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Contact Information
JFP Executive Search
Aleksanterinkatu 15 A 7th flr
FI-00100 Helsinki
Finland
Tel: +358 10 617 7900
Fax: +358 10 617 7999
eMail: jfp@jfp.fi
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JFP is a sharp 30-year-old
HISTORY IN A NUTSHELL
Established in 1979
1980's: the original business idea was to offer HR consultancy and training. Activities expanded to recruitment services.
1990's: the company specialised in executive search and management audit services, which set out to assess personnel skills in relation to strategic requirements. As international assignments increased in number, JFP joined the global IIC Partners chain.
2000's: JFP increasingly invests in improving the consultants' industry-specific expertise and developing long-term customer relationships. JFP becomes one of the four largest executive search firms in Finland.
For three decades now, JFP Executive Search has focused on customer service of a high standard and kept reinventing itself. Here is the secret to the company's long life.
SENIOR PARTNER ERKKI ARVOLA explains how the company intends to celebrate its 30-year journey.
– We will keep working, serving our customers humbly and in a positive spirit, he says.
This reply reveals part of the secret to the company's longevity. In the last three decades, many hopefuls have entered and left the executive search industry. JFP, on the other hand, has gone from strength to strength.
According to Arvola, this success is based on good customer service. The wide-ranging industry-specific expertise of the consultants, a functioning researcher process and the right attitude guarantee that customer expectations can be met.
CONTINUOUS DEVELOPMENT
As another success factor, Arvola picks out the company's ability to reinvent itself. Customer needs keep changing, which means that JFP needs to continuously develop its services. JFP has also been able to renew itself as a company; the most recent step in this direction was a controlled generation change.
– The future looks bright. Once the economy starts booming again, we will be ready to go. We have the right mix of experience and new ideas. Both consultants and researchers possess strong industry-specific expertise.
Arvola has good grounds for his optimism. Despite the recession, JFP is producing good results. Some companies in the executive search industry have resorted to layoffs; JFP has not had a need for this and continues to serve its customers with the full complement of its 11-strong staff.
BUSINESS MANAGEMENT EXPERIENCE
Arvola points out that JFP serves its customers in executive search processes of both top executives and the middle management level. The benefit offered by this operating model is continuity: customer relationships evolve into long-term partnerships.
– Our operations are based on each consultant having strong personal experience in business management, as well as special expertise in a given industry. This strategy gives us an in-depth understanding of customer needs in almost all sectors.
Arvola feels that JFP has done exceedingly well in responding to the needs of Finnish companies aiming at globalisation. JFP is part of IIC Partners, a network of international executive search agencies, and through this networks, assignments for Finnish customers have been completed in a number of areas from China to Latin America.
SUCCESS THROUGH PARTNERSHIP
With increasingly tough competition over competent employees, finding skilled labour will be more and more difficult in the future. Good candidates are not necessarily actively looking for jobs, as they know that a number of alternatives are always available.
To be successful, a company needs expertise of the right type. In this context, Arvola underlines that businesses should give some thought to their partner in the search for the best experts in the industry.
– A good executive search consultant understands their customer's business, knows the labour market and is aware of what people expect from their jobs and employers. |
