During Staria Growth Summit 2023 there was four different breakout sessions organized. Participants got to decide which topic interested them the most and utilize the opportunity to learn and discuss the topic with Staria's experts.

The breakout sessions were:

In this article you can read about the session "Are you ready for international growth? Best practices and solutions" and also watch a recording of it. The session was hosted by Staria's experts Joonas Sipola (COO) and Mikko Ryömä (Development Director, Global Accounting).

International growth comes with highs and lows

Even though international growth offers great possibilities and has great benefits, the not so fun part of it is taking risks. Mikko, who has helped Staria's customers for over 7 years to mitigate the risks of international expansion, tells more about the risks and highlights couple of things what to consider when entering new markets.

Mikko also shares couple of main points that he typically faces during projects or when talking with fast growing customers. He also tells more on what he has seen to happen when things that should be avoided has not been evaded. In a nutshell, here's what to avoid and focus on:

Things to avoid:

  • going too fast
  • being too local but not ivesting in localization
  • having only local management without group level controlling
  • lack of monitoring, evaluating and measuring

Things to focus on:

  • doing your study and research
  • being patient, no quick wins
  • being persistent
  • not underestimating administrative work
  • using a local marketing firm

After listening Joonas and Mikko talk about risks, internationalization might feel overwhelming. But the fact that Mikko and Joonas know the risks so well means that they are extremely qualified to give guidence on how to avoid them. In the next part they go through a general timeline on what to do during the first 6 months of entering a new market, starting from finding a partner for establishing the new entity.

Still, no matter how good the plans are and how well you have done your research, something will go wrong. Mikko shares very concrete examples of typical problems companies face, one of them being underestimating how long setting up a bank account can take and how many things it will affect.

One thing that people usually like to ask is that what is the most difficult country to enter. Joonas and Mikko share their views on countries that are easy and not so easy to expand to. They also share best practices and their opinion on "what good  looks like", resulting in expansion readiness.

To utilize the knowledge and experience Joonas and Mikko have, watch the recording of their breakout session below. This summary only scratched the surface!

Want to read more about the whole event and order the event recording? Visit here.

Watch the recording: