Jakob Riis: What key strengths do you consider important and which areas need to be further improved to sustain Denmark’s competitiveness?
Simona Maschi: Denmark stands out in many fields, especially considering the size of the country. However, the size also means that Denmark is too small to compete in too many sectors. Denmark has a solid position within new energy sources etc. Hence, the opportunity to lead the way within promoting new approaches of approaching the “green agenda”/sustainability. We need to approach this differently as we have not managed to balance neither national and global agendas nor interest for the greater good, even though the world is one and just one eco-system. The new way should be based on a change of mindset when it comes to differences: We tend to perceive differences as competition or a threat, instead of looking at diversity as an opportunity for cross fertilising, developing new perspectives, services, solutions, etc.
In order to do so, I think that Denmark should reinforce the efforts on attracting and retaining global talents by developing a strategic framework for attracting talent targeting emerging new educational disciplines and topics. This will allow Denmark to position itself as a first mover in the development of new expertise and skills, which could be seen as a sort of R&D in the human capital development of the country. By allowing international students to be part of the early stage development of new educational programs, Denmark will not only position itself on the global map for curricula development but also create a strategic network of ambassadors that will continue branding the country internationally. As an example, from my company, CIID was probably the second school in the world to be fully dedicated to interaction design/digitalisation of products and services. From Silicon Valley to Tokyo, talented people joined CIID in Denmark to help shape this new discipline which is now taught in most Danish design universities. CIID alumni are proud of their relationship to Denmark and kept coming back to teach and mentor when not already recruited in the Denmark by Danish companies.
"The potential of developing and exporting digital services goes way beyond the medical sector"
Jakob Riis: Currently, the majority of international students leave Denmark after graduation. Are we not good enough at creating interesting opportunities to retain these talents?
Simona Maschi: I think it would be interesting to turn the perspective a bit upside down and explore what ‘retention of foreign talent’ could look like in the future, beyond the traditional format with a student becoming an employee of a Danish company (which should obviously continue). In other words, how might Denmark plan a return on the investment on the talents looking at the new types of relationships? How could we make the talents, deciding to not live in Denmark, ambassadors of Denmark in the country they want to move to? How could we create strategic new options to keep building bridges and business value for Denmark in new ways? That could be interesting. This would also be beneficial to the next piece of advice, which is a shift of mindset from product to service. Denmark has a solid foundation within R&D and export of high-quality products. I do believe that shifting that to a service mindset carries a lot of commercial potential and, furthermore, we have a strong performance and reputation for delivering services in the Danish market within both the public and private sector.
Jakob Riis: I think we also have a great experience with Public-Private Partnerships to build upon to solve some of the challenges that Denmark and the rest of the world is facing, for instance within health?
Simona Maschi: Exactly! And we should not be afraid of integrating digital solutions because warm hands will not be able to solve every challenge. If we take areas like mental health, sleeping disorders or health self-monitoring, it would be interesting to look at how Denmark can prepare itself to deploy digital services at a larger global scale. The idea is to build a home market and scale globally. The potential of developing and exporting digital services goes way beyond the medical sector and could potentially embrace more key sectors that build the “Danish” brand every day.
Jakob Riis: So, if you were to summarise with a piece of advice to the Danish Government on how to strengthen our competitive advantage, what would that be?
Simona Maschi: To strengthen our competitiveness, I would provide the following advice:
- Reinforce and rethink how to attract and retain international talent
- Shift from a product-based market’s paradigm to a service-based market and remember to integrate digitalization
- Ensure diversity in all dimensions
