1 / 2014 The Japanese value politeness, though their manners may confuse westerners, says Mrs. Kaori Maezono-Eskola from JETRO, Japan External Trade Organization 5 New WTC Members Arwell Oy Danske Bank Freeco Oy Lean5 Europe Oy Ltd. Presentte Ltd. Suomen Lauttaliikenne Oy Viking Line Abp Contents His Excellency Mr. Gerald Thomson, Ambassador of Australia says a friendly and direct communication style is part of Australian business culture 5 Companies should know how to make maximum use of business gifts, says Lauri Honka, CEO of Mastermark Oy 3 Almaco Group wins export award Same laws both on- and offline Clever business gifts promote your brand Practical coaching brings concrete, measurable improvements in performance Respect cultural differences and make your business flourish! New markets - enter them systematically and efficiently! Low costs and a favorable tax climate attract Finnish companies to the Baltics ICT affects every aspect of human life 2 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
2 WTC TURKU Almaco Group wins export award The Internationalization Committee of the Turku Chamber of Commerce conferred its 2013 export award on Almaco Group Oy. Founded in 1998, Almaco Group supplies the marine, offshore and construction industries with full turnkey solutions for accommodation and food handling areas. The company designs, builds and modernizes cabins, hotel rooms, bathrooms, public areas, kitchens, bars, cold stores and refrigeration machinery. In 2013 Almaco achieved a breakthrough in Brazil, when the Brazilian shipyard EEP awarded them a contract for the construction of complete living quarters on six drillships. The contract is worth Same laws both onand offline There is a high demand for expert advice on social media, as shown by the numerous questions listeners posed to Elina Koivumäki, Attorney and Partner at the law firm Juridia Bützow Oy. The business world has recently discovered social media as powerful marketing and communication tools. The trouble is that neither consumers nor companies are always sufficiently aware of the potential damage they might inflict on themselves and others if they use these tools carelessly. To educate its members about the pitfalls of social media, WTC Turku organized a seminar in cooperation with the law more than 100 million. Design and project management are mostly handled in Finland and Brazil, while production takes place in several different countries. Work was started right after signing the contract and the project is due to be completed by 2019. Almaco s success and versatility are further illustrated by a contract with Genting Group to construct 320 hotel rooms, 23 suites and public areas at Resorts World Bimini in the Bahamas. Due to challenging conditions and lack of services on the Bimini islands, this project requires particularly careful planning and a high degree of selfsufficiency. The project, which is worth firm Juridia Bützow Oy. In his opening words, Attorney and Partner Jari Malinen recounted how practising the law had changed during the past couple of decades, as clients had started requiring more and more specialized services. The law is the law, even on the internet Attorney at law Elina Koivumäki has extensive experience in social media and other internet-related legal issues. She notes that many people ignore the law in their online activities, which creates the impression that there are no rules or that they do not have to be obeyed. Though social media is not explicitly mentioned by Finnish law, it is not the Wild West, she emphasizes. Existing laws apply to the online world as well. Responsible marketing A company is always held responsible for its own marketing: you can outsource a campaign to an advertising agency, but you cannot outsource your legal responsibilities. Marketing must over 20 million, was started in late 2013 and will be finished in spring 2014. The rapidly growing company has operated internationally from the start and now has offices in eight countries: Finland, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, Singapore and the United States. They offer Finnish know-how to clients across the world. The company employs 150 people, 60 of whom work in Turku. Its turnover exceeds 100 million. Congratulations! Jari Lähteenmäki CEO, Turku Chamber of Commerce Chairman of the Board, WTC Turku always be recognizable as such: the people you are targeting have to be able to distinguish marketing material from editorial or user-generated content. This applies to blogs and Facebook posts just as well as more traditional media such as magazines and newspapers. If you are sponsoring a blog, you should ensure that readers realize there is a business arrangement between your company and the blogger. It is illegal for companies to pose as consumers e.g. at online message boards. If you want to extol the virtues of your products in any medium, do it under your own name, Koivumäki advises. Chatty employees Slandering one s employee online is not only bad form, but a breach of law, since employees are required to refrain from doing anything that might harm their employer. This includes online communication in your free time. To stay on the safe side, employees should assume that nothing they say online is ever truly private and choose their words accordingly. Employers may encourage their employees to express themselves safely within the bounds of the law by providing written guidelines to clarify what kind of behavior is acceptable and consistent with the company s image and communication strategy.
