way that supports customers’ operational capability during disruptions and emergencies.

When Secapp and Telia announced their cooperation in 2023, Telia added Secapp’s critical communications solution to its offering. Since then, the number of joint customers and the volume of the service have grown, Telia’s expertise in Secapp has expanded, and the cooperation has extended beyond sales to joint customer work and service development.

“At first, we operated on a smaller scale, and I was personally involved in almost every customer meeting. Now, Telia’s sales and delivery organisation handles a wide range of implementations, and I see new orders every week. Our cooperation is no longer just about reselling: we develop solutions together that support customers’ operational capability and preparedness for disruptions and emergencies,” says Mika Myllymäki, Business Director at Telia.

Kari Aho, CEO of Secapp, sees the change in the same way:

“Our cooperation has deepened in so many areas that we can now speak of a strategic partnership. Alongside reselling, we now work together with customers, develop solutions and build new service combinations to meet customer needs.”

The effectiveness of critical communications is not determined by a single application alone. An alert must travel through the network, reach a functioning device and get the right person’s attention. Device, application and user management must also work.

In the combined offering from Telia and Secapp, Secapp provides the application solution for critical communications, alerting and preparedness. Telia complements it with network connectivity, devices, and application and device management.

“In critical communications, the reliability of the entire chain is what matters. The network, devices, management and application must all work when the situation demands it. Together, we can ensure that critical communications work from end to end,” Myllymäki says.

The solution can also be integrated with Telia’s private networks. This allows the customer’s own operating environment to be protected and complemented with Secapp’s alerting, preparedness and disruption management capabilities.

The goal is not to add yet another separate system to the customer’s environment, but to build an integrated solution in which the network, device and application support the same operating model.

The value of the partnership is also evident in service procurement, deployment and management. Telia’s device management enables Secapp to be installed centrally on devices. The service can be included in the customer’s Telia agreement and purchased from the same provider as other connectivity services and devices. This means customers do not have to coordinate multiple suppliers and technical solutions themselves.

“Secapp is a natural addition to the offering because it addresses the same needs for security, preparedness and operational reliability. Customers benefit from the different parts of the overall solution complementing one another,” explains Janne Mylläri, Account Director at Secapp.

In the early stages of the cooperation, Secapp’s experts were closely involved in customer cases. Today, Telia’s sales and delivery organisation handles the sale and deployment of the Secapp service more independently. Secapp continues to support the specification of more demanding solutions, and insights into shared customer needs also guide further service development.

The joint solution is used in environments where business continuity, rapid response and reliable information delivery are essential. Customers range from critical infrastructure and public transport operators to industrial companies, municipalities, cities and public authorities.

In critical infrastructure and public transport, Secapp supports operational continuity and communications during disruptions. In industry, the system can be used to share information and alert the right people if something out of the ordinary happens in production or the operating environment.

In municipalities, cities and schools, Secapp supports preparedness for situations such as fires, evacuations and other serious safety and security incidents. The solution is also used by rescue authorities and in other demanding public authority operations.

What these customers have in common is less about their industry and more about the potential consequences of operational disruptions or delays in critical information.

“The greatest value comes from safeguarding an organisation’s operational continuity. Under normal circumstances, many communications solutions work well enough, but when something actually happens, greater reliability, resilience and the ability to maintain operations during emergencies are needed,” Myllymäki says.

The strategic significance of the cooperation is particularly evident in the way customer work also provides insights for service development. Telia brings an understanding of the operating environments and future needs of large customer organisations to the joint development work.

Secapp combines these insights with its critical communications expertise and feeds the findings into product development. This gives Telia a solution in its offering that evolves with customer needs and can also be used across Secapp’s wider customer base.

“Telia gives us feedback on what works and what needs to be developed. We also gain a long-term perspective on the needs that may emerge for customers years from now. This helps us focus on the right things in product development early enough,” Aho says.

Through the service built for customers, Secapp has also been adopted in Telia’s own operations. The solution is used, among other things, for collaboration related to fault management and for communication with Telia’s partners and contractors.

Telia’s operational capability does not depend solely on its own personnel. Partner companies may be responsible for infrastructure such as masts, power supply and other components. During a disruption, information must also be shared and activities coordinated across organisational boundaries.

This also illustrates one of Secapp’s roles: critical communications do not stop at a company’s internal organisational chart. They must reach everyone needed to resolve the situation.

The next growth opportunities for the cooperation are seen particularly in environments where communications require a higher level of protection and resilience than usual.

In particularly demanding environments, a cloud service accessed over the public internet may not always be sufficient on its own. In these cases, Secapp can be deployed as part of a restricted and protected customer environment, a local or regional server solution, or a private network.

The cooperation also involves Nokia, whose private network technology Telia uses in its customer solutions. Secapp is included in several implementations in which customers have been provided with a private network based on Nokia technology.

“Our shared vision is to bring critical communications, security and reliable connectivity together into one integrated solution. The growth opportunity lies in digital resilience: ensuring that the device, network and application work seamlessly together, even in demanding situations,” Myllymäki says.

The ambition extends beyond the Finnish market. The partners want to build a model in Finland that can also be applied in other countries and high-security operating environments.

“Our ambition is to make this an example for other countries as well. The need for comprehensive security does not stop at Finland’s borders,” Myllymäki continues.

For Aho, the international opportunity is one of the natural next steps in the partnership.

“Through Telia, we have built the capabilities to bring a similar combined offering to international markets. By combining our critical communications expertise with Telia’s and Nokia’s technology and scale, we can take on significantly larger and more demanding projects than we could alone.”