Why Nordic Municipalities Must Rethink Digital Transformation—Before It’s Too Late

Digital transformation in the public sector has long been a priority—but for many Nordic municipalities, it’s still a promise that feels out of reach. The ambition is there: better citizen services, smarter use of data, and streamlined operations. But what stands in the way isn’t vision. It’s architecture. 

The reality on the ground is that most cities and municipalities still rely on fragmented legacy systems, manual workflows, and overstretched IT departments. And while new services get added layer by layer, the foundational plumbing remains outdated. The result? A patchwork of siloed solutions that fail to deliver on the full potential of digital government. 

The Hidden Cost of Legacy Infrastructure 

From social services to building permits, municipal operations often span decades-old systems that were never designed to integrate. These systems don’t talk to each other, and when they do, it’s usually through brittle, one-off integrations that are expensive to maintain. 

That leads to familiar issues: duplicate data entry, broken citizen experiences, and wasted staff hours. At best, it’s inefficient. At worst, it undermines trust in public services. 

And in the middle of this complexity, municipalities are being asked to do more: automate processes, embrace AI, ensure data compliance, and roll out new digital services—all while under tight budget constraints. 

Smaller Municipalities, Bigger Challenges 

This gap is even more pronounced for smaller municipalities, which often lack the internal IT capacity or budget to tackle large-scale digital initiatives. While the goals are the same—better services, lower costs, improved transparency—the path to get there is harder when resources are limited. 

That’s why collaboration is no longer optional—it’s essential. 

By sharing not just infrastructure, but also process templates, integration blueprints, and even data pipelines, municipalities can significantly reduce costs and shorten time-to-value. There’s enormous potential in federated innovation, where one city’s solution can be easily adopted by others. 

Frends supports this through reusable integration processes that can be shared and adapted across municipal boundaries, helping smaller cities punch above their weight.  

Integration Is No Longer an IT Project—It’s a Strategic Enabler 

Integration isn’t just a technical necessity; it’s the foundation for everything digital. 

Forward-thinking municipalities are shifting away from one-off fixes and moving toward composable, API-first architectures. They’re embracing low-code integration platforms like Frends that make it possible to connect systems, automate processes, and scale innovation—without overloading scarce IT resources. 

At Frends, we’ve seen Nordic municipalities modernize their infrastructure not by replacing everything at once, but by building smart bridges between the old and the new. One city automated its citizen complaint process by integrating a legacy case management system with a modern CRM and chatbot—without a single line of custom code. 

This kind of agility is not the exception anymore—it’s the expectation.  

Sharing Data and Processes: The Path to Collective Impact 

When data sits in silos, it’s underused. But when it flows—across systems, departments, and even municipalities—it unlocks new possibilities: 

• Predictive social services based on real-time indicators 

• Smart traffic and environmental monitoring 

• Faster response times in healthcare and emergency services 

This isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about creating a network effect where the more municipalities that share and reuse digital assets, the better the outcomes for all. Shared data and shared processes are how everyone wins—even the smallest communities. 

What’s Next: From Fragmentation to Federation 

The future is already taking shape: 

• Data-driven cities are emerging, where integrated systems allow for real-time insights into traffic, energy use, healthcare, and more. 

• Inter-municipality collaboration is on the rise, with cities sharing reusable process templates and integration blueprints. 

• AI-ready infrastructures are being quietly built—because without clean, connected data, AI is just another buzzword. 

But none of this happens without robust, scalable integration. The platforms that enable it must be secure, compliant, and user-friendly enough to empower not just developers, but entire organizations. 

A Call to Action 

It’s time for municipalities to stop viewing digital transformation as isolated projects and start embracing it as a fundamental shift in service delivery.

That shift begins with integration.

When systems are connected, teams are empowered, data becomes actionable, and citizens experience real improvements.

And this isn’t a future vision—it’s already happening. Frends is leading this transformation across the Nordics, currently serving 1.8 million Swedes and powering integrations in 1 out of 6 municipalities in Sweden.

• Helsingborg adopted Frends iPaaS to integrate with the Swedish Tax Agency's Navet service, streamlining access to residents' information. This integration enhanced efficiency across city departments and improved service delivery to citizens. 

• Östersund Municipality leveraged Frends iPaaS to advance its digitalization journey, focusing on collaboration and proactive integration strategies. By integrating systems like RPA and e-service platforms, Östersund improved internal processes and citizen services. 

• Älmhult Municipality unified digitalization with 30 integrations in production and 200 in development. After adopting a holistic approach to their digitalization journey, it became evident that implementing an integration platform to unify their development solutions was necessary.

• City of Helsinki Educational Division chose Frends iPaaS to be its strategical integration platform, to integrate 20 systems managing 10,000 API calls daily.

These municipalities are proving that digital progress doesn’t require starting from scratch—it starts with smart integration, shared processes, and a willingness to collaborate.

Stronger Together: Frends Municipality Forum

The Frends iPaaS Municipality Forum is a community created by and for municipalities using Frends—hosted and coordinated by the Frends team.

This is a unique space where public sector organizations can:

• Share best practices
• Access and contribute to pre-built integrations
• Influence the platform roadmap based on real municipal needs
• Collaborate with peers and related platforms like Open ePlatform

What’s Next? KOMMITS Conference

We’re attending the upcoming KOMMITS conference, featuring a keynote from Österåker kommun on how they’ve built a digital twin of their municipality using Frends.

➡️ See highlights from our latest community event
➡️ Want to join the forum? Get in touch with the Frends team!

Are your systems holding you back—or setting you up for what's next? 

Learn more about how Frends is leading the way in Government and Public Sector to redefine the industry: https://frends.com/ipaas/public-sector