3 WTC TURKU Clever business gifts promote your brand Designer Ari Kostamo from Mastermark s design service co-operates closely with clients during the whole design process. Well-designed and carefully selected business gifts are a powerful but often underestimated marketing tool, Lauri Honka, CEO of Mastermark Oy, assured listeners at a WTC club event. Mr. Honka urges companies to think of business gifts as marketing vehicles that not only make a good impression on the people receiving them but can keep reaching more people and promote a company s brand for quite some time. Satisfaction guaranteed In addition to offering a wide range of off-the-shelf gifts, Mastermark has extensive experience in designing and manufacturing entirely new products. Designer Ari Kostamo from Mastermark s design service emphasizes the importance of close co-operation during the whole design process: designers should ideally discuss their ideas with clients face-to-face and visit them on-site to have a better understanding of their business and corporate image. Commissioning a design is risk-free for the buyer, since they can cancel the order before manufacturing the actual products if the design does not please them. Mr. Honka even promises that any disappointed clients will get their money back. According to him, the rate of success is so high that they can well afford to give such a guarantee. Case Kuusakoski As an example of a successful design project, Mr. Kostamo described the case of Kuusakoski Oy. Kuusakoski is one of the biggest refiners and suppliers of recycled metal in the world and a pioneer in developing new recycling technologies. According to Kostamo, the aim of the project was to create a whole range of gifts with a consistent look that would be compatible with the company s existing visual strategy. To this end, they came up with a unique pattern featuring stylized images of recyclable materials and splashes of green to symbolize the company s line of business. The same pattern can be used on a wide variety of gifts ranging from inexpensive keychains to more exclusive products. Communications manager Marja-Leena Ahtiainen is very satisfied with the cooperation, which allows the company to concentrate on their core business.
4 WTC TURKU Practical coaching brings concrete, measurable improvements in performance Jari Kaarima, Chairman of the Board of Lean5Europe Oy Ltd says eliminating waste to use production premises more efficiently has allowed some companies to increase production capacity with few or no additional investments. From lean thinking to lean practice According to Matti Torkkeli, CEO of Lean5 Europe Oy Ltd, the goal of lean management is to maximize value-adding processes things that the client would be willing to pay for by eliminating waste, processes that drain resources without creating any value. Spotting and getting rid of such useless activities as unnecessary motion, pointless waiting or superfluous inventory will automatically increase the relative share of value-adding processes, Mr. Torkkeli explains. The opposite approach, focusing on value-adding processes instead, would in many cases be less fruitful, as many organizations have already honed these processes close to perfection, he says. The purpose of eliminating waste is not just to cut costs but to free up resources that can be put to better use, for example to improve quality, increase the volume of production or to develop new products. Lean management does not aim at minimizing the need for workforce but seeks to maximize everyone s potential, Torkkeli stresses. products and services reach customers just in time, rather than getting fixated on resource efficiency, for example trying to keep machines running all the time. By mapping a company s value stream on a timeline, identifying nonessential processes and removing them, overall efficiency may be increased and products brought to customers more swiftly. Lead times can be reduced quite drastically in companies operating in a wide range of sectors. In the case of one Lean5 client, according to Mr. Kaarima, lead time was progressively reduced from five days to 61 minutes! In addition to cutting costs, this confers an obvious competitive advantage. A further advantage of reducing time pressures in Kaarima s view is that it creates a virtuous circle that motivates the staff to keep improving their performance. The point of lean management is not to run faster but to walk a shorter distance to reach the same goal, says Matti Torkkeli CEO (left) with Teemu Elomaa, Project Director of Lean5 Europe Oy Ltd. Reducing lead time from five days to 61 minutes Jari Kaarima, Chairman of the Board of Lean5, describes the lean approach as focusing on speeding up the flow of materials and information so that
