Crowdsourcing Weak Signals of Change in
Institutional Environments – Case Finpro
This poster describes the crowdsourced foresight
process at Finpro, the Finnish Trade promotion
organisation. It is a unique organisational model for
building anticipatory competencies to manage change.
Finpro as an organization
Finpro is a global organisation with 375 employees, of
which 250 people are working outside Finland in over 40
countries. Finpro is an association, owned by Finnish
companies, where a main part of its funding comes from
the Finnish government. The aim of Finpro is to help
Finnish companies to be successful in global markets.
One of the cornerstones in Finpro’s strategy is foresight
activities, which is considered essential for Finnish
companies to build both a strategic and a competitive
edge for the future global environment.
Foresight process at Finpro
In Finpro every employee is involved in the foresight
process. Being a distributed organisation, there are
special challenges in crowdsourcing the future
information. Because of this challenge, TrendWiki
(product owned by Data Rangers Ltd), a proprietary tool,
was developed as the foundation for Finpro’s foresight
activities. This tool is especially designed for distributed
organisations for collecting and visualising weak signals.
Every Finpro employee has access to this user-friendly
tool. All employees are trained and encouraged to enter
weak and strong signals as they have observed in their
respective countries or when travelling. There is no
guideline for what kind of signals are collected: every
signal is considered to be valuable. During last year,
over 9000 signals of change were spotted by Finproners.
A task for the Finpro’s dedicated foresight team is to
analyse these signals. Bi-annually, potential emerging
phenomena are identified by clustering the signals. The
phenomena are used for Finland’s key industrial clusters
and for building a new and unique competitive edge for
Finpro’s client companies. In order to emphasize
foresight’s importance for business, an overview of the
phenomena is also made publicly available. Finpro is
not only interested in the broader view, but also in more
focused technological changes. Signals are spotted from
the viewpoints of technology, business as well as people
and the society. We have proved that a holistic view
provides a better indication of the forthcoming changes.
Finpro works with Finnish companies to help them to
better understand the future transformation. Especially,
technology companies can benefit from the holistic
approach of Finpro’s foresight activities.
Case Fira
Fira is a Finnish company working in the building sector.
One of its products is parking garages. With the future of
parking garages in mind, Fira asked Finpro to assist
them in seeing new perspectives for the future.
In the project, dedicated Finpro signal spotters for
example from Japan, Holland and Brazil were
looking for signals in the areas of business, technology
and people and society for five months. These signals
were analyzed by the team, and they were used in
workshops with the client. The outcome of the project
was new business concepts for Fira. The project helped
the company to grasp a new and innovative business
thinking in otherwise a very traditional business area.
Figure: Annual foresight process of Finpron
Contact
© European Communities, 2011
Elina Hiltunen
Finpro
Tel. +358 40 343 3363
E-mail: elina.hiltunen@finpro.fi
Niko Herlin
Finpro
Tel. +358403433342
E-mail: niko.herlin@finpro.fi
2011
INTERNATIONAL
CONFERENCE