Of course, in the beginning, a lot of effort must be spent learning local laws and business habits. In such a multi-cultural setting, it is important to speak and act right across the boundaries. While a certain level of cultural adaptation is important, a different background can be an essential part of the company’s unique offering. For us, the Scandinavian design tradition has been an asset. Idean’s approach to design is lean and focuses on research, experimentation, user feedback and testing, and iterating together with clients. We were forced to be agile, innovative and fast in Finland when operating under smaller budgets, and this became a competitive advantage for us in the Valley. As Finns, we also tend to get straight to the point. The same goes for how we work. We measure success by the impact we create for our customers, plain and simple. In Silicon Valley, an ambitious and growth-driven entrepreneurial mindset is more of a rule than an exception. When a company grows, one of the biggest challenges is recruitment. Finding and retaining top talent is demanding in the area, because there are always companies that pay more. We haven’t been able to compete in terms of money, but we have a unique organizational culture, which is lean, flexible and family-like, especially when comparing to local standards. In addition, the appreciation of design craftsmanship has been a huge cultural asset for us. Silicon Valley is an extremely competitive environment, but at the same time, the positive and supporting atmosphere is an essential part of the Silicon Valley mindset and business community. The biggest
D es ign + | D ESIG N IN G G ROW T H A ND C H A N G E | In te rn ation a l iz ing de sign se r v ic e b u sin es s
as we had some big names from IBM to Amazon as our references, sales work became much easier. We have always believed on our people and the quality we’re proving to our customer, we just needed a great launching pad.
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