Case Study: City of Oulu achieves flexible mobile working and improved collaboration with Microsoft Teams

City of Oulu - Customer Case Study

The City of Oulu, a technology-focused municipality in northern Finland, faced an aging on‑premises estate, a Skype for Business environment due for overhaul, hardware-tied licensing that limited mobility, and a rise in phishing attacks. To modernize and give staff more flexible, secure ways of working, the city adopted Microsoft 365 cloud services and collaboration tools—working with Microsoft Teams as the vendor-supplied collaboration hub alongside Azure Active Directory, Exchange Online, OneDrive, SharePoint, and advanced security services.

Oulu implemented Microsoft Teams and the broader Microsoft cloud stack (Azure AD Plan 2, Azure Advanced Threat Protection, Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection, Microsoft Cloud App Security, Azure Information Protection) to move to user-based licensing, enable secure remote access, and support real-time collaboration. The shift eliminated a planned hardware refresh, improved mobility and productivity, and reduced licensing and future office/hardware costs; phishing attacks dropped by 30%. Microsoft Teams continues to serve as the collaboration center while Azure underpins new IoT and smart‑city services.

City of Oulu

Tuija Sipila

Director of Oulu ICT and Digitalization Services