Finland’s innovation strategy is being revised with the aim of safeguarding the quality of the country’s innovation environment, international competitiveness and attractiveness. Now is the time for choices: what areas will act as the spearheads that will put Finland on top of the world?

The proposal for the national innovation strategy was completed in June. The Ministry of Employment and the Economy will decide on the final form of the strategy and its presentation to the Government in autumn 2008 and later to Parliament in line with the Government Resolution.

Timo Kekkonen, a director at the Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK), and Juha Ylä-Jääski, a director at the Finnish Federation of Technology Industries, look on the new innovation strategy as a welcome initiative. In a changing world the innovation policy must be updated.

“Finland’s innovation system has been praised and many countries have tried to learn from it. For the situation to be good in the future, updating is necessary,” Kekkonen stresses.

“The interdisciplinary and multidimensional nature of the innovations must be the main features of the reform,” adds Ylä-Jääski.

Not just technology

The strength of the Finnish innovation environment is based on strong scientific and technological responsiveness. “We’ve also had success in these areas. The choices have supported the development of Finnish business life’s competitiveness and its reform,” Kekkonen says.

Ylä-Jääski agrees. “In Finland the growth of the technology industry has been based in particular on handling technology well. This approach has achieved excellent results and it will also be needed in the future.”

“However, other models must accompany them because an increasing number of innovations these days are non-technological. The innovation policy must support different players in promoting innovations other than those that are technological,” Ylä-Jääski affirms.

Ylä-Jääski goes on to say that it will be important for the technology industry in Finland to find technical expertise that reaches the top of the international tree. A competitive edge is created increasingly from the ability to change the expertise of units into efficient processes and top-grade products and services.

Choices inevitable

Finnish business life believes that Finland must aim for the top with a three-point programme: choosing the focal areas of top-level expertise, better preconditions for radical innovations and more effective exploitation of expertise.

Kekkonen does not believe that the Finnish education system and university structure at present produce the spearhead areas that will lift Finland to the top and keep it there.

“Making choices is inevitable and justified. Finland is a small country and there simply aren’t enough resources to take on everything. We have to choose in what areas Finland wants to be the world’s number one,” Kekkonen emphasizes.

“We can only get to the front and remain there with the constant development of a policy that supports economic growth based on expertise.”

Competitiveness from services

Kekkonen and Ylä-Jääski mention services as an example of the development of Finnish expertise. Services now account for almost 70 per cent of the gross domestic product, and a greater proportion of the turnover of traditional business life is generated from services to be produced for customers.

“The significance of the customer and user perspective is growing, while greater competitiveness will come with the development of service products. Customer needs will guide the development of new products and services to a greater extent in the future,” Kekkonen says.

“This will require increased expertise in the operations of value chains and networks and the ability to outline and, in particular, predict changes to the operating environment. It will be important to promote the rapid commercialization of innovations and development of growth companies,” Ylä-Jääski stresses.

Good management

Another example of the development of expertise is management skills. Success in the global economy is increasingly dependent on how well companies are managed.

“The companies that are successful are those that operate with agility, utilizing their own and internationally available expertise. Successful companies know the markets, customer needs and can predict them,” Kekkonen stresses.

“How successful you are in these matters depends on a company’s strategic management. Because of this Finland must create world-class expertise in corporate management. This must be apparent, for example, in basic instruction by universities, research activities and the training of business management.”

“Not just management skills but also international cooperation will be emphasized in many ways in the future. The university reform, which has made good progress, will underline the considerable development in the international approach and cooperation with companies,” Ylä-Jääski says.

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>> www.innovaatiostrategia.fi
>> www.teknologiateollisuus.fi

“Expertise that is created at the interfaces of the traditional borders of science and interdisciplinary cooperation will be more important than ever for product and service innovations in the technology industry,” stresses Ylä-Jääski. (Photo: Henriikka Ahtiainen)