How did you start your own business?

I met a Finnish entrepreneur who asked me to internationalize his business. It was HR software. I did a short unpaid internship to see if I understood the business and if I liked it. After that I decided to ‘go for it’. I brought the company to 16 countries. In 2011 I took over running the business. The condition was that we bought one Dutch client which allowed us to transform our business from an HR software company into a cultural advisory, including cultural analytics software.  

Do you also have experience with running your own company in the Netherlands?

Yes. We used to have a Dutch branch which employed local staff. At some point we decided to consolidate and have the core operations in Finland.

What are the major differences and similarities in the field of entrepreneurship between the Netherlands and Finland?

Differences:

The big difference is the support infrastructure on official level. Finland is very well equipped in supporting SME’s, specifically when it comes to tax matters and the flexibility there. The R&D investment climate is much more supported. Labor law in Finland is much more flexible (as long as you keep your company under 20 people). In the Netherlands the actual investment climate is much more developed.

In Finland there is a lot more informal networking taking place. You could even compare Finland to the Japan of Europe and the Netherlands to the US of Europe.

Similarities:

In both counties the labor market is good. People are well educated. English is widely used. Internet penetration is high. We are both information societies which makes for a good consulting market. Both countries invest a lot in people development. This basically means a high level of education and good grounds for professional training.

Culturally both countries are relatively similar with 2 big differences: 1) Finland is rather short term oriented. You need to keep things very simple and shouldn’t really be talking about very big visions and long term thinking. 2) Finns want things to be straightforward and clear. The Dutch are much more opportunistic and they like to keep their options open.

Did covid19 have an impact on your business? If yes, how?

Yes. In terms of way of working nothing really has changed. We were working virtually a lot already. But the interaction with clients has changed, especially in the field of training and facilitation. People had to -and still have to- get used to  online training. Decisions were postponed. For the first 9 months of this year the turnover is down with 15%. Overall for the entire year it might remain at this level. We also might still grow. We invested heavily in developing the virtual facilitation skills of our facilitators. And we also designed a lot of our training packages to fit to a virtual format.

Do you have any tips for other Dutch, or international, people who want to do business in Finland?

Be sure about the time commitment. You can make it work but Finns need to have the feeling that you are able to bring something and not only come to get their money. The Finnish market is quite keen on piloting new things but to really adapt to new products and services will take longer than in other markets. Such as for example the Netherlands.

A peek into the future: where do you see yourself and your company in 5 years?

Turnover wise I see the organization itself at a level which is about 4x the size that we are now. The global facilitation group will triple in size, from 150 to 450 people. Having country offices in more than 20 countries. Currently 10. We will have operations in 100+ countries. Currently 60. We will strive to make culture a real strategic topic and not the ‘fuzzy’ HR topic that it unfortunately currently, too often, is considered to be.

Anything else you would like to bring forward?

As part of one of our projects, we have built for the EU a freely accessible learning platform available to all European SME's, to become more aware of the impact of culture on doing international business, at www.cubein.eu.

And more about the work of Hofstede Insights at www.hofstede-insights.com.