5 WTC TURKU Respect cultural differences and make your business flourish! WTC Turku organized a workshop under the heading Around the world in a day to shed light on how cultural differences may affect doing business internationally. Despite the perception that we all speak English now, cultural issues have hardly ceased to matter. On the contrary, as the economic and political influence of emerging markets keep growing and the service sector expands, knowing how to navigate cultural differences becomes more important than ever, Mr. Riku Laanti, CEO of RLC International Management Oy affirms. His Excellency Mr. Gerald Thomson, Ambassador of Australia described Australians as extroverted, talkative and easy-going, and demonstrated the Australian sense of humor by adding that these were both their best and worst characteristics. However, the Ambassador pointed out, generalisations like these usually apply to Australians of Anglo-Saxon origin, but may not be Ann-Sofie Tapio, a student at Novia University of Applied Sciences, was the main organizer of the event. In front His Excellency Gerald Thomson, Ambassador of Australia and Mirja Kärkäs-Lainio, Director of WTC Turku. Riku Laanti, CEO of RLC International Management Oy. accurate when it comes to more recent Asian immigrants of whom there are quite a few, and whose presence is constantly shaping the local society. Ms. Kaori Maezono-Eskola, Representative at the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) in Helsinki explained how much her fellow countrymen value politeness, though their manners may sometimes confuse westerners. The Japanese expect business cards to be treated with respect, she advises. Therefore, do not toss your business card casually across the table! Since the Japanese are reluctant to say no as frankly as we are accustomed to and are generally more indirect in their social interactions, misunderstandings may arise. Fortunately, Ms. Maezono-Eskola assures that foreigners are allowed to ask for clarification if they have trouble telling a yes from a no. Another thing to bear in mind is superstitions: in Japan, the figure 4 is associated with death and is therefore best avoided. For example, it is better to choose a set of five rather than four objects when buying gifts for your business partner. Ms. Tingting Li, Project Assistant at Turku University of Applied Sciences introduced listeners to two features of Chinese culture that tend to perplex foreigners: guanxi and mianzi. Understanding guanxi, which refers to personal connections and mianzi, the art of saving face, is the key to building and maintaining business contacts in China.
6 WTC TURKU New markets - enter them systematically and efficiently! Do not expect to conquer Germany in a matter of weeks even Napoleon took longer than that, and he had a bigger army than any of you, says Klaus Pfitzner, Senior Partner at Nolte & Krieger Unternehmensberatung. partners and contacting their CEOs or owners on behalf of companies such as LO Rakenne. The consultant also takes care of all practical arrangements when representatives of the Finnish company come to visit Germany, takes part in meetings with locals and helps smooth over any communication problems. Trying to enter the German market only makes sense if you have some sort of expertise that local companies lack, but LO Rakenne knew that their product was excellent and believed it would satisfy the needs of German clients as well. In fact, Kariniemi quotes a German engineer commenting on their Funkkis balcony system: How is it possible that German engineers have not thought of this? Eventually, Funkkis turned out to be too much ahead of its time for the German market, but another system called Frame proved more suitable similar but superior to local manufacturers designs. It was important to ensure German manufacturers that LO Rakenne was seeking partners and would not compete with them on their home turf. Nolte & Krieger s consultant broke the language barrier and helped to get the conversation going. During three trips to Germany, LO Rakenne has met with 14 balcony manufacturers, only two of which have refused to cooperate. Those interested in cooperation with LO Rakenne account for 20% of market share, which is a very promising start. The domestic market was no longer big enough for LO Rakenne Oy, the leading manufacturer of lightweight balconies in Finland. Marketing Director Martti Karimies explained at a WTC Turku club event that growth in sales required entering a new market, and that the company wanted to become big enough to be able to choose their clients rather than depending entirely on a couple of domestic buyers. Since the German market for balconies is 50 times the size of the Finnish one, it seemed like a good target for expansion. Even within a single country such as Germany, local traditions, dialects and prejudices due to historical events can be a barrier to mutual understanding and successful business relationships. Hiring a local expert who knows the business environment, language, culture etc. is therefore a sound investment, ensures Klaus Pfitzner, Senior Partner at the management consulting company Nolte & Krieger Unternehmensberatung. Nolte & Krieger s consultant spends four to six months finding potential clients or
