New company profiling engine enhances expert work and supports international growth

Kuopio Health has developed a new AI-assisted company profiling engine as part of the Eastern Finland Growth Path+ project. The objective of the solution is to make the expertise of health and wellbeing companies in Eastern Finland more visible, accessible and easier to utilise. By improving the identification and understanding of companies and their capabilities, the engine also helps support internationalisation efforts and market expansion. In this way, the company profiling engine serves as a key piece of infrastructure for strengthening regional competitiveness. This first part of the article series explains in more detail the operating principle of the company profiling engine and the role that company profiling plays in the project.

Why a company profiling engine?

The need for a company profiling engine arises from the rapid evolution and increasing complexity of the health, wellbeing and technology sectors. There are more companies than ever before, they are becoming increasingly specialised, solutions often combine multiple technologies, and many businesses aim for international markets from an early stage.

At the same time, publicly funded development activities are expected to demonstrate greater transparency, impact and accountability in the use of resources. Relying solely on experts’ tacit knowledge is no longer sufficient when company groups must be formed quickly, internationalisation activities targeted effectively, and decisions justified openly.

A shared and systematic knowledge base is needed to support these activities. The company profiling engine addresses this challenge by collecting structured, comparable and transparent information about companies, enabling more systematic and impactful support for growth and internationalisation.

Company profiling has traditionally been carried out manually. An expert reviews a company’s website, discusses its activities with company representatives and then forms an overall assessment. While this work remains important, it also presents challenges. Information is often scattered across different sources, company data is not available in a consistent format, references are not always documented clearly, and the reliability of the information may be difficult to assess.

”This solution is built on a predefined and transparent framework that clearly specifies what information should be included in a company profile and how that information is evaluated. The system uses companies’ own websites and other traceable online sources, compiles the information into a standardised and comparable format, includes source references and indicates the confidence level associated with each key data point,” explains Development Manager Kimmo Solehmainen.

Company profiling in the Eastern Finland Growth Path+ project

The Eastern Finland Growth Path+ project aims to support the internationalisation of SMEs through company group activities. This requires a clear understanding of each company’s primary customer segments, its role within the value chain (for example as a data collector, analytics provider, platform developer or device manufacturer), its level of international readiness, and a concise and neutral description of its operations.

The company profiling engine generates this information in a structured and comparable format. Profiling therefore becomes not a one-off expert assessment but a systematic and repeatable process.

It is important to emphasise, however, that the engine does not make decisions or rank companies. It does not replace expert judgement but supports it. Experts validate, interpret and contextualise the information, facilitators build company groups and guide collaboration, and company leadership teams make their own strategic decisions.

The role of the engine is to ensure that these activities are based on clear, consistent and transparent information. It is precisely this combination of digital analysis and human-centred facilitation that forms the knowledge foundation of the Growth Path+ project’s growth engine.

In practice, the profiling engine facilitates the formation of company groups, market-specific preparation activities and internationalisation support. When companies are described using a common structure, it becomes easier to identify solutions suitable for specific customer segments or markets, assess international readiness, and map both the strengths and potential gaps within the wider ecosystem.

The documented and auditable process also supports reporting requirements for funding organisations and contributes to quality assurance. As such, the profiling engine serves as a key component of the ecosystem’s knowledge infrastructure, enabling more strategic, systematic and impactful development activities.

 

The company profiling engine was developed and deployed in 2026 as part of the Eastern Finland Growth Path+ project. It is already operating in a production environment to support Kuopio Health’s operational activities and provides a foundation for future development.

While its primary application is supporting the project’s company group activities and internationalisation efforts, the model is scalable and can be adapted to other thematic areas and regional development environments.

The Eastern Finland Growth Path+ project is implemented by Kuopio Health Cooperative. The project runs from 1.8.2025 to 31.1.2028 and is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Funding has been granted by the Economic Development Centre.

     

Further Information:
Kimmo Solehmainen, Development Manager
+358 40 848 5034
kimmo.solehmainen(at)kuopiohealth.fi