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Tomi Ere
Partner, August Associates
Amcham Board Member
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Quick Key Points
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Business Finland and Amcham recently published Finland as a Business Location Barometer 2020.
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Even before the pandemic, August Associates has emphasized agility when making strategy: think of strategy as a playbook that you can revert to with various thought-through scenarios that allow for a faster reaction, alternative moves, and change.
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Finland has the fundamentals in place to do just that: a highly educated populace that is digital by nature and complies with regulations, for example in terms of CO2 emissions.
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Packaging Finland as a compelling investment destination could create a “positive spiral” of investment.
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The government, the private sector, and society must work together to create an attractive platform.
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Business Finland and Amcham recently published Finland as a Business Location Barometer 2020. Our report emphasizes the importance and positive impact of foreign affiliates to the Finnish economy, and offers perspectives to better understand how both international and Finnish companies perceive Finland as an investment and business location, including strengths, weaknesses and key improvement areas.
We talked to Tomi Ere, a Partner at August Associates, Finland’s leading local strategy firm, about his expert view on what strategies should be implemented to increase Finland’s attractiveness as an investment destination. First, we wanted to know about the challenges of planning in a volatile environment: How can a country or company make solid strategy in times of COVID-19?
“Mike Tyson has said, ‘Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth,’” says Ere, “and that’s what COVID-19 is—a punch in the mouth.”
He goes on to stress that even before the pandemic, August Associates has emphasized agility when making strategy: think of strategy as a playbook that you can revert to with various thought-through scenarios that allow for a faster reaction, alternative moves, and change.
This chimes with Ere’s long-term strategy for Finland as an investment destination. Among other things, Finland should be agile and bold in advancing and combining digitization and the fight against climate change.
“If a company or country can combine these two elements it will resonate and draw attention immediately,” says Ere.
Finland has the fundamentals in place to do just that: a highly educated populace that is digital by nature and complies with regulations, for example in terms of CO2 emissions. Even Finland’s global image of trees and lakes lends the country international credibility. Companies, the government, and society could combine digitization and cutting-edge environmental solutions to make Finland stand apart in the competitive global market for foreign investment.
Ere sees bold agility of this kind as inhibited by a polarization between the private and public sectors, however. Among others, Mehiläinen, a private healthcare provider, is selling digital platforms internationally while the public healthcare sector’s digitization is not advancing at the same rate. The e–Estonia governmental digitization platform proves that it is possible.
Ere stresses that packaging Finland as a compelling investment destination could create a “positive spiral” of investment. The momentum created by companies such as Nordea, which decided to be headquartered in Helsinki, and Google, which is building data centers in Hamina, could be harnessed to attract other flagship investments. This would demand a concerted effort that would result in long-term competitiveness, which in turn translates to more jobs, value, and tax revenue.
Orchestrating such a strategy means that the government, the private sector, and society must work together to create an attractive platform. This calls for boldness in areas such as digitization and climate change solutions to put Finland’s already attractive total value proposition past competitors. It also requires agility when facing inevitable disruptions such as red-hot competition or, in the extreme example we are living through currently, a global pandemic.
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Contact us about succeeding as a foreign affiliate leader in Finland, and how you can get involved in our community.
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