7 WTC TURKU Low costs and a favorable tax climate attract Finnish companies to the Baltics Estonia has some of the most advanced internet banking practices in the world, says Riku Louho, Head of Cash Management, Western & Central Finland Finance Centers at Danske Bank. Samuel Ståhlberg, Attorney at law at Astrea Oy started off a WTC seminar on the Baltic countries by describing the different types of business entities and tax systems in the region. He listed many different reasons why Finnish companies might choose to do business in Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania, for example to seek growth through new markets. According to entrepreneurs in attendance, the most important reasons were low operating costs and attractive tax laws; the markets are so small that they cannot offer much growth potential. The corporate tax rate is 21% in Estonia and 15% in Latvia and Lithuania. Ståhlberg describes Estonia as particularly investment-friendly, since corporate profits are not taxed until they are distributed to shareholders. According to Riku Louho, Head of Cash Management, Western & Central Finland Finance Centers at Danske Bank, Estonia has some of the most advanced internet banking practices According to Aleksej Leppänen, Regional Sales Manager at Finpro, the Baltic region is an easy and safe place for doing business, and foreign investments in the region are rising. in the world, so opening a local bank account and making payments is quick and straightforward, especially since Danske Bank s clients can use their Finnish banking software to manage their Estonian DB accounts. He adds that cross-border banking has become even easier since Estonia joined the euro and that internet banking is also becoming the norm in Latvia and Lithuania. Demand for advanced technology and know-how Aleksej Leppänen, Regional Sales Manager at Finpro, also points out the limited potential of the region given that the Finnish GDP is twice the size of the GDPs of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania combined. Yet, they are easy and safe places for doing business, and foreign investments in the region are rising. According to Leppänen, business opportunities for Finnish companies can be found in many sectors, such as supplying machinery and equipment to local businesses, particularly in export-oriented industries. There is also a demand for both technology and know-how in areas that many Finnish companies excel at, such as district heating, energy efficiency and cleantech. Acquiring local businesses and real estate is likewise worth looking into due to their affordability and favorable tax conditions, Mr. Leppänen adds. Leppänen is skeptical about the idea of using the Baltics as a stepping stone to the Russian market. For historical reasons, he thinks interaction between the Baltics and Russians might still be awkward. However, thanks to their Russian-speaking minorities, the Baltic countries are potential outsourcing destinations for Finnish companies in need of Russian-language services such as translation, IT support, customer service and accounting. Also, as one participant confirmed, the Baltics are important transit countries between the EU and CIS countries due to low costs and convenient logistics. Samuel Ståhlberg, Attorney at law at Astrea Oy, says that there are many different reasons why Finnish companies choose to do business in the Baltic countries.
ICT affects every aspect of human life Glen Koskela, Chief Technology Officer at Fujitsu Nordic. Glen Koskela, Chief Technology Officer at Fujitsu Nordic says information technology is no longer just a set of tools for streamlining processes and improving productivity. It affects every aspect of our lives and reshapes the organization of everything from agricultural production to traffic control and health care services. The physical environment is increasingly monitored and manipulated in real time with intelligent technology, such as soil sensors that know when it is time to irrigate the crops or airplanes that can order their own spare parts. If you want to remain competitive in this rapidly changing environment, adopting the latest software and gadgets is not enough: companies have to adjust their entire value chains, bringing their physical, digital and social aspects together in new and innovative ways, Koskela argues. Publisher: Editor-in-chief: Sub-editor: Layout: World Trade Center Turku Veistämönaukio 1 3, 20100 Turku, FINLAND Tel: +358 2 281 3100 chamber@wtc-turku.fi www.wtc-turku.fi Mirja Kärkäs-Lainio Director WTC Turku Marjaana Suonpää Freelancer Anne-Marie Ojala Assistant WTC Turku