What Investors are Saying About the Helsinki Region
Clearly, the vibrant cities of Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa have a lot to offer expansion-minded companies. But perhaps the best gauge of an areas business climate is the experiences of firms already operating there.

Since 1987, we have been a very profitable country in the ABB family, says Martti T. Maattanen, senior vice president, business development, ABB Oy. Of the older industrial countries, we are the only one in the ABB family that is still growing in number of employees. The company entered Finland via acquisition some 12 years ago, purchasing Stromberg, a Finnish firm more than 100 years old.

ABB employs just under 10,000 in Finland - the fourth-highest employment roll of the 140 countries in which the global engineering and manufacturing leader operates. Approximately 3,200 work in its two Helsinki plants, which make electric motors, generators and similar products. Almost half of those employees are engineers.

Finland is a country of engineers, he says. Nowhere in the world is educating the number of engineers per 1,000 people that Finland is. Education levels and teaching in these areas are very strong. When my ABB colleagues see our benchmarks, they say they envy the educational system we have in place here.

Another strength for Finland, he says, is its labor climate. Working relations are good. Finland is very strongly unionized, but unions here are extremely cooperative. We dont have the militant feelings you see in other European countries, and everyone works together for economic output and success.

Computing and imaging solutions provider Hewlett-Packard (HP) came to Finland 32 years ago, and it employs about 400 in its 161,550-sq.-ft. (15,000-sq.-m.) Espoo facility. But some 3,000 others are working with the company in a variety of entrepreneurial partnerships throughout the Helsinki region.

This facility has everything except product development and manufacturing, says Paul Paukku, managing director, Finland, Hewlett-Packard Oy. It has education, customer support and sales, and it is a test bed for HP solutions to be integrated in our products. We recently were named a Center of Wireless Business Development for Europe, finishing ahead of several other candidate locations.

Besides Finland, Hewlett-Packard Oy also serves the three Baltic states. Branch offices are located in Tallinn, Estonia; Riga, Latvia; and Vilnius, Lithuania.

In terms of its business habits and culture, Finland is more American than any part of Western Europe, Paukku says. Its usually very easy for U.S. companies to establish here because the business climate is the same. Most Finns speak two or three additional languages before they graduate, and its easy to find people with good language skills.

Finland also excels in providing students with the skills that businesses need, he says. The research company IMD (International Institute for Management Development, at www.imd .ch) has ranked Finland the worlds top country in cooperation between universities and business. Here the curriculum is fine-tuned, so efforts are not wasted. There is always a practical angle.

A relative newcomer among Helsinki-area high-tech concerns is VTI Hamlin Oy, which employs more than 200 in its 129,240-sq.-ft. (12,000-sq.-m.) manufacturing facility in Vantaa. The company, owned by Florida-based BREED Technologies, makes sophisticated sensors used in automotive and other applications.

We deal with motion measurement, such as acceleration, pressure and inclination, Operations Manager Hannu Martola explains. The means to do it is silicon micromechanics. We use all of the semiconductor technologies.

The overall network and support for making such high-tech devices, including area universities, was the key attraction for locating in the Helsinki region, Martola says. Our basic operators have quite high training, usually about two years of education in technical fields. The schooling is pretty good here.

VTI Hamlins primary market is Europe, and it was important to locate close to Helsinki-Vantaa Airport to enable rapid delivery of its products to customers. Time means money in every business, but particularly so in high-tech endeavors, and Martola praises Vantaa city officials for helping fast-track the construction of the firms new facility.

It was a very fast process. One year from the time of the site decision, the building was done, he recalls. This would not have been possible without strong city support.

Lisle, Ill.-based Tellabs, a provider of high-quality managed access and transport network systems for telecommunications operators, took the acquisition route in entering Finland several years ago. Tellabs Oy today is growing rapidly in both revenue and staff, and approximately 1,000 people are employed in five facilities in Espoo, which includes the firms Finnish headquarters and R&D operations. Other facilities are in Oulu and Tampere, employing about 60.

Tapio Sulkava, the firms director of product planning and business development, praises Finlands strong environment for innovation and technology.

There are rather good engineering people in the Helsinki region, as well as in Oulu and Tampere, and people are technologically minded, he says. For example, consider the applications in the banking industry. Im 37, and I have never used a check in my life Ñ its all done electronically. The technology infrastructure here has facilitated this type of communication for some time. People are mentally in that mode, in the sense that its good to use the latest technology. You can always buy production capacity, but not ideas!

The opportunity to obtain top technology and engineering knowledge was the key factor behind Beaverton, Ore.-based Planar Systems acquisition of a Finnish firm several years ago. The company makes high-performance electronic information display components for more than 4,000 original equipment manufacturers, primarily for industrial, medical and transportation applications.

Planar currently employs about 250 at its 96,930-sq.-ft. (9,000-sq.-m.) Espoo facility. Besides manufacturing, the firms Finnish operation is responsible for sales and marketing in Europe and the rest of the world outside North America.

From an overall perspective, Finland is very technology driven, with tremendous innovation, says Kimmo Karhunen, Planars managing director and vice president for Europe. There is a pretty high level of sophistication in this operation. Many of our engineering people have been here since [the acquisition], and turnover is low. The labor market here is very competitive right now, but of course this comes in cycles.

Having a physical presence in Europe, as opposed to merely exporting products, is a competitive advantage for any American company, Karhunen says. To try to manage an operation from such a distance wont allow you to hear things from your customers as you should. And many European companies just like to do business with others in Europe.

The Helsinki regions explosive high-tech growth has also created attractive opportunities for shipping and logistics firms. As discussed previously, many such firms have established facilities in Vantaa.

There has been a lot of effort in developing high tech, and its paid off, says Patrick Andersen, managing director, DHL International Oy. For those kinds of companies, its important to have transport thats quick. This is a good situation for us. These high-tech companies dont have big warehouses anymore. Our planes almost become their warehouses in the sky. Our services have allowed them to compete, in the heart of Europe, from here.

The company has several facilities in the Helsinki region, employing about 120, and a 59,235-sq.-ft. (5,500-sq.-m.) office and warehouse building is under construction in Vantaa, near the airport.

UPS, which has operated in Finland since 1987, has facilities in Vantaa, Tampere and Turku. The firms Finnish operations are a key cog in its European system, which delivers 650,000 packages per day.

Were growing here, says Jyrki Holtari, manager of the firms Vantaa facility. In fact, were growing so fast were moving. Well have three times as much space in our new office. The companys new location is just 1.4 miles (2.2 km.) from the airport. SS