Sustainable IT development is the new way of working at St1 Nordic’s Business Technology Unit. In addition to dealing with technology, Sustainable IT development takes processes and people into consideration. Its aim is to reduce risks, costs, and overload in an everchanging operating environment.
At St1, Sustainable IT is defined as an organizational journey consisting of a series of small steps involving people, processes, and technology. The goal of Sustainable IT is to build the future IT landscape through a means that reduces risks while speeding up organizations’ ability to respond to change.
Traditionally, IT development has meant big and heavy implementations that could stir up extra hassle from the customers’ and personnel’s perspective. By reducing the size of the changes and by implementing them step by step, adapting to the constant change becomes more convenient for the people involved. This gradual approach also reduces costs in the long run.
Passionate about customers
“At St1 we are passionate about our customers and their experience with our services. To enable great services, we need to have time and energy to focus on our customers and create value for them. This is only possible if the basis – in this case IT– is working as it should. As we need to make changes continuously, we also need to ensure that those changes don’t interrupt day-to-day work”, explained Linda Pihl, Head of Digital at St1 Nordic’s Business Technology Unit.
Pihl points out data as another essential aspect of Sustainable IT development. She highlights that in Sustainable IT, the aim is to make data available for the organization and our end-customers, which then enables the creation of meaningful services.
People are the key to digital transformation
Digitalization is a fashionable term and often understood simply as a technology, according to Pihl. However, digitalization starts with organizations that have the right people who think innovatively and out of the box. IT people must also be able to put themselves in the client’s shoes, whether that client is internal or external.
“Digitalization can make the energy transition and sustainable consumption easier and more effortless for people. No one changes their behaviour if it is too difficult to make reasonable choices. That’s why user experience and solving the customer’s problems are essential. Technology plays the role of the enabler here”, Pihl said.
Pihl explains that to create value for our customers, we need to constantly iterate our ways of working and challenge old truths. This requires a new kind of collaboration among the business units and more interaction between people.
“Our aim is to provide a stable IT landscape that allows our employees to bring value to our end customers and to seek new business opportunities. People are the key to digital transformation and the innovations that shape a more sustainable future”, Pihl summarized.