From the surprisingly cold spells of Mediterranean winter months to warm and dry August, I worked for half a year at the TCI Secretariat in Barcelona, Spain as a Visiting Fellow sent by the Regional Council of Central Finland. This position has offered a vantage point for understanding the international cluster landscape. The motivation for the visit has been to gain knowledge that can be adapted to practical solutions in Finland. Having enjoyed my time at TCI, I am soon heading back home an experience richer.
An occasional tourist to Barcelona will see the stereotypical city of Gaudi and sangria, rarely venturing deeper the surface. Indeed, the city has been excellent in branding itself as a versatile holiday resort, but on the other hand there is much more to understand. Whole of Catalonia remains one of the most important industrial regions in Spain. One is tempted to take the current situation for granted, or assume that the pieces have just miraculously fallen in place. This is not the case. Catalonia was among the first regions in the world to use cluster-based development policy.
As my final task I would like to use this opportunity to summarize my own personal reflections on the question that the entire TCI community is trying to understand: What makes a successful cluster? I will combine observations from Catalonia, Finland and rest of TCI community.
First of all, understand history and build upon your existing strengths. Find out what differentiates yourself from your competition. Geographic location, accumulated competences and history are unique to a specific region. They cannot be imitated by others. Expertise in one field can be translated to creating wealth elsewhere. For example, take a look at the island nation of Singapore that successfully spun off pharmaceutical and chemical industries by utilizing and expanding the already existing resources originally created to serve the needs of the oil-refining industry. The oil-refining business had in turn come to existence over the course of years as the island was a prime location for supporting Royal Navy operations in Southeast Asia with port and logistics services.
All industries matter, especially those that the region already has. A "high-tech" cluster is no more intelligent or important than traditional industries. Instead of striving to thrive a media-sexy high-tech industry out of thin air, development policy should aim to improve the competitiveness of existing sectors or build upon their existing knowledge to create something related. Sometimes, the biggest contribution of a cluster is to ensure that the region in question is better prepared to cope with changes in the environment. Whether this requires a deeper understanding of individual cluster actors and their needs, increased dialogue or re-alignment of business value chains to tackle challenges, the strategy depends on the individual reality of the situation.
This requires specific actions and a clear focus to work. Broad and generic actions tend not to create results. Businesses have very specific needs: although sharing a same field of industry, the value chains of two superficially similar companies may be radically different. Strong-arming an identical solution for both may damage the development, despite good intentions. In order to be able to serve individual needs, you have to be aware of them. A key issue in this is to never, ever assume anything, but to ask questions and listen. Of course it's more complicated than that. As the mantra goes, it's never a case of organization meeting another organization. It's the people facing other people. Frank Wältring appropriately reminds in the the final report of the last year's conference in Central Finland that "There is a need to understand better how we approach different human beings with different interests and backgrounds."
A cluster is more complex than a sum of its parts. Clusters are part of the real world and real world tends to be more complex than seems at a first glance. Behind the visible cluster of X number of companies, you also have the hidden elements of a company's value chain that can be equally important; including, but not limited to, subcontractors, partners responsible for logistics and transport, business service providers and financiers. Have you understood their impact and remembered to involve them in your plans as well?
I myself come from a business-to-business marketing background. While researching for my master's thesis (which was about cluster intiatives, incidentially) I used a lot of material produced by the strategic business network theorists of the IMP Group, an academic field of study closely related to clustering - and, perhaps, all too much forgotten in this context. They poignantly remind us that a network of companies is a very complex organism, full of paradoxes. It enables a lot, but also limits actions. Leadership is essential, but no organization wishes to be managed by an outsider. If a cluster organization thinks it can enforce its will throughout the members of its network from a hierarchical position, this change will fail to resonate across the network, never to materialize.
My heartfelt thanks go to Patricia, Leire and Lina - my friends and colleagues at TCI Secretariat and Alberto, the TCI President. It was very nice for you to have me here. Kiitos ja näkemiin!
Toni Pienonen
toni.pienonen@gmail.com
13 August 2010
