An EU study on international sourcing has been carried out in which Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and the Netherlands participated. The overall perception of the impact of international sourcing of business is fairly similar among the participating countries. Companies clearly believe that international establishment has a major positive impact on their overall competitiveness.
The Swedish companies that have moved operations overseas have moved more than 70 percent of corporate functions within the EU. That is more than the other Nordic countries and the Netherlands have made.
The core business is the main feature that has moved abroad. Sweden has a share of 82 percent of all businesses that have moved, related to the core business.
This is the case primarily for manufacturing companies, where about 70 percent of manufacturing companies in Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands have moved its core business in whole or partly. The proportion of Swedish companies is even higher, over 90 percent. The most common destinations for the relocation of core business, mainly manufacturing and production, are the new EU Member States and Asia.
The old Member States are the most common destinations for companies that moved their support functions abroad and Sweden take the lead here. Support functions are often moved to nearby areas.
The most common support function that move is the IT function; this is in regards to 25-30 percent of enterprises in the five countries that have moved at all. The characteristics of moving of IT functions are mainly service companies moving that function abroad.
The new EU Member States together with China shows the highest percentages of the expected destinations regarding moves of the core functions. More than half of the Swedish companies that plan to move operations overseas plans to move the core function within the company to these countries. Planned moves of the IT functions are most common to the old EU Member States.
Reduced costs main reason for the move
In general, the factors that includes costs are the main drivers for international sourcing of firms in all five participating countries. Reduced labor costs are most important to companies in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, where nearly 60 percent of the companies considered decreased labor costs as very important.
Strategic decisions taken by management are also key drivers in all five countries, most notably for Swedish companies.
The main obstacle to move functions abroad, companies stated the need to be close to their customers.
Cecilia Helland
Source
The Swedish Central bureau of statistics and visit them
here