Sustainability at Bittium in 2021

Sustainability at Bittium in 2021

Economic Impact

For Bittium, economic impact means ensuring the long-term profitability of the company´s business. This creates added value for the company´s various stakeholders and the surrounding society. Profitable operations create economic benefits for shareholders, employees, partners, subcontractors, distributors, customers, municipalities and governments.

Legal compliance is the basic premise of economic sustainability. However, in many respects, Bittium´s sustainability and impact exceed the legal requirements.

Creating Added Value for Stakeholders

With respect to Bittium´s economic impact, the local dimension is what matters most. Local added value is generated especially through Bittium´s direct and indirect employment impact. On a larger scale, Bittium´s impact extends via tax payments, dividends and business impacts into the countries in which the company operates around the world.

Bittium is present in Europe, the Americas and Asia. The majority of the company´s employees work in Finland, more than half of them in the city of Oulu.

Ensuring added value means securing long-term growth and financial stability, comprehensive risk management and a long-term commitment to the development of society and local communities. In addition to financial risks, risk management must take into consideration other risks related to the valuation of the company, such as reputational risks.

Bittium´s business must respond to the changes in the operating environment to maintain profitability and future competitiveness. The technological transformation and the resulting technology solutions create both opportunities and threats for the company – changes that must be taken into account already during the product development stage.

Tax Footprint

Taxes are part of Bittium´s business process, and tax management supports the company´s strategy. Bittium is present in five countries and its business profits and the resulting taxes are generated locally.

Bittium´s tax strategy is to support business decisions and ensure their proper execution also from the perspective of taxes. Tax planning supports business efficiency and productivity, creating added value for shareholders and ensuring regulatory compliance. Bittium´s tax planning is not aggressive and it is always based on actual business needs, instead of artificial arrangements.

Bittium´s tax strategy aims to ensure that the company calculates, reports and pays taxes correctly to the authorities, in compliance with the regulations in effect. Bittium is committed to complying with the laws of its operating countries as well as lower-level regulations, such as the OECD transfer pricing guidelines. Good corporate citizenship is part of Bittium´s values. Accordingly, the quality of the company´s tax processes is an important cornerstone of Bittium´s tax strategy. The company´s guiding principle is to be open and transparent with the tax authorities in all the countries in which it is present. In Finland, Bittium works in close cooperation with the Large Taxpayers´ Office of the Finnish Tax Administration.

R&D Investments

Bittium operates in a sector that creates products and services for the future through continuous development, innovations and cross-sector cooperation. The company plays an important role at the leading edge of technological development, and active cooperation with academic researchers increases understanding of significant new technologies and promotes the digitalization of society. Bittium has a close and long-established cooperation relationship with the University of Oulu.

In 2021, Bittium was involved in the role of a funding provider and research partner in several EU cooperation projects (for example, ITEA4, Horizon2020 and EDIDP) and national projects financed by Business Finland. The focus areas of these cooperation projects included technologies that are highly relevant to Bittium´s future product and service business, such as various communications solutions for the defense industry and the public authorities, information security solutions related to products and future factories, the development of AI and machine learning methods in fields such as healthcare, and methods and operating practices related to regulatory software development.

In 2021, research and development expenses represented 22.8 percent of net sales (2020: 29.1%). They were mainly allocated to the development of a tactical communications system and related products targeted at the defense industry, the development of various devices and special terminal products for the authorities, including related security software, and the development of medical technology products. In 2021, the focus of investments has gradually shifted from tactical communications to the development of new health technology products.