At Frends, growth means opportunity for customers and for the people behind the platform. Few stories capture that better than Mika Haikonen’s.

Mika joined Frends in 2022 as a Solution Architect, helping customers see the value of intelligent integration in real life. After a short break from the company, he came back to lead something completely new: building the Customer Onboarding Team, a function designed to make sure every new Frends customer gets off to the best possible start.

“What I liked about Frends was the tempo of working and really focusing on what the customer needs in the integration context to resolve their business challenge — and of course, the people,” he says.

The road to building something new

“The Solution Architect role was interesting as it was in the customer interface, directly working with customers,” Mika says. He laughs, remembering the early days: “We identified that I am not that technically savvy, despite the fact that it was something I can learn as we go with help from my Solution Architect colleagues.”

Those first months were a blur of proof-of-concept projects, customer cases and fast learning. “Every day brought new situations, new business needs, and yes, new IT systems, interfaces, and configurations to learn,” he says.

The experience was crucial in shaping his new role. “I understood how important it is to structure those critical first steps in the customer journey after the contract is signed, so that every new customer gets a good start with the Frends platform and services,” he says.

Building the Onboarding function from scratch was a challenge Mika embraced fully. “Perhaps the biggest thing to be proud of is that we have been able to create and describe the customer onboarding services, implement needed processes, link them to other Frends processes, and configure a new workflow management tool for managing the onboarding cases,” he says.

A smooth start for every customer

“Signing the contract is just the beginning,” Mika explains. “What really matters is what happens next: helping our customers get the best possible start with Frends.”

The onboarding process begins with a handover from the team who negotiated the deal to the ones who will actually use the platform. “Then everyone comes together in a kick-off meeting to agree on the action plan for the journey ahead.”

From there, Mika’s team gets to work. “We make sure the Frends platform is set up properly from day one, and customers start the training program to gain the basic skills and knowledge about Frends, both online and with our instructors. But training alone isn’t enough,” he says.

“That’s why we roll up our sleeves together in guided development sessions, where the newly learned skills are applied directly to the customer’s real use cases. By the end, first production-ready integrations are already taking shape.”

To secure long-term success, the team also creates a custom Integration Developer’s Handbook — a playbook of best practices for each customer.

Delivering automation impact fast

For Mika, the most rewarding moments come when customers start seeing value early. “The most rewarding moments come when customers not only start building integrations themselves and bringing them into real use, but also begin actively consuming the services we provide, seeing value right from the early stages of onboarding,” he says.

He shares one example: “At Arvos Ljungström, they needed to connect six ERPs across their central warehouse and automate dataflows to free up their team’s time for analysis and more strategic work. With Frends, they automated 27 processes across all those ERPs in just 21 days. For me, this was a perfect showcase of excellent collaboration between the customer’s team and our onboarding team.”

As Cengiz Altun from Arvos put it: “With Frends, we could talk directly to technical experts and get things done quickly — something we didn’t get with other vendors.”

What makes Frends’ customer onboarding different

“Frends’ customer onboarding stands out because it is both goal-oriented and hands-on,” Mika explains. “From the very beginning — even at the sales stage — we work with the customer to plan which onboarding services will have the greatest impact. Every step is tied to the customer’s objectives, with clear goals set together.”

“What makes the real difference is that onboarding isn’t just about teaching features or running through a checklist. We combine training, guided development and real customer use cases right from the start. Customers don’t just learn the platform in theory; they immediately apply it to build business-relevant, production-ready integrations and start consuming the services that support them.”

A journey of constant development

Frends’ growth means constantly refining how customers succeed, and Mika’s team is at the heart of that. “We’re keen to understand how to develop customer onboarding services to enable customers to start using Frends even faster and better,” he says. “This could include developing totally new services or adjusting the existing ones to better meet the needs of the customer.”

Switching from a technical role to building something entirely new is never easy, but for Mika, it’s been worth every step.

“I like working in the customer interface and understanding what the customer’s needs and requirements are, then finding ways to deliver services to help them. If I can enable things to happen and support others to achieve their goals, that’s an important aspect of my work.”

His journey shows what growth at Frends is really about: curiosity, collaboration, and the courage to build something new. As Frends continues to expand, Mika and his team are making sure every customer — and every Frendszie — starts strong.

Interested in reading more? Discover the key takeaways of the Arvos Ljungström case.