What is Enterprise Finland?
Enterprise Finland is an online service that is available to its users free of charge. It provides information about the kinds of assistance available to companies or entrepreneurs for establishing and developing their business. Enterprise Finland is particularly targeted at SMEs. Collected into a single location, the information is readily available, up to date and comprehensive. Enterprise Finland is coordinated by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy.
The SME Foundation and the web editorial staff are working on maintaining and devoloping the substance constantly.
Copyright, information about service use and privacy policy
To view the terms of use of the service, click the link below. The terms of use will open in a new window or tab. On this page, key notions have been marked in bold and terms pertaining to the service have been marked with uppercase initial letters.
Copyright, information about service use and privacy policy
Structure and arrangement according to the Finnish version
Structure of the English version is somewhat different and shorter for the time being
The main menu on the left has been arranged according to the life cycle of the enterprise or entrepreneur. When you click the titles, the relevant expert, training, counseling and financing services relating to, for example, establishing a business, will be displayed. The selected main title is displayed in yellow.
To access the front page, click the logo on the top left corner, the 'To Front Page' text under the main menu, or the navigation path at the top. You can also use the 'Back' and 'Forward' buttons of the browser.
The pages are usually divided into four columns, with the menu displayed in the leftmost column. The columns in the center contain the body text, while the rightmost column contains items such as search features, acts and decrees, and forms. For example, the 'Financing Services A-Z' directory can be accessed from the rightmost columns.
Enterprise Finland contains approximately 130 services, each having an introductory page with contact information and links to further information.
Separate sections in the form of information packages, each with their respective menus and illustrations are:
- Women entrepreneurs
- Use of IT in Business
- Services' Point of Single Contact (SPC)
- Starting in Business
- Economic Help 'Talousapu'
- Prospective entrepreneurs
- Health of the Company
- Business and the Environment.
The above-mentioned sections will open in a new window or tab in a manner similar to that of external links. Internal links will open in the same tab or window.
The arrangement is visualized by the Sitemap, to which a link can be found above the main image next to the Contact, FAQ and Feedback links.
Search features
For the purpose of fast information retrieval, the front page contains a Search field and, accessible from the link below it, an Advanced search feature in which the fields contain Boolean operators (AND, OR, etc.). Below the advanced search there is also an Index term search, where the index terms starting with a certain letter can be quickly found by clicking an entry in the list and then typing in the desired letter, for example k for all entries starting with the letter k.
The Extended search feature searches the web pages of the 11 organizations within Enterprise Finland. The search can be restricted to only apply to certain of these organisations by clicking the checkboxes.
The 'Advanced search' page contains a link to the Business Service Directory, a database maintained by Enterprise Finland containing the contact and service details of approximately 2,000 public business service organizations and special-interest groups. The bottom section of the page also contains a link to the Course Search Kurssihaku.fi service. This is a Finland-wide market place for short-term adult and personnel education.
Printable and text versions, language versions, navigation path, and font size
The pages of Enterprise Finland are also available as Printable versions, the layout of which is simpler than that of the browser version. These are accessible from the link in the 2nd or 3rd column. The service is also available in a Text version, which is accessible from the top of the 2nd column. From this location you can also access the Language versions (Finnish and Swedish) as well as the Navigation path. The navigation path begins with the words 'You are here'. Below the above-mentioned items are +- buttons that can be used for enlarging or reducing the Font size. This can also be done using the browser settings.
Service providers
The service-specific presentations of the site contain products from the nine organizations participating in the service: Finnvera, Finpro, the Foundation for Finnish Inventions, the National Board of Patents and Registration, the Finnish Industry Investment, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (Tekes), the Centres for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment (ELY Centers) and the Finnish Tax Administration.
Paid advertisements are not accepted in the service. The number of partner organizations will be increased, and private service providers and experts from different fields are offered through the ExpertFinder Asiantuntijahaku.fi. The objective is to provide users with a more comprehensive service. Each service provider is responsible for the description of their own products as well as their share of the costs.
Administration and development
The SME Foundation is responsible for the development and administration of the service, among other things answering the feedback received or forwarding it to the web editorial staff.
The Enterprise Finland web editorial staff are responsible for the service content policy, usability and communications. The web editorial staff consist of representatives of the service provider organizations and public administration.
Members of the web editorial staff:
Riitta Ahola, Foundation for Finnish Inventions
Eero Korkeakoski (development, 2nd admin), SME Foundation
Jaana Lappi, Ministry of Employment and the Economy
Mirja Lehikoinen, National Board of Patents and Registration
Eero Lukin, Tekes
Arja Salmi, Ministry of Employment and the Economy
Sari Siekkinen, Finpro
Tommi Simon (production and development, admin), SME Foundation
Asta Sjöblom, Finnish Industry Investment
Ilari Takamäki, Finnvera
Tuula Torniainen, Tax Administration
Kirsi Wendelin-Arponen, Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment for Southwest Finland
The project is coordinated by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy.
May I link to this site?
A link to Enterprise Finland can be freely added to other web sites. Individual pages may also be linked, provided that they open in full to the Enterprise Finland site so that the users will see that they have advanced to Enterprise Finland.
Recommended minimum requirements for the most common web browsers are Mozilla Firefox 3.n and Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.n. The pages can, for the most part, also be used with browsers such as Google Chrome, Netscape 9.n, Opera 10.n and Safari, as well as their older versions, but the appearance of the pages may differ in some regards.
Adobe Acrobat Reader must be used for viewing documents in PDF format, available for free download at, for example:
Adobe Acrobat Reader
Partners involved in the renovation work in 2005-2007
The online service was opened in February 2002, and its thoroughly reformed version in September 2007. In addition to experts from public administration, the project involved several companies and other partners. These included:
Alfame Systems Oy, who provided the publishing system with which the business plan tool has been implemented.
Etnoteam Finland Oy, who assessed and tested the usability of the reformed service.
Fujitsu Services Oy, who provided the NetCommunity 8.0 publishing system with which the Enterprise Finland is published and implemented the visual appearance of the service.
Steerco Oy, who participated in the concept and user interface design and configuration.
TSE Entre from the Turku School of Economics and Business Administration, who prepared the manuscript for the business plan tool.