Smoother services for businesses sthrough collaboration

Services often become divided along administrative boundaries, while in reality a company may simultaneously be looking for new employees, planning investments, developing its business, or searching for new premises. Business Kuopio and the City of Kuopio’s Employment Services work together to ensure that companies receive the support they need as smoothly as possible, regardless of where their service journey begins.

Business situations are rarely straightforward. Supporting growth may require expertise from both business services and employment services, and in many cases the best outcomes are achieved through collaboration.

Business Kuopio and the City of Kuopio’s Employment Services have developed shared operating practices that enable them to respond to companies’ needs more comprehensively than before. The aim is to ensure that businesses receive the right support at the right time without unnecessary contacts or the risk of falling between services.

A Shared goal: Better services for businesses

Business Kuopio supports business growth, investments, company establishment, and business development. Employment Services, in turn, help companies with workforce availability, recruitment, and finding skilled employees.

Although the services have different responsibilities, they often serve the same customers.

“From a company’s perspective, it is important that services form a seamless whole. The better we understand a company’s situation and objectives, the better we can provide the right services at the right time and identify opportunities that a business might not discover on its own,” says Timo Soininen, Business Specialist at Business Kuopio and Project Manager of the KYVYKÄS project.

Technology supports collaboration

Experts from Business Kuopio and the City of Kuopio’s Employment Services regularly review current business needs and exchange information on opportunities for collaboration.

Their cooperation is supported by a shared customer relationship management system, HakosaloCRM, which enables service needs to be viewed as a unified whole. HakosaloCRM provides a shared overview of business customers and supports collaboration between experts across different services. The system helps identify situations where a company can benefit from the expertise of multiple specialists or coordinated support across services.

Through the system’s service request functionality, a company’s case can also be smoothly referred to another specialist whenever solving the issue requires different expertise.

“The greatest benefit of this shared operating model is visible in the everyday life of companies. When services work better together, businesses do not need to repeat the same information to several service providers. At the same time, we can offer support in a more proactive and comprehensive way,” says Johanna Liukkonen, Development Specialist at Business Kuopio.

Stronger conditions for growth through collaboration

The shared operating model helps build a deeper understanding of companies’ needs and supports the development of services based on those needs. At the same time, it strengthens the conditions for business growth, investments, and employment throughout the region.

Businesses are at the heart of this collaboration, and the most important objective is to ensure that companies receive the support they need as smoothly and promptly as possible.