ScandAsia Singapore - February 2017

FEB 2017

Gunilla Daintry

at the heart of the Sweden-Singapore relations BUSINESS

PEOPLE

TRADE

HEALTHCARE

Axis Communications’ Asia success

Gunilla Daintry, SBAS

Vivianne Gillman, Business Sweden in SEA

Finnish-Vietnamese co-operation in elderly care

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FEB 2017

Events

ainetry illaheD Gun art of th tions at the ore rela -Singap Sweden LE

ESS BUSIN ications’ mun Axis Comess Asia succ

PEOP Gunilla SBAS

Daintry,

TRADE

Gillman, Vivianne Sweden Business in SEA

CARE HEALTH mese ietna Finnish-V tion co-opera care in elderly

Your FREE ScandAsia Magazine in Singapore Norwegian Seafood Dinner 2017 Where: Raffles City Convention Centre, The Fairmont Ballroom When: 3 March, 19:00 - 00:00 The legendar y Norwegian Seafood Dinner 2017 in Singapore is honoured to announce that Norwegian celebrity chefs, Mr Sven Erik Renaa and Mr Øyvind Næsheim who will be

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ScandAsia is the only magazine that covers all the Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish residents in Singapore.

We also publish a ScandAsia magazine in China, Thailand, and the rest of South East Asia.

Get your own FREE copy: scandasia.com Publisher : ScandAsia Publishing Co., Ltd. 211 Soi Prasert Manukitch 29 Prasert Manukitch Road Chorakae Bua, Lad Prao Bangkok 10230, Thailand Tel. +66 2 943 7166-8, Fax: +66 2 943 7169 Editor-in-Chief : Gregers A.W. Møller gregers@scandmedia.com Managing Editor: Joakim Persson Joakim@scandmedia.com Advertising : Frank Leong frank@scandasia.com Finn Balslev finn@scandmedia.com Graphic Designer : Peerapol Meesuwan Peerapol@scandmedia.com Distribution : Wanvisa Rattanaburi wanvisa@scandmedia.com Printing : Inthanon Interprint Co., Ltd.

February 2017

ScandAsia Community

3 DABs Annual Gala Dinner invitation 8 Gunilla Daintry - SBAS 18 Baked Salmon Fillet recipe

8

Gunilla Daintry

Mr. Magnus Zederfeldt

12

Axis Communication’s Asian success

3

ScandAsia Business

11 Finnish-Vietnamese elderly co-operation 12 Axis Communications

8

15 Business Sweden Mekong Region

Ms. Vivianne Gillman

15 18

Business Sweden busier than ever in SEA

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6 ScandAsia.Singapore •February 2017

Family friendly schedule and amenities to encourage teacher/parent communication The parent-teacher link is vital to the success of the child and the design of the new campus actively encourages it. Since life isn’t getting any less busy, there’s also an option for parents to design the school week around their family needs so they can spend more time with their children.

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Australian International School Pte Ltd is registered by the Committee for Private Education (CPE), part of SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG). CPE Registration Number 199204405H. Period of registration 6 July 2011 t o 5 July 2019.

February 2017 • ScandAsia.Singapore 7

Community

Gunilla Daintry

at the heart of Sweden-Singapore relations Text and photos: Joakim Persson

H

aving worked for 18 years and under seven ambassadors at the Embassy of Sweden in Singapore, 22 years with Swedish Business Association Singapore (SBAS), and residing in Asia since the early 1970’s. We are talking about a person with a track record and dedication of sorts!

ScandAsia got the chance to sit down with a true expat who has been around and part of the Scandinavian community scene in Singapore longer than most other people! It was about 8 ScandAsia.Singapore •February 2017

time that we got to look back at the life of, for so many, a familiar face and wonderful person, and to get her view on living in Singapore and its fast-paced development. She is of course Mrs Gunilla Daintry!

“I have had two very interesting jobs; the embassy, together with promoting Sweden on one side and then Swedish business on the other,” Gunilla summarizes her job career, while she is still the Executive Director and Office Manager at SBAS. Unlike the typical diplomat who moves back

and forth between the home country and foreign missions she also managed to work for the same embassy for nearly two decades – until she reached the age limit allowing employment by the Swedish state.

