2009-01-14
I am a Dalecarlian in the dispersion who has never worked abroad and has never been involved in a company established outside Sweden. However, I am working right now to establish a U.S. insurance company on the Swedish market with Swedish international companies as a target group.
I am an employee of the Belgian associated company and I have a Dutch manager, the HR department in Scotland and my sales are in England. As you understand, I regularly meet a lot of colleagues from different parts of the world and every time it happens, I am very proud - yes almost embarrassedly proud! It happens all the time that one of my colleagues or foreign contacts utters something positive about Sweden and its internationally successful companies and I get ridiculously proud.
The list of successful entrepreneurs and companies from Sweden that managed to establish themselves abroad is long. Since I had the privilege to be able to travel a lot in my job and also made a lot of private travel, I have seen a lot when it comes to Swedish companies in different parts of the world.
One example is when I am in the middle of the 90s and travelled to Madrid for a weekend. When my Spanish girlfriend at that time turns on the TV the first news are on all news channels, reporters reporting that on this Sunday there is a rarely seen traffic chaos in Madrid. All highways and pretty much and all other roads are completely full of cars that are stuck – the TV station´s helicopters confirm the worst and then mention the cause of this chaos - IKEA has opened a new supermarket in the outskirts of Madrid. As you understand, I became once again ridiculously proud, not for traffic chaos but proud that a company has become so large and so well known that they decide to establish themselves at a new location. I think that Ingvar Kamprad was not aware of how successful this would be when he established IKEA abroad for the first time
I have traveled a lot in the U.S. and a few years ago I went with my future wife around the south-west of the USA and saw among other parts the magnificent Grand Canyon in Arizona. The trip continued to Las Vegas and on the way we stayed at the amazing Hover Dam, a giant energy plant building that was built during the Depression in the 30's. We took a guided tour inside the dam and took the elevator 150 meters down and came down to the turbine hall, and what do we see there? Well, it says ASEA Ludvika on almost all of the technical equipment (there was a part of the ABB - logo as well). In those situations, I am so proud to be Swedish and at the same time impressed by the company and its contractor that once establish themselves abroad.
Many Swedish companies are currently establishing themselves abroad even though we are in the middle of the worst financial crisis we have experienced in modern times. Some will succeed and some will fail. But, you can always question: When you are established abroad? The answer to such a question could be the answer I got from an Aussie I met about ten years ago in Sydney. We started discussing what brands were the most successful on the Australian mobile phone market. The answer was that the biggest brand in Australia is the Japanese manufacturer Nokia and the second largest is the American manufacturer Ericsson. I can add that when I got this answer I was not as proud, but realized that these brands are so well established that without exaggeration I am able to say that they are established abroad.