2020 – a remarkable year to remember
Vaisala’s work towards its mission Observations for a better world continued throughout the year, marked by the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
For several reasons, the year 2020 will go down in history. As we write this annual review, the content looks rather different than what we anticipated in the beginning of 2020. The global COVID-19 pandemic has impacted societies, organizations, and – above all – people and families across the world. Vaisala was no exception.
Vaisala’s main priority during the pandemic was to ensure business continuity while at the same time secure the health and well-being of our employees globally. Many of our employees started working remotely to ensure both their own safety and a safe working environment for those colleagues whose roles required presence in Vaisala premises. Furthermore, our teams developed several new ways of serving our customers virtually. Two good examples include remote Factory Acceptance Tests and augmented reality (AR) customer service.
The year 2020 was twofold. Even though it was challenging in many ways, Vaisala’s overall performance was good. The restrictions brought by the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down order intake, whereas we could see how trust in the global economy recovered in the second half of 2020. Despite the fluctuating demand, we managed to keep up our profitability and maintain our global delivery capability. This would not have been possible without the flexibility and innovativeness of our 1,900 experts globally. Therefore, we want to take this opportunity to thank the Vaisala team for its dedication, effort, and support throughout the year.
In addition to combating the COVID-19 pandemic in our own business operations, we contribute to the fight with several of our products. These comprise our continuous monitoring system used, for example, for monitoring vaccine development, production, and storage facilities as well as other instruments, such as our probes for measuring hydrogen peroxide vapor and utilized for sterilization of devices and spaces, such as laboratories. The examples illustrate well the important, needed, and continuously growing role that reliable measurements play in tackling major global societal and environmental challenges.