“It was never a question of going anywhere else, and the reason that I had this job was that we had moved here with my family and our children.

So I became locally employed and continued with that,” she says and expresses gratitude: “We have been very fortunate with my husband’s work that we could remain in Singapore all the time.”

Her husband still runs his own business and travel frequently in the region. The two actually met in Japan where Gunilla had started off her foreign adventure back in the early 1970’s. Her husband is British, from an old rubber plantation family in Malaysia dating back to early 1900s.

“In Japan, I packaged milk and he packaged whisky!” smiles the Swedish expat.

She had been working as secretary for the Executive Board of Tetra Pak back in Sweden when she, in 1971, got the question if she would like to go and work abroad in Mexico City or Tokyo.

“I thought that Japan sounded very interesting and accepted the offer.”

Gunilla worked there for five years and met her future husband in the process. In 1977 they had their first child, and their daughter and son are by now grown-ups.

After that they had stints in Hong Kong and Malaysia before settling down in Singapore where their children grew up.

Our son is a lawyer, in Dubai, and our daughter is married and working in Brazil. She is married to an American diplomat and is there for another year.

“I have travelled a lot recently since I have my children in other parts of the world, and in particular now when we have a grandchild, so those things make your life change, with a new chapter in your life.”

Gunilla travelled to Brazil three times in 2016.

Raising a family in Singapore she, like most others, thinks is great.

“Everything works, and it’s safe. When you have small children growing up in Singapore you never have any insecurity concerning what happens when they are out at night.You are much more concerned back in Sweden.”

Gunilla was very worried when both the children were sent to Sweden to study at Sigtuna boarding school as part of their education. “You’ll have to be careful, Sweden is not like Singapore,” she had warned her teenage daughter.

The family owns a house along the coast in Mölle, north of Helsingborg.

“And the grown-up children say that there will not be a summer when we do not go to Sweden, so we stick to that.”

They also keep the Swedish cultural traditions alive within the family, now also adopted by her husband and their children.

During the decades in Singapore Gunilla has also seen and experienced Singapore’s development into the modern, hi-income nation it is today.

“It has changed enormously, only that when you live right in the development you don’t notice it in the same way, as if you are away for

ten years and then return. But the landscape has changed completely here and when you fly over Singapore you can see how it has spread out with all the landfills. One can see that there are less and less green areas. Before, you had large land areas with greenery.You don’t have that anymore in the same way. And the city continues to grow also underground, so you increasingly have malls there. And the same with restaurants; that has also changed, when we arrived you had no standalone restaurants; they were all in hotels!” Gunilla reflects.

The public transportation network (which is still growing) she thinks works very well.

“The subway network is fantastic, and yet one sits in traffic jam, which is strange given how much it costs for a car here! The Government wants to reduce the number of cars but the numbers have still increased compared to previously and still seem to do so.”

“It has changed a lot but it has been incredibly nice to live here but one must be able to like where one is; when I am back in Sweden I love to be in Sweden and I feel I don’t want to go back to Singapore, but I feel at home when I get back here, all the same.”

During her time at the Swedish embassy she had a double role; one as personal assistant to the ambassador, arranging all his or her external meetings, and also responsible for information; promoting Sweden. And simultaneously she worked for SBAS. “The roles had interexchange, I could inform the embassy about many Swedish companies that we got in touch with and vice versa; if someone was about to start up something, coming to talk to the ambassador I could then inform SBAS that a new company was on its way in. So that was a win-win situation to be at the embassy – back

then at least.”

She points out that today Business Sweden also has an office in Singapore, which is relatively new.

“Earlier the commercial section at the embassy handled everything regarding trade and export.”

At the embassy Gunilla organised Sweden promotion events, mainly in the cultural field where she was, among others, involved with design exhibitions and Swedish film festivals.

