Insta on the lookout for something new

Insta Group Oy is a growing family business based in Tampere and focused on finding new business opportunities. Industrial automation and defence and security technology are the key fields of competence of the company, but in order to find new business opportunities the people at Insta are ready to look outside the box.

Insta’s growth shows in the cityscape of Tampere: A new building was competed in the Sarankulma district, and the renovation of the older buildings located on the same plot continues. Next year, all Tampere operations of the company will be centralised within the same campus, and there is hope that it will increase the social interaction of the employees and internal networking of the company.

– Then the campus will host in total approximately 550 Insta employees who are working with different things but meet, for example, in the shared canteens. Just yesterday, I personally went to sit at a table where I only knew one person and we had a very nice conversation about many things, says Chief Executive Officer Pertti Huusko.

Insta was established in 1960 for industrial automation and instrumentation equipment installations. The company has grown into a significant industrial group with world-class expertise actively seeking new business opportunities and contemplating planned international launches.

– Insta is a large Finnish family business, independent, profitable, continuously growing and proud of its identity, says Huusko.

Insta Group comprises four business units whose competences range from industrial and process automation to defence and security technology and life cycle services for aviation. The most recent business unit, Insta Innovation Oy, was established in 2013 to be on the lookout for new trends and develop growth business for the Group. The company concentrates on virtual technologies and innovative services.

– Insta is looking for expansion opportunities that side with its current business operations and completely new launches, says Huusko.

Planning new things is carried out single-mindedly at Insta, but there is room for chance in the creation of innovations. One launch contemplated at Insta started to progress when Insta Innovation’s Development Manager Niklas Mattsson ran the same marathon as Pihlajalinna’s CEO Mikko Wirén. Pihlajalinna is a major Finnish provider of social and health care services and an interesting partner for Insta.

– Insta can create a situational picture, for example, on how Hornets move in the airspace. We had already thought that similar situational information could also be utilised in care work and, together with Pihlajalinna, we were able to join our perspectives, says Insta Innovation Vice President Esa Einola.

As result, we created joint venture Insta Care Oy, which provides a new type of ERP system for municipalities and service providers for operations in the social and health care fields. The system’s idea is to offer for each user a correct level of information: for example an employee in the care field gets precise facts about the people receiving care and a manager gets broader outlines.

– This enables true information and knowledge management since decisions can be made based on a practical situational picture, says Huusko.

According to Huusko, Insta Care’s ERP system helps Finland to better deal with the challenges caused by the ageing of the population. The system is also a potential export product, since mass ageing will impact many countries of the world in the coming years. Insta’s situation awareness competence offers extensive possibilities in the care field. Technology can come to people’s assistance when they need to be able to live in their own homes for longer and still feel secure in doing so.

– Access control, wrist bands or smart mats can provide information for a system monitoring the well-being of people living at home and immediately dispatch help when needed. On the other hand, ensuring information security is a vital part of such a system, and that too is among the core competences of Insta, says Einola.

The care field is one of Insta’s new prospects, but certainly not the only one. Virtual and simulation technologies open interesting possibilities, for example, for practising disturbance situations both in companies and among rescue authorities. Education will be reformed once traditional class room teaching is completed with virtual extensions. A 3D city plan model being designed for the planning of cities enables the parties to test the solutions at a whole new level. So there is much to discover when you look outside the box.

Read more:

– Insta's website www.insta.fi

– Insta featured on the Business and Research Directory of the Tampere Business Region.