History

Konsulttitoimisto Seppo Hoffrén Oy Consultancy was established in 1981. The Company started to operate from Helsinki, but as our clients were – and still are – based all around Finland, we soon noticed that it would be better to be based in Kuopio. Our ”Head office” has been based in Kuopio for approximately 38 years.

We started our training services in cooperation with Kuopio Region Chamber of Commerce by arranging events related to different areas of business. Our training services expanded in the beginning of 1990´s along with our best known product: “Managing Director´s Course”.  We have implemented already over 460 such courses with more than 6,900 participants. Even now “Managing Director´s Courses” are very popular and “linking generations”, meaning that they are often attended by both father and son! We are certified as a framework agreement supplier for the Centre for Economic Development, Transport and Environment (ELY centre) and most of our training courses are implemented together with ELY centres in different regions. We also provide company-specific training courses for many of our client companies.

In addition to training, consulting for small and medium-sized companies has been another integral part of our service activities from the very beginning. We provide consulting according to our client´s needs varying in duration from two-day consulting to development projects lasting several years. Over the years we have expanding our depth and breadth of consulting services from advising on how to set-up a company and developing business right through to more complex assignments related to company acquisitions and company transfers. This type of work is mainly conducted in-house at the client company’s premises.

We started our business outside of Finland in the beginning of 1990´s. Our first foreign consultant was based in Edinburgh, in the UK. Our first recruitment for a consultant overseas resulted in 1,643 applications, which in turn resulted in paper running out of the fax machine,  complete chaos in the office, and an angry postman for many days. We currently have 23 persons working in Finland and 7 abroad. Our international consultants open the path to internationalization, exports and international business development for Finnish small and medium-sized companies by conducting market research and competitor analysis, searching for cooperation partners or resellers/distributors. Our international operation is widespread and covers 18 countries.