Sweden has neither invested as heavily as other countries to recover from the recession, nor prepared for the upcoming recovery.
A study by Grand Thornton shows how companies perceive the future and where companies have put the focus for the future. It was found that the most common thing companies have done is to improve the skills of their employees. One third of Swedish companies have focused on this. In Finland, the entire 85 percent focused on skills enhancement.
It was also shown that Swedish companies have not been as active in this process as companies abroad. Other countries have tried to really focus on this in order to find different ways to build up the company for recovery, and find new ways out of the recession.
The second most important process has been to develop new products and services. This is something that 32 percent of Swedish companies have done. In Taiwan, the entire 74 percent have implemented this in order to raise the level of the company.
The results show that Swedish companies consistently are lower in the rank than the global average of all activities. It also found that one quarter of the Swedish companies have not done any activity at all.
In a press release Grand Thornton's CEO Peter Bodin says:
We live in a global world and here we can see that companies in other countries are more active to get out of the recession.
It is particularly interesting to see that our Finnish neighbors act in a different way than we do. I feel that Swedish companies have been good at adjusting their operations to the current economic situation, but of course it is important to also take advantage of the opportunities that the recession brings. There may be excellent opportunities to recruit smart and review acquisition opportunities or invest in, for example, machines at better prices than during times with high business activity.
Cecilia Helland