Finnish High-Impact ICT SMEs and Ecosystems

It is a well-known fact that the Finnish economy is treading water. The globalisation makes it necessary for firms and policy makers to be able to manage complex international business relationships in a nimble manner. This paper studies the characteristics and role of high-impact small and medium-sized companies (HISMEs) of the information and communication technology (ICT) cluster in the Finnish business environment. From a national point of view, this subset of the whole enterprise population is of particular interest, since these companies have both managed to grow their sales significantly, as well as greatly increase the number of people they employ. We utilised a database comprising the financial information of over 80 million European companies to identify all Finnish HISMEs. We analysed in detail 125 SMEs that met the criteria for a high-impact SME operating in the ICT cluster. The results indicate that the firms studied contribute considerably to the growth and stabilisation of the Finnish economy. Furthermore, we found that HISMEs in the ICT cluster include a high proportion of medium-sized companies and the companies are mainly located in four regions in Finland.