Secto started using Frends in 2019, and since then, the adoption and usage of the platform have only been growing deeper. With Frends, Secto has 5x times expedited the development time and is planning to move 95% of its integrations to Frends.

Business Goals

Secto Automotive is a Finnish entrepreneur-driven growth company. Secto Automotive is a reinventor of the traditional car leasing industry. Since its establishment in 2007, Secto has introduced the Open Calculation Leasing product to the Finnish market, taken a dominant position in leasing services for electric vehicles, and opened a whole new market segment in SMEs. Secto Automotive challenges traditional vehicle ownership models and continuously creates new solutions based on customers' needs. Every fourth company with leasing cars in Finland uses Secto Automotive.

The company started using the Frends Integration Platform in 2019, and since then, the adoption and usage of the platform has only been growing deeper. Secto wanted to have a single solution to handle all Integration and Business Automation needs instead of upkeeping multiple different solutions. Having a user-friendly coding environment and the ability to manage all APIs within one interface were the top priorities when choosing a suitable iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service).

We have saved much time maintaining different integrations. We like that Frends offers an all-in-one tool, and our IT staff can create all necessary integrations without any difficulties." Jani Rantanen, Chief Digital Officer, Secto Automotive

Integration challenges

Secto realized that it was time to search for an iPaaS platform and take it into a company-wide use when the company evaluated its technology stack. They noticed that they had too many different platforms in use - the development time was slower than they expected it to be. The IT environment was only growing more complex to maintain and monitor.

So, they needed a solution that would significantly improve their capability to run integrations and develop new processes in a fast, lean, and effortless way within one platform. Having advanced monitoring features was also critical. Moreover, at that time, the previous integration solution setup was not suitable for bridging the gap between development and business teams. So, the newly adopted iPaaS was meant to bring transparency across multiple departments and facilitate service co-creation and joined decision-making.

Results

Secto was convinced that transferring all their IT needs to one iPaaS was the right business decision that long-term will bring significant time and resource savings.

Secto was qualifying four other iPaaS platforms before selecting Frends. They chose the Frends Integration Platform among other alternatives on the market due to its scalability and wide range of development tools. It was also crucial for the company to align its business and tech departments when it comes to business automation development. Since Frends is made for BizDevOps teams and uses BPMN 2.0 visual notation language standard, it breaks the silos between teams. It makes it easy to grasp business integration flows and the big picture of business logic even with limited technical knowledge.

"Frends helps us to develop new things in a fast and flexible way. Easy to add new integrations and maintain and monitor them." Jani Rantanen, Chief Digital Officer, Secto Automotive.

Secto liked that with the Frends iPaaS they could:

• continue to use C# language
• combine various kinds of integration scenarios within one product (APIs, scheduled triggers and tasks, Service Bus)
• have a responsive and local support team with a fast resolution time.

The first integration project implemented with Frends was for the Finance Department at the company. Today, Frends integrations cover all business processes technically. The company has published and managed APIs, created file-based integrations, and run various data transfers. Frends handles critical business processes and makes the data valid in every technical environment.

Secto develops its solutions to continuously delight its customers and improve the services. Frends integrations are the backbone of multiple user interfaces designed by Secto for their customers and end-users. One of which is the mobile application "Secto Driver Assistant."

 “Secto Driver Assistant” mobile app user interface

The mobile application connects to various internal systems, like ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), Customer Service Portal, CRMs, and 3rd party service providers. Data flows seamlessly across the systems, and a user gets real-time and location-based updates via the app. For instance, the app handles all necessary services in a leasing lifecycle: from ordering a car to fueling services (exchanging data with gas stations' systems), car washing services, mobile road services, to the renewals of leasing. A car owner can handle all car and leasing-related tasks from one interface and get assistance anytime and anywhere on the road.

From the back end, Frends enables automatic car status updates with advanced scheduled triggers: Once the leasing period ends, it triggers user alerts to order a new car and track the status. What is important is that Secto can monitor the execution of all processes and sub-processes at any instance from a single Frends interface.

"We have saved much time maintaining different integrations. We like that Frends offers an all-in-one tool, and our IT staff can create all necessary integrations without any difficulties. Building the processes themselves became very fast once we defined Secto's way of implementing and securing integrations." -says Jani.

Jani also points out that time-to-market has significantly shortened. When a new business idea is on the table, moving its implementation into real life does not take long. In the future, Secto is planning to move 95% of its integrations to Frends and keep automating processes between various systems.