From the CEO
CEO Repe Harmanen in connection with the business review for 1 January–30 September 2026
The third quarter was better than the first half of the year, although we still fell short of our targets. Our revenue was EUR 6.7 million, down 11.1 per cent year-on-year, compared with a 25.7 per cent decline in the second quarter.
Comparable EBITA was EUR 0.1 million, or 1.0 per cent of revenue, and EBITDA was 2.7 per cent. The comparison period figures still included significant revenue and profit from two major customer projects that ended in July 2025. The slowdown in revenue is positive, but our profitability is still clearly below our targets.
Our revenue for January–September was EUR 22.6 million, a decrease of 21.7 per cent from the previous year. Comparable EBITA was −0.5 per cent of revenue. We have not been able to replace the volume of completed projects with new business quickly enough, which is why we revised our guidance on 24 September 2026. In our half-year report, we expected performance to improve as the won projects are launched. This has happened gradually, but more slowly than we expected. In September, revenue clearly increased compared with previous months. However, our operating profitability still has considerable room for improvement.
Our new sales performance has continued at a very good level despite the challenging market situation. The total value of contracts won so far this year is already nearly double the total value of contracts secured throughout last year. During the review period, we won, among other projects, integration projects for the cities of Järvenpää and Turku, as well as a new cybersecurity testing customer, Statistics Finland. In September, we also launched AI-lukkari, an AI-powered timetable-planning solution. Our strong new sales performance reinforces our confidence in our competitiveness and lays the foundation for future growth, provided the contracts won convert fully into revenue.
Price competition in Finland remains intense. Customer investment activity varies significantly, with no signs of a broader market recovery yet. At the same time, the rapid development of artificial intelligence is changing the entire industry and our customers’ needs. The importance of modernising information systems, leveraging data and AI, and ensuring cybersecurity continues to grow. We see opportunities for Netum in these areas, but exploiting them will require us to operate more efficiently and more cohesively.
During the review period, we have also paid special attention to managing our financial position and cash flow. We have implemented internal measures and developed our financing arrangements. We will continue to strengthen our financial position through planned cost savings, working capital management and converting won sales into revenue.
In the half-year financial report, we announced that we had begun restructuring our organisation and simplifying Netum’s operating methods. We continued this work in the third quarter as part of the strategy work for 2027–2029. We identified the need to sharpen our focus on our core strengths, streamline our cost structure, and make better use of our experts’ skills and expertise. After the end of the review period, this work has materialised into significant decisions:
- On 12 October 2026, we published our refined strategy for 2027–2029. Its focus areas include core systems and integrations, data and artificial intelligence, as well as cyber security and regulatory expertise.
- We decided to renew our organisation to be competence-oriented, simplify management and strengthen the Group’s common sales and resourcing practices. The new organisation will start operating at the beginning of December and will officially take effect on 1 January 2027.
- We completed the change negotiations related to the organisational restructuring. With the reform, we aim to achieve annual cost savings of approximately EUR 1.8 million, the financial effects of which will mainly be visible in 2027.
Following the review period, on 22 October 2026, we were also informed that KEHA Centre selected us for two significant six-year framework agreements for IT expert services, covering three sub-areas in total. Particularly noteworthy is our first-place ranking in the priority order for data warehouse services and integrations. These selections strengthen the prerequisites for the continuity of our long-term customer relationship and support our strategic priorities, even though the framework agreements do not guarantee any purchase volumes.
The past year has been difficult for our personnel. Long-term changes, change negotiations, and uncertainty have strained our entire organisation. I hope the change negotiations that have now ended, and the organisational restructure to be carried out, will bring an end to this long-lasting phase of structural change. Our goal is to restore peace of mind and return to a more normal everyday life together, including both successes and setbacks. We want to refocus on what matters most: our customers, our people’s expertise and what we can achieve together.
Financially, 2026 will be clearly weaker than we expected. However, we have succeeded in new sales and made significant decisions to strengthen our competitiveness in the coming years. We are more confident about the future, even though we still have a lot of work to do. I believe the decisions we have made will provide an even stronger foundation for profitable growth and for building a stronger One Netum.
I would like to thank our customers for their trust and good cooperation, as well as our employees for their commitment and hard work during this difficult year. We will report on the full-year results in our Financial statements release on 23 February 2027