Summary of institutions

Institutions surveyed

Altogether 27 representatives of institutions or organisations were interviewed for the SUPPLIERS study in Finland. The interviews were conducted both in the Finnish study regions and outside the regions. The fi nal number of interviews per area was eight (8) in Southwest Finland, ten (10) in Northern Ostrobothnia and nine (9) outside the study regions. The interviews conducted outside the study regions were usually in the greater Helsinki area. Most of the interviewed organisations, namely fi fteen (15), operated at the regional level, ten (10) at the national level and only two (2) at the local level. Most of the interviewees (14) were public sector representatives and the rest were almost equally divided between private and public-private partnership organisations (the former 6, the latter 7).

Institutional support for food SMEs and supply chains

In short, the main functions of the institutions interviewed for the SUPPLIERS study were the following: 1) offering marketing support and advice, 2) promoting domestic food production, 3) fi nancing, 4) regulating products and businesses, 5) encouraging business expansion, and 6) lobbying. It must also be noted that the interviewed institu-tions’ measures were mostly aimed at the base of the supply chain rather than the chain as a whole. Many interviewees stated that direct interaction with the intermediaries of the food chain, for example, has not been seen as an element of their remit. However, they were certain that they at least indirectly effected the operation of supply chains in a broader context.

The current and forthcoming challenges that SMEs and food chains are facing in Fin-land include the power of chained and centralised wholesale and retail sectors, the lack of horizontal and vertical co-operation among different chain members, the increasing

usage of ICT and its requirements and the lack of consumer-orientation in many stages of the food supply chain.

ICT

All the interviewees emphasised the importance of ICT in all business operations. Ac-cording to the interviews carried out among the institutions, ICT does, or at least should have, a very signifi cant role in food SMEs. ICT use was seen as improving internal business effi ciency, enhancing competitiveness and helping to create and, most of all, maintain close business relationships with other chain members or business partners.

Several interviewees emphasised that the importance of ICT to any particular business was highly dependent on the channel the business uses: if the business uses direct sales to consumers as a primary channel, the importance of ICT in business operations would actually be fairly low. However, ICT’s signifi cance had, almost without exception, posi-tive implications for the rationalisation of work in SMEs.

The interviewees regarded it as rather diffi cult to estimate the importance of ICT to the supply chains as a whole. This was probably due to the nature of the organisations and institutions selected for the study; most of the organisations dealt with only one or a few nodes of the food supply chain, not with the whole chain. Almost all of the interviewed institutional respondents thought that ICT usage would change and increase in the future, even though the level of adoption of different ICT devices varied in different sized busi-nesses and product sectors. A great majority of interviewees were confi dent that requests for ICT use would be more and more demanding in the future. This kind of development places high demands on the capabilities of the personnel, and therefore the signifi cance of continuous learning was emphasised.

Rural development

According to the interviews, the relevance of small-scale food processing as a means of livelihood in rural areas had clearly increased during the past ten years. This development was mainly due to the national rural policy programme. The programme has promoted and highlighted rural food businesses and has also enhanced their image. Another im-portant issue driving rural food businesses has been the awakening of consumer interest in food products that are not ‘industrially’ produced. The growing interest in local foods is a clear sign of this tendency.

Due in part to scarce human and capital resources in food SMEs, the enhancement of business networks was regarded positively among the institutional interviewees of the SUPPLIERS research. Business networks were not goal per se, but there must be a com-mon target as to why certain businesses have created a network. The enhancement of co-operation among businesses was said to be the focus of many interviewed institutions and organisations. It was said that networking may require quite dramatic changes in the attitudes and customs of various businesses because most were only used to operating by themselves. Therefore networks were not born or built quickly. A strategic starting point

for a network was the social contact between entrepreneurs, because in order to actually co-operate, people must know each other very well.

Many interviewees in the institutional survey said that co-operation and networking among food SMEs had not proceeded as well as one would have expected from the efforts that various actors have made. However, many of the respondents stated that it was not, or should we say it could not be, a question of fi nding suitable partners. The total number of food SMEs in Finland is quite high and therefore one could assume that suitable busi-ness partners could be sieved out from the mass.

Business networks were believed to have important implications for food SMEs, food supply chains and the rural economy in the broader context. If business networks are born, it usually means diversifi cation of business activities in rural regions which may easily lead to better competitiveness. That in turn results in the vitalising of rural areas which increases the attractiveness of the regions. If the regions are attractive to businesses there are more possibilities to create new networks.