Excellence Finland — A modern HubSpot-based business platform powers all operations

Changing partners midway through the process

Excellence Finland had started implementing HubSpot with another partner, but the work hadn’t progressed as hoped. Now they needed a partner capable of taking over the unfinished project and seeing the implementation through to completion so that the work already done wouldn’t go to waste.

“Hubit was immediately able to provide clear steps on how to tackle the issue. Hubit’s approach demonstrated a strong customer focus and a desire to help us in that specific situation. It gave us confidence that things would move forward,” Eskola says.

Excellence Finland and Hubit joined forces to continue the stalled implementation and build the core of all of Excellence Finland’s business systems on HubSpot.

A business platform where all critical functions communicate with each other

Instead of just a sales tool, HubSpot was turned into a platform for Excellence Finland that connects all day-to-day operations: member management, invoicing, e-commerce, events, communications, and reporting.

Thanks to the WooCommerce integration, training courses sold through the online store appear seamlessly in customer data, allowing customer service to work on one platform intead of jumping from one system to another. Hubit defined the new operating model together with Excellence Finland and coordinated the implementation with a third party.

Member billing is handled based on HubSpot member data using a Netvisor integration, for which Hubit implemented the necessary billing logic. The same data is utilized for website login—a single member record now serves multiple functions.

On the marketing side, Hubit built automations for newsletters, order confirmations, and course communications, which previously required manual work or separate systems. The separate newsletter system was fully migrated into HubSpot, allowing savings in license costs.

For event production, Excellence Finland use a Lyyti integration. This allows individual-level event participation data to be imported directly into HubSpot and integrated into reporting, which shows how actively members are utilizing Excellence Finland’s services.

“HubSpot is a genuinely user-friendly marketing tool for small teams. When integrated with other marketing tools, it delivers greater efficiency and a better customer experience,” summarizes Hubit’s HubSpot expert Aleksiina Lindroos.

A modern platform brings efficiency, transparency, and a wealth of new opportunities

The change brought by HubSpot is evident in Excellence Finland’s day-to-day operations in many ways.

"Transparency is on a whole new level compared to before, whether it’s customer data, billable data, or internal information. Information flow has improved significantly, and processes have become faster," Eskola notes.

The greatest benefits have come from the transition to a single centralized business platform.

"The biggest benefit for us is comprehensiveness. We can manage everything on one platform, and the sales team no longer needs to use ten different tools every day. Reporting is on a whole new level compared to before. The ability to extract data has changed significantly."

For Excellence Finland, HubSpot isn’t just a sales or marketing tool. It’s used daily in every corner of the organization to operate two different business models—a nonprofit association and a for-profit corporation—under one roof.

"We use HubSpot in a really versatile way. We’ve stretched it to cover almost everything we can imagine in a small organization."

“HubSpot provides a solid foundation for both sales and marketing, as well as for the seamless management of other business processes. At Excellence Finland, the platform is naturally utilized for functions related to course management, among other things. One platform covers the entire process from quotes to invoicing and course management and communication,” describes Hubit’s Business Architect Harri Hauta-aho, who served as project manager and solution architect on the project.

The next steps in further development are clear: enhancing reporting is always on the agenda, as are new sales features. New features are rolled out one step at a time.

“We approach further development based on the principle of continuous improvement, driven by business needs. That’s how we’ll eat that famous elephant –– one bite at a time,” Hauta-aho says.

“In the meantime, we aim to ensure that new features are fully implemented before we start utilizing new functionalities,” Eskola says.

The value of the partnership is proven every month

Excellence Finland utilizes Hubit’s Collab model, which in Excellence Finland’s day-to-day operations means a designated consultant, monthly planning meetings, and a brief checkpoint every other week. The task list is visible to both parties at all times, and the work isn’t tied to an annual contract—the client is billed monthly for what’s been done.

“Our collaboration is really straightforward, clear, and relaxed. The tasks are openly visible, and we go over everything in the monthly meetings. Everything gets sorted out through discussion,” Eskola describes.

Eskola sees consistent points of contact as especially important for Excellence Finland. With a complex system with plenty lot of customized logic, not having to train new people at every turn brings significant savings in time and resources.

"What matters to us is working with people who truly understand our system. Our system is complex, and it’s really important that our points of contact don’t change. That way, the customer doesn’t end up footing the bill for the partner’s training costs either."

NPS 10 — The partnership with Hubit simply works

Hubit’s partnership model and approach earn praise from Eskola.

"Reliable, skilled, knowledgeable, eager to help, and organized. Hubit is able to discuss issues and clarify them for the customer so that we understand what we’re doing. And on top of everything else, the team is full of lovely people.”

Excellence Finland is extremely satisfied with the outcome of the implementation project.

“Hubit efficiently took over an unfinished project and built a functional system from complex starting points, where all critical functions run on a single modern platform. You don’t often come across this combination of comprehensive expertise and seamless collaboration. NPS 10,” Eskola sums up.