Finnish Innovation Index 2021
The Finnish Innovation Index 2021
The Finnish Innovation Index (FII) method is developed by Hanken School of Economics and enables a ranking of the most innovative companies by Finnish consumers, for the first time in 2021.
The FII reveals how consumers see the company’s innovativeness and attractiveness based on their experiences of the company. FII illustrates how consumers adopt a broader view of innovation: they use not only their perceptions of new products, one by one, as they are being introduced, to judge whether a firm is innovative. Rather, they observe a range of company activities to derive an overall judgment of a firm's innovativeness. There is a clear positive connection between innovativeness and customer loyalty.
The FII 2021 includes responses from almost 2,500 customers who ranked more than 50 companies and organizations in fourteen industries based on their innovativeness and how attractive these innovations are perceived. The most innovative company in Finland was Fiskars Group. Other companies among the top10 were (in alphabetical order): Fazer Group, Finlayson, F-Secure, Lidl, Neste, Paulig Group, S-Pankki, Valio, Verkkokauppa.com
The Index differs from existing rankings of companies in Finland in several ways. It is based on consumer perceptions, not expert judgements or firm size, and the evaluating consumers are current customers of the specific companies they judged. Perceived innovativeness is different from brand perceptions or image. While brand and image perceptions indicate current strength, innovativeness indicates future performance.
The research provides companies with valuable information on consumer perceptions and give guidance where to allocate money. It aims to find ways to increase customer loyalty and brand attractiveness in the development of products and services and in the reliable utilisation of customer data. Also, FII promotes discussion about innovativeness between academia and companies, with the purpose to nurture and strengthen the innovation capacity of Finnish business. Company specific insight can be developed. Hanken will continue the FII research in cooperation with companies and provides thus information in order to help both consumers and companies towards better products and services.
The Innovation Index is developed in international collaboration between leading business schools with the goal to stimulate public discussion around the capacity and strategies for innovation in different industries and companies. Innovation has been measured in Norway (Norwegian Innovation Index (NII), the Norwegian School of Economics), Sweden (Swedish Innovation Index (SII), Karlstad Business School), and in the US (American Innovation Index (AII), Fordham University). More countries will follow.
