International growth – what is needed for success recipe?

In today's market, internationalization is inevitable - at least when aiming for growth. Staying within home country’s market limits finding new customers, employees, partners and investors.

Despite its importance – or perhaps because of it – internationalization is not always easy to achieve. What is needed for international growth? There is no single formula for success, but there are ways that companies can improve their chances of international success.

International growth requires courage and ability to stand out

According to Artti Aurasmaa, CEO of Staria, the attitude and culture of a company seeking international growth determines a lot.

"Internationalization requires courage to specialize and ability to become the best in the field. I encourage companies that are aiming for growth to think big and trust their own skills, there’s no need to be modest. Organizations’ ability to grow as a team also defines a lot."

In the global market, companies are competing with opponents from everywhere in the world – just like in the Olympics. Standing out from the crowd can be challenging.

"There is still a countless number of businesses and industries that are yet to be invented. If you find your own niche market, be bold and focus on it while striving to be the best in the field", Aurasmaa encourages.

Although the competition is fierce, the time for success stories is not over. In recent years, the world has witnessed the birth of many unicorn companies, such as Uber, Wolt and RELEX. However, when aiming for international markets, uncertainty must be tolerated.

"Uncertainty will be permanent, there is always a new challenge waiting around the corner, as we have noticed in the last few years. However, international growth is also a means of risk management," says Aurasmaa.

Partners make concentrating possible

Successful international growth is always a sum of many things, but one important success factor is that companies are able to focus on their core business in peace. When support functions are in order, focusing on growth is easier. This is where partners come into the picture.

"All successful companies have long-term work behind them. However, not everything is done alone – and they shouldn’t be. By finding the right partners, companies can focus on their own strengths. Through cooperation, wonderful things can be accomplished," Aurasmaa sums up.

A modern financial administration partner has an important role

When expanding, business management needs grow so significantly that well-functioning, real-time and transparent digital financial administration processes are necessary. Automation and digital services make companies' operations more agile, so outsourcing to a partner that operates in a modern way pays off.

Staria offers global accounting services to over 40 countries. For international companies, managing financial and payroll services in so many different countries via one partner is a significant advantage. With Staria's ONE STOP® delivery model, the customer has an extensive international network of financial professionals in use, thanks to which local financial, salary and taxation matters are always in order in every country. The centralized service model eases customers’ everyday life.

"Staria enables our customers to focus on growth, they don’t have to worry about running financial administration. We are the navigator of growth, while customers are behind the controls of their own starship", Aurasmaa describes.

Attitude helps but success is built with right tools

When you have a brave attitude, right partners and you also include the best tools in the mix, you have great basis for international growth. Digital transformation enables a more comprehensive management of operations, and with transparent systems risk management is easier. When the systems are in order and the foundation is stable, it is significantly easier for the company to plan and execute growth.

International growth sets criteria for systems

One important requirement for systems is their scalability. Systems must be able to comply to constantly changing requirements, which the changing world is always throwing in front of us. Many international growing companies have chosen NetSuite business platform to support their growth. The business platform offers a cloud-based ERP planning system that scales with companies’ growth and replaces several separate systems, making businesses more efficient. NetSuite reduces the need for manual work, which improves companies’ profitability. In addition, NetSuite users benefit significantly from the efficient back-office functions. With Staria's NetSuite localization SuiteApps, NetSuite adapts easily to the local requirements of different countries.

Internationalization can also be supported with smaller investments

The benefits of Business Intelligence can be significant for an international company, as visibility to all operating countries is important. With a BI solution, data can be collected and utilized, which enables better business decisions and faster reactions to changes and deviations. Staria BI & Planning combines budgeting and planning and makes reporting easy. It is quick to implement and with integrations data can be utilized from many different sources. There are already dozens of ready-made integrations and new ones are coming all the time.