Interventions can be shared to financial or non-financial modes to encourage companies for renewing innovations and accelerating global growth. Most of impact studies concentrate either on grants or other modes in finding most valuable results of these interventions. This brief discusses shortly about the main findings of recently published studies if both modes are used concurrently.

1. Impact assessment in Business Finland analyses the impacts of Business Finland interventions on the Finnish economy and society
Sparring can help
companies for multiple
ways
Companies benefit also
of non-financial support
and there is more space
of it
Jari Hyvärinen, Business Finland
Interventions can be shared to financial or non-financial modes to encourage
companies for renewing innovations and accelerating global growth. Most of
impact studies concentrate either on grants or other modes in finding most
valuable results of these interventions. This brief discusses shortly about the
main findings of recently published studies if both modes are used concurrently.
Definition of non-financial interventions
Non-financial support is called mostly as sparring in Finland. Sparring as intervention
tool can activate companies to find new ways to reorganise its capabilities and
reorientate it to new markets. A word sparring has several meanings. It is an
adopted word from the sports to describe different kinds of support:
- Activation, motivation and all kinds of help for finding new ideas to
business and RDI activities as well as recognising undetectable needs
and possibilities
- Guiding, advise and assistance to identify suitable funding and project
planning, gathering and partner search etc.
- Business mentoring, growth plans, management of change, strategic
coaching
Company-specific Services
Several studies consider a role of sparring as focal mode of intervention together
with funding. Main findings briefly are as follows:
· A report ”Start-ups, Accelerators and Role of Tekes – Evaluation Study
(2018)” considers effects of intervention mix:
Companies that use non-financial support (e.g. mentoring, advisory or
networking) to a greater degree attribute higher average impact to Tekes on
improvements to their capabilities and performance. However, most
companies used only non-financial support offerings to a low degree, or did
not use them at all. Therefore, an opportunity exists for Tekes to increase its
impact by strengthening these offerings and by encouraging companies to
use the mentoring and connections support services to a greater degree.
Mix of interventions increase Company Growth and Renewal
N
Brief No. 2/2019
Impact Brief

2. Impact assessment in Business Finland analyses the impacts of Business Finland interventions on the Finnish economy and society
Companies report higher
growth targets when
they use mix of
interventions
Public ecosystem
services decrease
searching and other
transaction costs
· A report “An Assessment of the Impact of The Young Innovative Companies
(NIY) Program (2013)” found satisfied entrepreneurs:
NIY Program support initiatives were investigated in the evaluation and 47
% of the participant companies found that mentoring of Tekes advisors was
useful and 20 % of companies appreciated it at high degree. Moreover,
assistance with investor presentations (33 %) has been found useful.
· A Report ”Nuorten kasvavien yritysten merkitys, menestystekijät ja
yritystukien rooli kasvun ajurina (2015)” highlights that:
Companies (146 respondents) utilizing both financial and non-financial
support found impacts of funding instruments more effective than those
companies (977 respondents) who used only financial instruments. There is
also indications that the growth of these companies was faster who used
both modes of interventions. They (45 % of companies) had also higher
growth targets than other companies.
· A report ”Increasing ‘The Vital 6 Percent’: Designing Effective Public Policy
to Support High Growth Firms (2014)” stressed:
More ‘hands-on’ forms of support to potential high growth firms are
valuable such as business mentoring, leadership development and strategic
guidance. In addition, entrepreneurs need to be challenged and guided by
peer-based business assistance.
Ecosystem and Networking Services
Several studies consider a role of match making and networking services important
of which public non-financial services are in a facilitator role. It seems that main
benefit can be reached when searching and other transaction costs can be lowered
by serving actors by using centralized one-desk principle. The findings are as
follows:
· A report “Innovaatioekosysteemit elinkeinoelämän ja tutkimuksen
yhteistyön vahvistajina“ describes the role of public ecosystem services:
In practice, different ecosystem services work for companies and other
actors, for example as platforms connecting business services, finance and
infrastructures (e.g. pilot institutions). They network the ecosystem actors
and link them with, for example, national and regional business services,
R&D infrastructure, know-how and finance. It is an important benefit
compared to case, where actors have to search the needed information and
contacts themselves.
· Many Tekes (now Business Finland) evaluation reports (for example “Impact
of Tekes on Capabilities (2015)“) recommend the increase of sparring and
networking, but many emphasize networking alone:
- Tekes has succeeded well in its goal of promoting innovation
capabilities. The most important influence has been to promote
cooperation and networking.

3. Impact assessment in Business Finland analyses the impacts of Business Finland interventions on the Finnish economy and society
Programme evaluations
underline networking
but there is also room
for sparring
- Tekes plays a very important role as a facilitator of cooperation
between large companies, SMEs and research institutes, and continues
to promote the transfer of innovation capabilities and know-how.
- Thanks to Tekes projects, cooperation between SMEs and research
institutes with SMEs has increased.
· A report “The role of high-impact SMEs in Finland (2015)” emphasizes
higher role for public platform mentoring:
- High-impact SMEs are highly aware of their role in the business
ecosystem, but are lacking in platform management capacity. This
means they are unable to make maximum use of platform services,
tools and technologies for co-creating value within the ecosystem.
- It seems that small firms have problems convincing big firms to
participate in piggybacking (co-operation with small and big
companies) activities. It is proposed that Tekes develops a special
piggyback programme for stimulating big and small firm collaboration
in order to foster business expansion abroad.
- 27 interviews with managers indicated that Tekes could work more as a
matchmaking institution.
· Programme evaluations (for example “Striving towards a vibrant ecosystem
- Evaluation of Tekes' Combio, BioIT and Trial programmes (2016)” have
taken further steps mostly for networking but less in sparring:
- Benchmarks of international ecosystems – Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland
and the Netherlands – point to the need for national programmes to
become not only a method of distributing public funds but also a
facilitating instrument passing on entrepreneurial and business skills to
the beneficiaries.
- Early-stage companies are dependent on collaboration with universities
and connecting to the networks and infrastructure of large
(multinational) companies.
- Building functioning ecosystems is the key to keep the research base of
high-growth companies in Finland. This requires that framework
conditions are available and internationally competitive.
This brief reviews shortly the main findings of several impact studies by
concentrating on the most common interventions and how those can be used in the
same intervention toolbox. It seems that there is a need to rethink how to
customize for example Business Finland programmes or specific instruments with
mix of interventions. That is, for example, company-specific interventions need
more hand-on and peer-based services, and demand for ecosystem support is to
lower transactions costs when public services are offered by using centralized one-
desk principle.
Contact:
Jari Hyvärinen, jari.hyvarinen@businessfinland.fi, +358-50-5577803

4. Impact assessment in Business Finland analyses the impacts of Business Finland interventions on the Finnish economy and society