Espoo Business Services

Approach

From the brief we learned that the six organizations (TE-Services, Enterprise Espoo, Espoo Entrepreneurs, Helsinki Region Chamber of Commerce, Espoo Economic & Urban Development Unit and Espoo Marketing) are eager to find new ways of sharing resources and knowledge in order to provide better services for their customers and clients. We conducted research in order to understand what services they provide and who their clients and partners are.

We interviewed representatives from 5 organizations, 6 entrepreneurs, the community manager of A Grid, and a representative from our biggest benchmark, 13 people in total. In addition, we conducted a workshop with representatives of the organizations. We used the Atlas Game as a tool to start a dialogue on topics that are related to moving in together and forming new ways of collaboration. We learned about their needs and expectations and were able to verbalize their hopes for better services, better visibility, the hope for work redundancy and for effectiveness.

As we learned from the Statistics, 99,8% of companies in Finland are micro, small & medium enterprises (SMEs). Therefore, we mainly focused on mapping and understanding the services according to the life cycle of SMEs. Once we mapped all the services provided by the 6 organizations, we were able to pinpoint some overlaps as well as opportunities for new services. It became apparent that there is strong support in the maintaining and scaling up phases.

We processed and evaluated all data collected in interviews through analysis and synthesis methods. We extracted the data, looked for themes and relationships and formulated them into insights or statements. This process was iterative. Once we formulated our insights, we were able to recognize opportunities for possible design interventions. 

We recognized 3 levels to intervene on. The first level is where we could focus on the internal communication and collaboration within the wing and thus create an internal strategy in order to align the organizations and propel them to reach the shared goals. The second level was the interface between A Grid community and the wing which provides space to rethink how the six organizations fit in with the rest of A Grid. Lastly, the third level for design intervention would have impact within the whole city of Espoo. On this level an entirely new service concept such as ‘Espoo Business Services’ could be developed. We generated “How might we..?” questions related to the 3 levels. This exercise initiated our ideation.

At first we evaluated all ideas and narrowed down the selection by looking at their potential value and cost. After that we gathered feedback. We asked our clients to evaluate the ideas, pick those they believe have most and least potential, and explain why. We then asked the entrepreneurs to validate our ideas for practical value in relation to the journey of their business. It became clear that there is a need for design interventions on all three levels.

Outcome

We formulated a holistic vision towards reaching the goal of bringing success for companies and jobs for people through ‘Espoo Business Services’. The aim is to collaboratively create a customer focused entity that will provide value for businesses at any stage, while providing a return on investment for the ecosystem. To reach this ambitious goal, a strategy was needed to help the organizations get started. Our strategic proposal is divided into three pillars, or building blocks. Each of them consists of several actionable steps enriched by sketches, insights, and benchmarks to help guide the way to achieving the set goal.