Finnish SaaS company Koivu Solutions brings its substitute-staffing platform Sotender to the Swedish market. Its first customer is Suomikoti, a Finnish-speaking care and residential home in Enskede, Stockholm, with 53 places serving elderly care and dementia care.
Sotender is built to reduce the time and uncertainty involved in filling short-notice shifts and to strengthen an organisation's ability to handle unplanned absence. The platform replaces phone calls and text messages with a few clicks in a shared substitute-staffing system.
Clear impact in daily operations
At Suomikoti, staffing was previously handled mainly by phone and text — an approach that often led to delays and heavy workload in urgent situations.
"Finding substitutes used to be stressful. Needs come up quickly and it was hard to reach the right people. Now it only takes one click to publish a shift," says HR assistant Anu Tuomenharju.
"I posted several shifts in Sotender and could then focus on other work. When I checked again later, almost all of them were already filled. We don't have to call around anymore," she says.
The majority of Suomikoti's staff use the system today, and feedback has been predominantly positive after an initial onboarding phase.
Significant time and cost savings
Sotender is already well established in Finland, with more than 40,000 users and around 20 customer organisations — including 11 wellbeing services counties (välfärdsområden), according to Anna Aubert, Head of Sales and Marketing at Koivu Solutions. The Ostrobothnia wellbeing services county has publicly stated that it saves more than EUR 7 million per year using the solution.
The platform is aimed at organisations where absence is part of everyday life, such as elderly care, hospitals, home care and preschools.
"Across our Finnish wellbeing services counties we see that time spent on substitute-staffing can be cut in half or more, while dependence on staffing agencies decreases," says Chief Architect Teemu Santala.
Continued expansion in Sweden
The Swedish launch marks the next step in the company's international expansion. Koivu Solutions is now seeking additional customers in Sweden.
"We want to give managers in health and social care a tool that frees up time and lowers costs. Interest from Sweden is strong and we are in dialogue with several parties," says Eero Puikkonen, Sweden Lead at Koivu Solutions.
