Scaling up creativity. Finpro Luovimo company internationalization story. More info at http://www.finpro.fi/luovimo/scaling-up-creativity

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Nordic Drama Corner‟s Business and Service Offering
Nordic Drama Corner (NDC) is the largest theatrical agency in Finland, with a strong
international dimension. The company’s mission is to find plays for theatres and theatres
for plays. It’s match-making between plays and stages.
NDC is an IPR business. The company licenses performing rights of plays. The business
consists of domestic, import and export trade. Traditionally, the main focus of the trade has
been on imports of the plays to Finland. NDC‟s roots in import date back to 1920‟s. Long
experience in import and strong brand among international agencies are strengths that form
also the basis for the export. NDC offers Finnish theatres a wide selection of foreign plays and
musicals and the majority of the foreign plays in Finland are licensed through the agency. NDC
has agreements with major agents in New York, London, Paris, Berlin and other important
theatre hubs. The total turnover was around 613 000 euros in 2010 (profitability 16,3 %).
During the last ten years when Finnish drama has been strongly flourishing, NDC has expanded
its activities into promoting the top Finnish playwrights domestically and internationally.
Especially the export of the Finnish plays is seen as a growth area and has been the focus in
the Luovimo project. The export mission is to take Finnish plays to the world stage.
Year 2011 was the most successful for NDC‟s export so far. There were 21 productions of
NDC‟s Finnish plays in repertoires of foreign theatres. “The Fundamentalist” by Juha Jokela
premiered in Oslo, New York and Vilnius. The New Yorker named the performance as one of
the NY Fringe Festival‟s highlights. Altogether Jokela‟s plays have been played 21 times in
Finland and 11 abroad. Mika Myllyaho‟s plays premiered in Estonia, Lithuania, Russia,
Belorussia and Italy. By now, “Panic”, “Chaos” and “Harmony” have been produced outside of
Finland 16 times in ten countries. The latest premiere of “Panic” was in a commercial theatre,
St. Georges Théâtre, in Paris.
Why Finnish Drama?
The Finnish theatre field is strong; its infrastructure, contents and know-how are on a high level.
Theatre is enormously popular in Finland. Each year, 3.6 million theatre-goers see productions
in a theatre network spanning the entire country.
In recent 10 years, due to a strong theatre cluster, wide theatre network and high quality
dramaturgy education, Finnish theatres have experienced an unprecedented surge of new
domestic drama. Such success plays as “A Mobile Horror” by Juha Jokela, “The Big Bad Wolf”
by Katja Krohn and “Panic” and “Chaos” by Mika Myllyaho have been crucial in this
development. These plays have been performed in number of theatres around Finland and

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lately also abroad. The contemporary Finnish drama has reached the level of international
interest.
Many top Finnish dramatists have chosen Nordic Drama Corner to represent them. As NDC has
good relations with international agents, they saw the possibility of international growth. Finnish
plays were offered to NDC‟s import partners. However, it turned out that they were not always
the best partners in export and the import countries were not the proper export markets for the
Finnish drama. For example, strong import markets such as UK and USA are so saturated with
domestic production that there is hardly space for NDC‟s export products. Therefore, new
markets needed to be discovered!
NDC‟s targets at Luovimo
Within the Luovimo project‟s export perspective, NDC‟s main target was to find new export
markets with high potential. The focus for market studies was set in Latin America which was an
area previously very little known in NDC. Still, there had been signals about its potential.
Finpro‟s Americas office started to work with NDC in systematic market study.
The second target was to coach NDC to evaluate and develop their international business skills,
partner network and brand in order to draft their internationalization path and become aware of
related financing options.
Internationalization path
Vision and targets
NDC‟s vision for internationalization:
- Export of Finnish drama will be a profitable business.
- NDC is known internationally as an export agent.
NDS‟s objectives:
- to triple NDC‟s export income
- improve international sales skills and partner networks.
Strategy
NDC„s internationalization strategy is the systematic increase in exports to selected and
prioritized countries. The company looks for stronger sales partners and selects carefully its
partner agents and customers. Sales and marketing will be developed in target countries from
reactive to proactive sales. Top playwrights and new texts are invested on.
International partner management

