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About Us

Strategy 2026-2030

Our strategy guides us to serve Finnish business and industry even better and more needs-based

Business Finland is a Finnish public operator that offers innovation funding and internationalisation services and promotes tourism and investments in Finland. 

In 2025, Business Finland drew up a strategy towards 2030.

Our task now has three parts:

  1. Mobilize private capital at an unprecedented scale, ensuring that every public euro catalyzes a multiple in investment
  2. Raise the ambition of research and development—we aim for world-class breakthroughs, not small improvements.
  3. Focus our resources on key turning points where Finland has clear strengths and a real chance to succeed globally.

Our core mission

We create wealth and well-being for Finland by accelerating the sustainable growth of our customers internationally.

Our strategic goals

Our starting point for setting strategic goals has been to support customers change the volume, quality and focus of their operations. The first two strategic goals are related to company-specific impact, while the third is primarily related to the creation of a competitive environment. The fourth goal is cross-sectional and related to our operational goals: All our operations are characterized by impact, responsibility, and efficiency.

  1. Record amount of productivity-enhancing private R&D and growth investments

    •    An increase in private R&D investment
    •    An increase in other high-productivity intangible and tangible investments
    •    Involvement of new companies and industries in goal-oriented R&D

  2. A leap in the level of ambition and innovation collaboration

    •    More fast-growing innovative growth companies
    •    An increase in national and international cooperation and business innovation projects enabled by companies
    •    Increased investments in the understanding of the needs of end customers and preparation for internationalization and commercialization

  3. World-class prerequisites for renewing national strengths and creating new growth sectors

    •    Strengthening of world-class competencies and development environments related to strategic thematic choices 
    •    More EU funding and network contacts 
    •    Increased foreign investment and talent in the areas of strategic thematic choices

  4. Confidence in our impact, responsibility and efficiency

    •    Proven large return on tax funds
    •    Excellent cost-effectiveness in the implementation of core functions and industrial policy related special tasks
    •    A good customer experience built on good governance
    •    Energetic personnel with a high level of well-being 

 

Our strategic change projects

To achieve the strategic goals, we will focus on four strategic change projects. They relate to the means by which we achieve our strategic goals. The change projects guide us to ensure that Business Finland and its way of operating are renewed concretely and fully to support the implementation of the new strategy.

Reforming our funding principles

Strategy-driven customer work and funding allocation that maximizes the national overall benefit.
  • We update our funding criteria based on our strategic goals.
  • We renew our funding terms to support the accumulation of wealth in Finland.
  • We develop our capabilities for insightful application of state aid rules.
  • We include incentives to EU funding applications in our funding services.
  • We do not fund small improvements to a single customer's operations.
  • We do not support low-productivity investments.
  • We support closer cooperation within the administrative branch by reforming and applying funding.
Comprehensive reform of program activities

Dynamic program activities that benefit from partnerships and are guided by strategic thematic choices.
  • We reform our program activities to make them administratively light.
  • We favor a partner-driven model of program activities.
  • We productize our program services.
  • In our program activities, we consolidate funding, attraction, growth, and internationalization services.
  • We focus our own programs on our strategic thematic choices.
  • We target our thematic choices on strengthening existing strong business sectors and on developing new growth sectors.
  • We maintain readiness to implement programs on assignment of the Ministry.
  • We maintain our thematic choices on a rolling annual basis.
Digital transformation

Exceptionally agile and efficient operation and AI-assisted decision making.
  • We strengthen our ability to make extensive use of modern digital tools in the organization.
  • We take the speed of customer service to the next level.
  • We develop the ability to utilizeartificial intelligence extensively in decision making.
  • We optimize our processesby taking advantage of digital opportunities.
  • In service development, we aim for the greatest possible impact per work contribution in service production.
  • We favor digital services in our service development.
  • We run Business Finland’s operations with data and advanced analytics.
Strategic advocacy and service collaboration

Extensive implementation of industrial policy, smooth Team Finland service path and expert position in selected growth policy topics.
  • We develop and make the best use of strategic partnerships.
  • We strengthen our visibility as an influencer and implementer of a wide-ranging industrial policy.
  • We increase our visionary influence on selected growth policy topics.
  • We strengthen our innovation and industrial policy collaboration with the Nordic countries.
  • In international collaboration, we prioritize like-minded countries, growth markets, and innovative frontrunner markets.
  • We strengthen our EU engagement together with our stakeholders.

Our strategic thematic choices

Through our thematic choices, we seek impact.

As a small country, Finland must make choices for better impact with limited resources. By boldly investing in the renewal of industries and wisely targeting these investments, we enable Finland to get back on a sustainable economic growth path.

Our thematic approach highlights the importance of cross-sectoral collaboration, system-level and disruptive innovation for longer-term growth. In all our thematic choices, we support the development of ecosystems. We also acknowledge that the thematic choices are not independent or separate from each other.

The selection of thematic choices was preceded by a careful analysis of growth opportunities and Finland's strengths. Five selection criteria were applied to the selection of thematic choices. In addition, we took into account the continuation to the EU’s funding and networks.

Selection criteria:

  1. Growth opportunities that are significant to Finland in terms of their size or competencies that support the utilization of such opportunities.

  2. The market is projected to grow faster than the overall growth of the global economy.

  3. The value added to the Finnish economy is high, i.e. a high share of production and export value is retained in Finland.

  4. Finland has a competitive advantage based on, for example, cutting-edge research, natural resources of business capabilities.

  5. Finland has a business sector that can take advantage of the market opportunity.

Customer and offerings policies

The customer and offerings policies define a set of priorities and boundary conditions, within which all the operations and development of the strategy period in Business Finland are carried out. We make customer choices to allocate resources to the most impactful customers.  We seek impact through concise and clear offerings choices.

Who do we provide services for?

With customer choices, we allocate resources to the most impactful customers.

Our key customers

  1. Companies seeking rapid growth and a significant international market position (strongly growth-oriented).

  2. Collaboration-oriented high-productivity forerunner companies (drivers of productivity).

  3. High-quality research organizations oriented towards business collaboration (competence innovators).

Our other customers

  1. SMEs launching ambitious R&D work and research groups that serve them (new talent).

  2. Platform and support service providers (enablers) needed to enable system innovations.

  3. Pioneering companies of major productivity leaps in sectors important to Finland that are exposed to international competition (domestic market reformers).

Our services

We seek impact with a concise and clear offerings.

  1. Information and insight services to support the identification and exploitation of growth opportunities.

  2. Facilitating collaboration to provide value-creating contacts and to build partnerships.

  3. Risk-sharing funding to raise the target level for innovation, investment, and growth.

We focus our programmatic activities and the majority of our R&D funding, talent and investment attraction efforts, as well as international cooperation, EU funding advisory services, and advocacy on our thematic priorities.

Development of our offerings

  • Our goal is to achieve the greatest possible impact relative to the work effort in service production.
  • Our services complement the private service offering; we do not compete with market-based providers.
  • Only the core objectives of the strategy are implemented through continuous services, while others are implemented on a temporary basis.
  • As a general rule, we always critically evaluate and end current initiatives if we initiate new ones.

Business Finland's values

Our values are reflected in our daily work with our customers, partners and colleagues. They form the basis of our operations and help us achieve our strategic goals.

Eagerly
Big
Together
With perseverance

Learn more about the Business Finland Strategy 2030