Nordicum - Real Estate Annual Finland 2011 | Page 49

the connection to the Far East:
Tampere Region Airport Hub
CLX is certainly attractive for
e.g. Chinese businesses which
are looking to establish a strong
dominance in North Europe.
Networked intelligent logistics, on the other hand, highlight Logiera’s commitment
to openness – and education.
Saarenpää envisions a webbased social learning environment which brings together logistics processes, training and
best practise sharing. At the
same time, there is a modular
IT platform – enabling access to
all essential information in real time – backed by “one-stopshop” ideology.
“In logistics, great results
can be reached through openness and transparency. We can
learn how to do things the right
way together.”
Saarenpää is aware that
there’s a long way ahead, but
he is genuinely excited about
the opportunity to build some-

thing different here.
“We want to be the leading
logistics integrator in Europe by
2020,” he says.

Balancing the Risk
So far, Logiera has been gaining
momentum, evolving from a vision (premiered at MIPIM 2010)
to concrete strategy (launched in
December). Saarenpää himself
has a background from worldclass logistics at Nokia Corporation, and he is eager to use what
he has learned in developing this
venture.
“By the end of year, we
will be incorporated and get the
ball rolling in earnest.” There is
already an alliance of 15 players behind the venture, ranging
from municipalities and universities to actual logistics companies. It is no secret that Logiera
is expected to attract also foreign stakeholders.
Saarenpää talks about Balanced Private Public Partnership

which provides investment opportunities to both venture capitalists and state pension funds,
offering different types of risk
profiles. He observes that in regular PPP ventures, there is little
initiative to develop the business
operations, but under this model, the business focus is everywhere – and ongoing.
“We want to involve the
public sector also after the initial phase, since there are issues
such as congestion and carbon
footprint which benefit from
municipal and state attention.”

“Spirit of Tampere”
In addition to Logiera, there are
plenty of other exciting things
going on in the Tampere Region.
For years now, the region has led
the country in business growth,
with companies both big and
small being launched in the area. Executive Partner Markku
Teittinen from Tampere Business Region says that interna-

tional companies have found the
largest inland city in Scandinavia to their liking, too – looking
at foreign companies establishing a presence somewhere other than Helsinki in 2009, quite
a few found their new home in
Tampere.
What makes the Tampere
Region so attractive, then? Well,
according to studies by Invest
in Finland, the number one reason by far for coming to Finland is increasing the potential
customer base. The runner-up is
geographical location. Teittinen
points out that the Tampere Region meets this criteria extremely well.
“We have two thirds of
Finland’s population within a
two hours drive here. Tampere is
really well situated from companies’ perspective.” In fact, Tampere Region is the second largest economic region in Finland,
boasting a population of more
than 450,000.

Business & Pleasure

Photo: Sari Mäkelä

The business ecosystem in the
neighbourhood i ́