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During Luovimo NDC has thoroughly evaluated their existing agent system, and searched for
new partner candidates in Latin America.
It turned out that the sales partner systems differ very much by the market: some have very
specialized professional agents, some are totally lacking commercial agents. NDC may have
one or more sales partners in each country or even direct sales to theatres. In the Anglo-Saxon
countries, agent business model is well developed. In many other countries, professional agents
are less common. In Latin American countries, straight agreements with producers are also an
option.
Marketing
Means of NDC‟s international marketing are composed of personal sales visits, activities of their
agent partners, maintaining the extensive customer and partner management system,
playwright brochures in several languages, website, language area customized newsletters, and
marketing cooperation with the Finnish organizations, as the Finnish Cultural and Academic
Institutes and TINFO - Theatre Info Finland.
Target markets
At Luovimo, the focus was in Latin America: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru.
These Spanish-speaking markets have over 240 million people and their theatre industries are
growing strongly. Alone in Buenos Aires, there were 2.3 million theatre visits in 2006. Mexico
City has more than 120 theatres. As much as 90 % of the Peruvian theatre repertoire is foreign.
These figures manifest the possibilities. Through the useful market studies realised by the
Finpro Americas office, NDC found out that these markets actually represent a great possibility
for them.
NDC‟s other export countries were evaluated for their internationalization model: partnerships,
market knowledge and conclusions were conducted by-country basis.
The Nordic countries, Estonia and Germany are strong export countries to be continued to
invest. Latvia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic are countries to be strengthened. Dormant
countries are France, United Kingdom and United Stated. So called question mark countries are
Spain and Poland.
What was particularly interesting in the Nordic Drama case?
Nordic Drama Corner has had a strong focus on importing foreign plays. The Finnish drama has
been flourishing during the last years and there are many playwrights in Finland eager to go
international. The number of foreign productions of Finnish plays has been rising relatively
rapidly. When export activities were started in year 2006, there were only three foreign
productions, whereas last year, number of foreign premiers of NDC‟s Finnish plays was 15.

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Resources, competences and know how needed
The NDC staff is comprised of experienced theatre professionals from dramaturgy and
jurisprudence to business persons. Five of six employees are working mainly with imports. The
export coordinator is focusing full time in export, while the others do export activities part of their
work time.
What do you consider were the key success factors and enablers supporting the
internationalization process?
NDC‟s success factors are the top level playwrights and their high quality work, NDC‟s strong
international brand after long presence on the field and extensive Finnish and foreign
partnership network. But creating success demands patience. It doesn‟t happen suddenly that a
Finnish playwright breaks through in a new market. Continuous marketing is needed as well as
good translations. In addition, the targeted market has to be known well, its characteristics,
earning logics and market potential. It is also important to be able to manage the sales channels
and find good partners. In this sense, on the Luovimo project, it has been useful to work on
categorizing the markets and building up proper partner profiles.
In addition to the market studies produced in the Luovimo project, NDC was also able to realise
first visits to Chile and Argentina. This allowed the company to learn more about business
possibilities and start negotiations with potential partners. In Mexico, NDC started a promotional
work which culminates in the DramaFest 2012. It‟s a festival presenting NDC‟s playwrights and
Finnish theatre.
What have been the most important challenges, risks and market
barriers (in general or by market area)?
The financing of internationalization is a challenge for a company like NDC. At present, in
addition to the own financing, funding of private foundations, the Kone Foundation and the
Kordelin Foundation, the Ministry of Culture and Education, the Ministry of Labour and the
Economy (Luovimo) have been the largest single sources. The Finnish government‟s cultural
export financing (2007-2011) was very welcome and opened new perspectives for creative
sector‟s internationalization. But what is the future of financing for the creative sector
companies?
Read the 7 findings in internationalizing creativity from Luovimo companies at
http://www.finpro.fi/luovimo/scaling-up-creativity

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