Scaling up creativity. Finpro Luovimo company internationalization story. More info at http://www.finpro.fi/luovimo/scaling-up-creativity

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08 June 2012
PRODUS – CREATING INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS FOR THE
HOME MARKET BY ESTABLISHING A NETWORK OF BEST
PROFESSIONALS TO ATTRACT INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMERS
Produs’ story shows that doing international business must not necessarily mean export
activities abroad. International cooperation can also take place in the home market and
generate business there.
Produs is a media service company, offering all media services from one source. It is a “joint
venture” with a network of 33 small creative field companies, combining creative skills, services
and resources. The owners of Produs are responsible for business development. Produs offers
its services to companies, organizations, event producers and film and television producers, to
name but a few.
By establishing a professional network, Produs is able to produce a wide range of location-based
services for local and international customers at home. The companies in the network are
individually too small to serve large international customers, but the “cluster” is able to provide
this service. However, acting as a network was very challenging for Produs and their operations.
Such a company structure therefore needs a clear vision and strong identity, in order to be able
to communicate their offering to the customers.
When Produs joind Luovimo, their vision was not clear enough to create a specific identity.
During the Luovimo branding workshops the focus was set on sharpening the message and
polishing the brand. Produs also developed a value proposition for their customers. The service
offering has expanded considerably as a result of this development work.
In the workshops all customer groups were analyzed in depth, thus changing Produs’
understanding of their customers. Previously, Produs had not been actively communicating with
their desired customer segments. As a result, a more customer oriented mode of thinking was
launched.
Whilst participating in Luovimo, the company’s visual appearance and website was also renewed.
In addition, Produs wanted to utilize benchmarking to learn how other networks in this sector are
working elsewhere in the world. Finpro carried out small-scale benchmarks in six markets, by
means of which Produs was able to learn, gain new ideas for their operations and reflect on their
activities.
A Major learning point for Produs in Luovimo was that when a company’s vision and goals are
clearly defined, the customer segments chosen and properly communicated for every single
company in the network, managing the network then becomes much easier. Resources and
energy from internal development work can then be automatically released to customer work, in
order to concentrate on creating new business.

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08 June 2012
Negotiations for the first international productions to come to Finland are already taking place.
Read the 7 findings in internationalizing creativity from Luovimo companies at
http://www.finpro.fi/luovimo/scaling-up-creativity