Rederiaktiebolaget Eckerö was founded in 1961 and today the group has grown to include around 850 employees. Under the Eckerö Line brand, it operates car ferry services between Eckerö and Grisslehamn, but also sells everything from simple overnight stays to various package tours, group trips, sports trips and conferences in Åland. The sister company Eckerö Line operates car ferry services between Helsinki and Tallinn, where the business focuses on scheduled traffic for both cargo and passengers.

The Group also includes Eckerö Shipping, which operates RoRo traffic with its own vessels between Finland and Sweden to the continent, and the bus company Williams Buss, which organizes package tours and round trips. In 2023, the annual turnover amounted to approximately EUR 220 million and the group transported approximately 3.1 million passengers and approximately 176,000 freight units on its own routes.

Synerity's cooperation with the group started in April 2024, and the assignment was to implement a new ITSM system for the IT department.

- We had previously been using another leading ITSM solution, but by this time it felt like their development had stalled. In addition, management was becoming challenging and our dependence on consultants had grown too large. The idea of starting from scratch was raised, and we therefore began to look at other ITSM platforms,
says Ecco Weckman, Integration Architect at Rederiaktiebolaget Eckerö.

- After comparing many different options, we finally settled on Freshservice. We found the solution to be clean and clear with a user-friendly interface and easy to administer. It was also a prerequisite to be able to work with a Scandinavian partner, and therefore we were incredibly happy that we found Synerity and that our collaboration works so well, he continues.

The implementation of Freshservice for the IT department was completed in mid-2024, but in the near future, the HR and payroll departments will also be replacing their manual way of working via email in favor of the same solution. In the long term, there are also plans to bring the real estate department and other subsidiaries into Freshservice.

- The implementation process went very smoothly and we have received phenomenal help from Synerity's consultant Erik Alm, who is a real rock. It is incredibly valuable to be able to get support from knowledgeable, experienced and solution-oriented people. Erik has also been worth his weight in gold when it comes to pointing out the importance of documentation and manuals for the organization.

- Susanne Ewéo has also helped us get HR's payroll and sickness administration department into Freshservice, and now both the real estate department and Eckerö Linjen want to get their internal case management into the solution. "It's great that more people want to use Freshservice and that it becomes a group-wide tool. With the help of automation and AI, the entire business can become more efficient and we can increase the satisfaction of both employees and customers, says Ecco Weckman.

Synerity is also very proud and happy about the collaboration with Rederiaktiebolaget Eckerö, not least because of the group's desire to constantly develop and improve its services.

- It is incredibly inspiring that a relatively small organization demonstrates such great maturity in constantly striving for innovation and improvement. This is ensured by clear governance from the CIO and by continuously measuring themselves and educating themselves in ITIL and other frameworks. Many organizations could learn a lot from following the journey that Rederiaktiebolaget Eckerö has set a course for, concludes Erik Alm, who is a technical consultant and one of the founders of Synerity.

The challenge:
The cooperation with Rederiaktiebolaget Eckerö (hereafter RABE) started in April 2024. The assignment was to implement a new ITSM system for IT. RABE had for some time been using another leading ITSM solution with a large local presence. However, they had not been able to move forward with the solution and the management felt challenging and the dependence on consultants was high. After a rigorous tendering process, the solution chosen was Freshservice , to be delivered by partner Synerity.

The solution:
The marine business that RABE operates required the ITSM solution to solve the challenge of using the solution via mobile devices. IT staff regularly perform maintenance and upgrades of IT equipment on the company's boats and parts of the workforce do not even own a computer but work entirely from mobile phones. Another important milestone was to simplify the management and further development of the ITSM solution and in parallel identify longer-term strategic goals for IT. To achieve this, RABE decided to work with Synerity to implement an MVP of Freshservice using Synerity's agile project delivery methodology. A key to its success is that this project implementation also serves as an ongoing training for both administrators and super-users.

The implementation project ended in early June 2024. After the holidays, the team continued to work together on the strategic plan for 2025 by creating a roadmap for Freshservice. Administrators and super-users further improved their skills by attending Synerity's packaged trainings. Since then, Synerity and RABE have been working together on a regular basis, focusing on advising on how to approach, prioritize and implement initiatives.

The outcome:
The reception of Freshservice in the business has been very well received. IT has led the way and has continued the adoption of Freshservice by launching their new change management together with the Asset Management process. Soon, the HR & Payroll departments will switch their manual approach via email to using Freshservice. There are also plans to bring in the real estate department and other subsidiaries. The goal for the rest of 2025 is to streamline the ordering processes, focus on self-service using AI agents that read from external CMS systems but provide the answers directly in Microsoft Teams, but also to automate the onboarding process. Many of these areas enable IT and the other departments to focus more on improving ways of working and using automation and AI to achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction and thus increase productivity.