Digital sovereignty is becoming a strategic priority across the Nordics. Explore key findings from Vivicta's latest report and learn how to stay in control.
In this blog, I share some highlights from Vivicta’s latest research, discuss what digital sovereignty can mean for your organization, and explain how we at Vivicta can help you stay in the driver’s seat and keep your options open.
Let’s start with the Nordic digital sovereignty report, which is based on responses from 320 senior business and technology decision-makers from Finland, Sweden and Norway. It’s an eye-opening read on the state of digital sovereignty in the Nordics. To give you a taste, here are a few things that I found particularly interesting:
There has been a change in perspective. Nordic business leaders now see sovereignty as a strategic capability. This is a new reality for us all.
In the past, digital sovereignty has been mainly understood as a question of cloud choices, data residency and regulatory compliance. While all these still matter, leaders are now looking at the bigger picture: how to retain strategic control over critical data, technology and operations when circumstances change – whether because of supplier disruption, regulatory shifts, cyber incidents, expanding AI use, or the need to move critical services across platforms and providers.
Another finding that caught my attention: investment intent is very high. 70% of the respondents expect sovereignty investments to increase in their organizations over the next 12 months. Finland leads in investment intent at 74%, followed by Norway (69%) and Sweden (68%).
The report also reveals distinct national approaches:
Each focus has its merits, and it’s clear we could all learn something valuable from our neighbours.
In my discussions with customers, two sovereignty related issues come up more than anything else: legislation and cost.
Highly regulated industries and the public sector are particularly focused on legislation, for example, whether the US Cloud Act poses a risk. For many others, the bigger question is whether they are willing to accept the risk of having everything tied to a single hyperscaler. What if prices rise repeatedly, or they become so dependent on a sole provider that getting out is no longer an option?
What I’d like to see more often is discussion about the wider scope of sovereignty. After all, every company’s ability to operate ultimately depends on their ecosystem. You need to consider your full value chain: If a critical partner or supplier can no longer operate, the impact on your own delivery can be almost immediate.
The real question is not only who controls your own technology, but who controls the critical parts of your value chain. Risks that remain invisible cannot be mitigated, which is why mapping dependencies is a fundamental part of digital sovereignty.
One of the key results of the Nordic digital sovereignty report is that ambition is outpacing readiness. While sovereignty has become a boardroom priority, strategy and operational readiness are still lagging behind. The necessary next step is driving executive ownership and putting sovereignty into practice.
This is where we can help. As a Nordic transformation partner operating "within local regulatory frameworks" we can turn your ambition into action. Our approach brings together strategic advisory, cloud choice, implementation and ongoing operations.
For most organizations, sovereignty is not about maximizing independence across every technology domain. It’s about keeping control of the things that matter most: the parts of your business where losing access, authority, flexibility or continuity would create material risk.
Vivicta’s workload-based approach matches controls to criticality. It is both more affordable and more defensible than a single, uniform model across all systems.
Our approach brings together five sovereign capability areas: Governance, Cloud, Managed Services, AI and Resilience. Together, they provide a practical path from sovereignty strategy to execution.
We start by identifying the services and data that are critical to your operations, clarifying ownership and decision-making, and creating a practical implementation roadmap. From there, we help align each workload with the right mix of sovereign, private, public and hybrid cloud services.
AI-related sovereignty concerns are also creating new demands for control. Our approach includes practical support for establishing responsible AI governance to help you stay in charge as adoption grows.
Once implementation is complete, we help you maintain control and oversight of critical services in day-to-day operations through Nordic service ownership, monitoring, governance and transparent supplier management.
No organization can truly know how resilient it is until something goes wrong. That said, preparation and testing can give you peace of mind. We help you map dependencies, create credible recovery and exit options, and test readiness with critical suppliers. Our way of working is unique, as it is based on genuine collaboration: we bring all the different players into the same picture to help you assess your sovereignty across your value chain.
Vivicta’s workload-based approach to sovereignty supports you every step of the way, helping you develop a true organizational capability. Our method addresses all the key leadership priorities identified in the Nordic digital sovereignty report: establishing accountability, prioritizing critical workloads, making dependencies visible, building viable recovery and exit options, and testing readiness across the full technology landscape.
In today’s geopolitical climate, sovereignty is a question no Nordic leader can afford to overlook.