The FOBIA project aims at enhancing business competitiveness of forestry service enterprises in the northern and peripheral regions of Finland, Sweden, Scotland and Ireland. The origin of the project lies in the need to improve the enterprises’ ability to meet increased service demands.
“Many forestry entrepreneurs have a need to enhance their competence in order to successfully meet increased demands, and their ability to acquire new skills is often constrained by a lack of time and the long distances involved in accessing training. Many forestry service businesses are also experiencing declining profitability, making it difficult to recruit and retain skilled employees”, says Paula Jylhä from Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke).
Within the FOBIA project, these barriers will be decreased by introducing new business models, and by developing tools, available through digital platforms, to help forestry entrepreneurs improve their profitability, operational efficiency and management skills.
Changing business environment requires new actions: FOBIA background in a nutshell
The role of forestry machine enterprises and other forestry service providers has been neglected in the bioeconomic boom. Their services are a vital part of the value chain, and they are also a major employer especially in remote areas. The size of forest machine enterprises has grown especially in Finland, where a typical company has several chains of machinery.
In addition to harvesting, they also produce many other services that were previously the responsibility of the wood procurement organisations of the forest industry. Acquisition of work is mostly based on bidding. Therefore entrepreneurs need diverse business management skills. Training tailored to these businesses is seldom available or is difficult to attend due to lack of time and long distances. Read more >>
More information:
Project Manager, Senior Scientist
Paula Jylhä
Natural Resources Institute (Luke)
paula.jylha (at) luke.fi
+358 295 323 432