ISA (Invest in Sweden) has conducted a study in order to find out how popular the Swedish entrepreneurial climate is and how others perceive Sweden. They have invited 50 representatives of foreign companies with 150 000 employees in Sweden to give their views on the entrepreneurial climate. Through interviews and surveys, they have evaluated the situation in Sweden.
The globalization has been beneficial for Sweden, the question is whether the country's resources and business environment are enough to attract foreign companies and investors now and in the future.
Big businesses look to the markets with greatest potential, but what does Sweden provide? The purpose of this study is to get a perspective of what is good and what could be better.
The questions they wanted answers to, among other things, are how Sweden deal with entrepreneur needs, how others look at the taxes and costs, how well developed the infrastructure is and what Sweden can offer future investments and business establishments.
They have selected the top 200 foreign companies in Sweden (in terms of employees). The companies involved in this study represent a variety of sectors and activities. A large proportion of these companies have initially been established in Sweden, but at some point they merged with foreign companies. Both positive and negative conclusions have been found.
It was found that location of head offices play a major role and the Swedes are skilled workers, especially managers. Unfortunately, many Swedes are not likely to have international careers. On the positive side, foreign companies are pleased with the Swedish entrepreneurial climate, they believe that it is relatively straightforward to do business on the Swedish market.
However, there are some missing factors. In the results it was found that Sweden does not have any unique conditions which would contribute to that the market would be more exclusive than other markets in Europe. This is something we have to work on in order to compete better against the rest of Europe .
Competence is considered to be high, but this varies between companies. Short-term and long-term problems must be solved and there is a shortage of specialists and skilled industrial workers. Entrepreneurs believe that corporate taxation is reasonable, however, individual taxation including social security contributions are too high.
As expected, the infrastructure in Sweden is highly rated. IT and Telecom receive the highest scores, but there are other countries that scores higher. It should be mentioned that Sweden´s situation is better than it was before but employers look for a better knowledge and a greater interest from the government and politicians.
On the positive side, skilled workforce, well functioning workplaces, good cooperation, modern infrastructure, great quality research and language skills are mentioned.
Service companies are the most positive, but the incentives for workers and investments must be improved.
Cecilia Helland