May 27, 2025
On April 24, 2025, Smart Communications announced its acquisition of Joisto, a Finnish provider of cloud data archiving for transactional communications based in Helsinki. Joisto currently serves approximately 700 customers across the Nordics and the United Kingdom. Through this acquisition, Smart Communications gains access to a modern, cloud-based storage solution that will complement its suite of (regulated) CCM-CXM solutions. Joisto can benefit from Smart Communications’ larger scale and market presence to tap into new markets and partnership opportunities.
The Growing Importance of Cloud Data Archives
As enterprises increasingly adopt cloud-first strategies or work toward cloud transformation, the demand for robust cloud-based archiving solutions has continued to grow. Modern cloud archiving has evolved beyond simple storage functionality to address a number of very critical business needs.
- First, cloud-based storage has become remarkably cost-effective, especially for long-term retention scenarios. Unlike traditional on-premises solutions — where hardware, maintenance, and IT labor expenses create a complex financial picture — cloud services deliver clear and precise visibility into their cost structures. This transparency enables better budgeting and resource allocation.
- Regulatory compliance represents a primary driver behind the expanding adoption of advanced cloud archives. The penalties for non-compliance can be severe, so enterprises must prioritize solutions that can automatically enforce retention policies and manage metadata in accordance with regulatory frameworks like GDPR.
- Many organizations now operate under cloud-first directives, forcing IT teams to move their entire infrastructures (including core administrative systems, CCM solutions, and archiving) to the cloud. The market increasingly demands seamless integration between SaaS platforms and purpose-built, cloud-native storage optimized for CXM.
- Finally, as AI capabilities advance, organizations need richer metadata to power deeper personalization, enhanced digital accessibility, and more effective communications. With users throughout an organization generating documents at multiple points along the customer lifecycle, archiving has come to serve as a natural centralization hub. Modern archives enable next-generation AI to understand the context behind communications so they can provide better customer engagement through increasingly intelligent conversations informed by all the necessary data.
The Strategic Benefits of this Acquisition
Smart Communications was one of the first CCM technology vendors to fully embrace multi-tenant SaaS, and it has been on a cloud-first strategy since the mid 2010s. As adoption continues to gain ground, Smart Communications is starting to look at adjacent markets for its next expansion. Cloud-based storage is a natural and very complementary fit, enabling clients to buy cloud-based transactional document storage from the same vendor providing their composition.
Secondly, Joisto’s headquarters in Finland gives Smart Communications a direct presence in the Nordics, which it has (thus far) served from its offices in the UK or through local partnerships. Joisto’s current leadership will continue to play an important role as they work to expand its capabilities beyond their current functionality and combine the two providers’ capabilities.
Finally, the move has some competitive implications as well. Joisto has so far powered Quadient’s Digital Vault solution that integrates nicely with Quadient Evolve, Quadient’s multi-tenant SaaS solution. We understand no decision has yet been made about the future of this particular partnership, but it’s not hard to imagine they will eventually move in separate directions. Note that Quertum, Joisto’s system integration arm specializing in Quadient, will not move over to Smart Communications.
About Joisto
Joisto brings several valuable technical assets to Smart Communications’ portfolio. At its core is a modern, cloud-native solution built on microservices architecture that remains cloud service provider-agnostic, giving end-users control over where their data is stored. This flexibility is particularly important for enterprises with specific data sovereignty requirements or existing cloud infrastructure preferences.
The solution features an OEM-friendly approach that enables partners to integrate the technology with their own storage solutions, such as AWS or Salesforce implementations. This is complemented by comprehensive APIs that connect seamlessly to various core solutions across corporate ecosystems, allowing clients to store, manage, and retrieve documents regardless of their source.
Platform Evolution
Smart Communications will make the expanded functionality afforded by its Joisto acquisition available to all its new and existing customers as part of a global rollout. The acquisition comes on the heels of its launch of SmartPATH, (a new digital delivery and orchestration offering), and Smart Communications views this acquisition as an evolutionary step that will take it from being a multi-product company and transform it into a Customer Communications Management and Interaction Experience Management platform provider. This expanded portfolio now encompasses communication generation through SmartCOMM, data collection and IXM (smart forms) via SmartIQ, and omni-channel orchestrated customer journeys with SmartPATH. The platform is further strengthened by AI capabilities for content provenance through SmartCOMM’s Conversation History and will soon include content and context archiving via the newly acquired Joisto capabilities integrated with existing Conversation History features.
For clients in highly regulated industries, these integrated capabilities enable the storage and retrieval of sophisticated digital customer conversations while ensuring compliance with complex regulations. This balance gives clients freedom to innovate in customer interactions while maintaining regulatory peace of mind. The platform approach addresses the growing challenge of managing communications across multiple channels while maintaining both consistent customer experience and reliable regulatory compliance.
Aspire opinion
In recent years, Smart Communications’ commitment to cloud transformation has helped it outperform average market growth, and to continue to grow at a high pace we expect to see an increasing reliance on acquisitions that extend its portfolio into adjacent, complementary market segments. Smart Communications’ platform approach puts it in a position to address the evolving needs of enterprises seeking integrated communication, delivery, and archiving solutions in an increasingly digital and regulated business environment. The move reflects broader industry trends where vendors are expanding beyond their core competencies to offer more comprehensive platform solutions rather than standalone products.