Talenom is organising a Capital Markets Day today – the company’s vision is to provide unbeatable accounting and banking services for SMEs

Talenom Plc, Press release, 11 November 2020 at 8:00 a.m. EET

Talenom is organising a Capital Markets Day today – the company’s vision is to provide unbeatable accounting and banking services for SMEs

Talenom is holding a Capital Markets Day for investors, analysts and the media today from 9:00 to 11:00 EET. The event is intended to present Talenom’s strategy of profitable growth and, among other things, the new banking services and small customer concept announced on 26 October 2020.

"With its new services, Talenom also released its new vision: unbeatable accounting and banking services for SMEs. Talenom’s strategy is still based on making day-to-day life easier for entrepreneur customers, highly automated accounting services and proactively taking care of customers. In addition to organic growth, Talenom’s objective is to export its expertise to new markets in Europe and to grow through acquisitions as well,” says Talenom’s CEO Otto-Pekka Huhtala. 

"The small customer concept opens up an entirely new target market for Talenom in Finland – the small customer sector of SMEs, consisting of companies with net sales of under 400,000 euros. The size of the market is approximately 40% of the accounting market. The small customer sector requires its very own service offering, which we are now able to provide,” continues Otto-Pekka Huhtala. 

"The implementation of our growth strategy is supported by the digital transformation of the accounting and banking sector, facilitated in part by legislative changes. Due to the new e-Invoicing Directive that came into force in April 2020, companies have the right to receive an e-invoice from another company. The Payment Services Directive PSD2 obligates opening up bank interfaces across the EU, which lowers banks’ service fees and Basel regulations have tightened the solvency requirements of banks, for instance, which has created the need for new financing channels for SMEs,” says Huhtala.

Development of automation continues

During the past few years, Talenom has invested especially in improving process efficiency. Particular progress has been made in simplifying the accounting process, in which the number of intermediate stages has been successfully reduced.

The focus is now shifting back to the development of automation. Talenom’s objective is to raise the degree of automation in accounting and payroll service to 100%. The degree of automation is currently slightly over 70% in the accounting production line and approximately 25% in payroll service.

"Thanks to automation, experts’ resources are freed up from manual routines to supporting customers. Automation has reduced the need for labour and thereby improved Talenom’s capacity to take on new customers without hiring more accountants. There is now more time than ever before for taking care of the customer,” says Juha Jutila, Director, Business Development.

An unbeatable customer experience yields a competitive edge

Talenom’s objective is to provide an unbeatable customer experience, which is created by combining a digital user experience with high-quality, highly personal service.

"We want to stand out as an active player that works for the benefit of entrepreneurs – a company that helps its customers not only with accounting services, but also with added value services for finance, taxation and administration. The satisfaction of Talenom customers with one’s own expert is now higher than ever. Our net promoter score (NPS) in 2020 is 51. High customer satisfaction is seen in the positive trend in customer retention. In addition, potential Talenom customers have a favourable image of Talenom and the awareness of the company is good. According to a research carried out by Innolink early in the year, Talenom is Finland's best-known accounting firm,” says Juho Ahosola, Director, Accounting Services.

The company seeks to achieve its goal of providing an unbeatable customer experience by means such as investing heavily in competence development and continuously training personnel. Almost 100 KLT experts have graduated from Talenom’s own KLT training programme in 2016-2019.

Growth organically and through acquisitions

Talenom wants to keep pursuing strong growth. The aim is to increase the number of both in-house sales personnel and franchising entrepreneurs as well as to seek geographical coverage also through distance sales.

"Talenom’s substantial investments in software and achievements in developing efficiency support increasing business volume through acquisitions as well. For a small accounting firm, selling their business to Talenom is an attractive option, as the rapid digitalisation and ever-tightening regulation of the sector require major investments and administrative resources,” says CFO Antti Aho.

Acquisitions can support Talenom’s profitable growth, even though in the short term they burden the relative profitability of an acquiree until it has adopted the new systems.

Growth opportunities in new European markets

During the past few years, Talenom has taken the decisive first steps in its internationalisation through acquisitions in Sweden. The aim is to keep growing and expanding in Sweden. In addition, other European countries provide Talenom with opportunities to expand its business into new markets.

"There are many countries in Europe that are very attractive to Talenom, with a massive number of small and medium-sized enterprises, traditional financial processes and fragmented markets for accounting services. We seek international growth both organically and through acquisitions in phases in the years ahead,” says Tuomas Iivanainen, Director, International Business.

Small customer concept accelerates the implementation of the strategy of profitable growth

At the end of October, Talenom reached an important milestone in its growth strategy when it launched the TiliJaska^TM service in the Finnish market in line with its small customer concept. This new service provides small entrepreneurs with a free accounting application, banking services (IBAN accounts and cards) and accounting services that are scaled to each customer’s needs. In addition, Talenom offers the new Talenom Light Entrepreneur service for the smallest companies – Talenom can now provide services for all kinds of entrepreneurs, from part-time light entrepreneurs to listed companies. 

"Small customers are pivotal – due to their great number, they are an extremely significant group of recommenders. The small customer segment requires redefining the growth strategy and shifting from direct sales to platform-focused digital marketing – and for this reason, we have created the TiliJaska product family,” says Miikka Hätälä, Director, Small Customers.

TiliJaska will be in beta until the end of the year, with a limited number of customers. Talenom intends to bring the banking services to market in February-March 2021 and to launch a service similar to TiliJaska in Sweden (KontoKalle.se) in summer 2021.

Webcast and presentation material

The event can be viewed live as a live webcast in Finnish starting at 9:00 EET at https://talenom.videosync.fi/cmd-2020-fin and simultaneously as a webcast recording in English at https://talenom.videosync.fi/cmd-2020-eng. The presentation materials will be published before the start of the event on the company’s website at www.talenom.fi/en/investors.

Participants will have the opportunity to present questions in Finnish and English over the webcast platform starting from around 10:40 EET. Those who have signed up in advance can also participate in the event in person at the company’s premises in Sanoma House (Töölönlahdenkatu 2, 00100 Helsinki).

TALENOM PLC

Further information:
Otto-Pekka Huhtala
CEO, Talenom Plc
+358 40 703 8554
otto-pekka.huhtala@talenom.fi

Talenom Plc is an accounting firm established in 1972. Talenom offers a wide range of accounting services as well as other expert and advisory services to support its clients’ business. The company has its own software development and it provides its clients with electronic financing tools.

Talenom Group’s net sales in 2019 amounted to EUR 58.0 million, with an increase of 18.6% compared to 2018. Talenom has a history of strong growth – the average annual increase in net sales was approximately 15.7% between 2005 and 2019.

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