Minimani IT and cybersecurity modernisation

When the retail chain Minimani faced a severe cyber attack in 2023, the company decided to accelerate the already planned modernisations of its IT systems. In collaboration with Elisa, Minimani’s IT infrastructure has been significantly updated in a very short time – all while securing business continuity and improving data security.

Cyberattack accelerated digital modernisation

Minimani is a Finnish retail chain that employs approximately 450 people. Few people realise that the daily operations of a supermarket rely on numerous IT systems: payment terminals, warehouse management, ordering systems and various third-party services form a complex whole.

Disruptions in service availability or network functionality can quickly become visible to customers as empty shelves or failed payment transactions. Reliable IT systems are therefore critical for business continuity.

According to Minimani’s Chief Technology Officer Jani Hermans, the modernisation of their IT infrastructure had been on the agenda already for a few years. The ultimate push to carry out the investment was the cyberattack that the company faced:

“We already had plans to modernise our infrastructure, but the cyberattack served as the final wake-up call. The management decided that we could no longer wait – we had to act quickly.”

Minimani’s in-house IT team did not have the resources to carry out such a large-scale transformation on an urgent timeline. A partner was needed – one with broad enough shoulders and the expertise to deliver the project both quickly and with high quality.

“We were already familiar with Elisa’s expertise from the post-incident work following the cyberattack, so they were a natural choice as our partner,” says Tuomas Kivimäki, Head of IT at Minimani.

The full modernisation of IT systems, cybersecurity and networks

During 2024–2025, Minimani and Elisa carried out a comprehensive renewal of the retailer’s IT infrastructure.

Workstations were replaced and upgraded to Windows 11. Identity management was moved to Microsoft Entra. Minimani fully phased out its own data centres, and servers were migrated to a hybrid environment built primarily on Azure. The number of servers was radically reduced, making operations more cost-efficient. The communication networks were also modernised to bring them under Elisa’s network management service.

“The scale at which we did all this at once is quite rare. Practically the entire IT infrastructure was renewed within a year,” Hermans explains.

These measures, combined with the modernisation of cybersecurity monitoring technology, made it possible to now monitor the infrastructure in Elisa’s round-the-clock Security Operations Centre (SOC). Minimani’s own team no longer has to spend evenings or weekends on standby for server crashes or cyberattacks that could bring systems down.

Since retail operates from early morning until late evening, seven days a week, every stage of the project had to be planned carefully. Store systems and workstations could not be taken offline for long periods of time. The changes had to be implemented with minimal interruptions to customer and employee experience.

A smoothly executed modernisation

The project’s scale and tight schedule required close collaboration. Elisa’s project management received a lot of praise for keeping everything under control and moving forward as agreed.

Kivimäki sums up the experience like this: “Elisa’s project manager deserves huge credit. They kept everything firmly in hand and also knew how to nudge us to deliver our part. I also learned a lot myself about how a project like this should be managed.”

Hermans admits that at first, Minimani was too optimistic about how much could be achieved with internal resources:

“It was a huge relief that Elisa was able to bring in more specialists who took care of things on-site. That sped up progress and eased our resource constraints.”

A secure and easier-to-manage environment

Thanks to the modernisation, Minimani’s IT environment is now more secure, simpler and easier to manage. The number of servers was significantly reduced, and maintenance became simpler: IT and cybersecurity now operate hand in hand.

This ensures that the IT environment better supports the company’s top priority – uninterrupted retail operations.

It has been extremely valuable that the modernised environment is simple and easy to manage. Elisa had ready-made templates that allowed us to move forward very quickly.

The value of the partnership also became clear during the project. Kivimäki puts it like this:

“In the past, we didn’t want to put all our eggs in one basket. Now we see that working with a single partner is also a strength. Elisa knows our environment inside out, and help is always close at hand.”

Minimani can now focus fully on running its retail business, knowing that its technical backbone is secure and ready to withstand the challenges of the future.

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