“The film festivals were very successful and these were arranged together with the Swedish Institute and the Singapore Film Society. Film was an excellent medium to reach out to Singaporeans who around 2000 had the most cinema seats per inhabitants in the world. This proved a fantastic way to promote Sweden” In 2012 she was awarded Swede of the Year for her services to the Swedish community.

Retiring from the embassy in 2013 however did not mean that she has been resting on her laurels. Gunilla is the kind of person that always wants to have something that keeps here busy.

Since Gunilla left the embassy in 2013 she has continued working with SBAS. “Activities on SBAS agenda include seminars with expert speakers on business themes that are relevant to the Swedish business community in Singapore. Some seminars have a more local angle, while others cover broader Asian or Scandinavian related topics. SBAS has during the years hosted a large number of prominent speakers.”

SBAS has also been involved with the Singaporean exchange students studying in Sweden. Around 1998 we star ted to invite the students who had been to Sweden to the Ambassador’s residence – gatherings that continue today.

I have travelled a lot recently since I have my children in other parts of the world, and in particular now when we have a grandchild, so those things make make one’s life change. change, with a new chapter in your life.

Modern Singapore living February 2017 • ScandAsia.Singapore 9

Community

Old Singapore living

“These students proved to be the best ambassadors for Sweden as they all loved everything Swedish. Later on various Swedish companies were invited to these gatherings to encourage talented students to maintain close links with Sweden and to look for options in joining Swedish companies.”

Recently Gunilla suggested to the Chairman for SBAS, Jan Djerf that perhaps it was time for here to quit. Jan would however hear none of it.

‘Out of the question!’ he had replied. So she had 10 ScandAsia.Singapore •February 2017

accepted to continue as long as he is remains the Chairman and then hopes to handover her role to a new person over the next 12 to 18 months.

“I enjoy the work very much, and the laptop has allowed me to stay on top of my SBAS responsibilities, even though I travel out of Singapore much more than I used to.

Once she eventually quits her role with SBAS she says she will probably spend that time with the family. But who knows when that will be!

Gunilla seems as energetic as ever!

Aside work duties she has focused on other social activities: “It has been my social life, playing tennis and meeting my friends whenever I get the opportunity.”

She says she might also join the Scandinavian Women’s Association again.

“I was in SWEA, in the beginning when it was started. But when you work you don’t have time with these associations, and you grow older and the SWEA women just get younger.”

“But I have always been active doing something.

When the children were smaller, I worked for the Cheshire Homes in Malaysia and also did telephone counselling for the Befrienders. When I came to Singapore I did volunteer work for the UNHCR. At the time we had Vietnamese boat refugees in Singapore; in a camp in Woodlands I assisted those who had been selected to continue to Sweden.”

One also has to conclude Gunilla is living proof that age does not matter that much! How does she stay fit?

“I go to interval spinning Saturday mornings and kettle bell; exercise with weights at the Tanglin Club where they have a fantastic gymnasium. I stay

disciplined – even if there is resistance to go and do weightlifting on a Monday morning, the worst one can possibly do, in fact! But once you come home you feel light!”

With her husband she also frequently visits the Botanical Gardens and MacRitchie Reservoir Park for 5-kilometre power walks on Sundays.

And, last, we must not forget business!

“There have been ups and down in terms of SBAS members. Earlier it was the major corporations that had not yet established themselves, but have now done so. Many new companies came to Singapore early in the new millennium. Then the numbers stopped and went down. Now there are different people and types of companies coming in; recently we are seeing for example more entrepreneurs here. There are also many SMEs who have arrived, where you may have only a few employees.”

In addressing the increasing digitalisation of society and the business she feels that SBAS will need to do something, but the board has not decided what.

“Partly it is about start-ups. We will need to do something to support them; many needs to meet like-minded people and it would be good if we could also match them with Singaporean companies.”

One thing they have decided to do is an overhaul of their online presence, including becoming active on Linked-in. That is on the agenda in 2017.

“But it’s a matter of if we have capacity to do that and it lies with the Board to decide on what to do and the future direction SBAS should take.”

Business

Finnish-Vietnamese co-operation in elderly care takes off

H

Text and pictures: Heta Hytönen olistic solutions in elderly care, covering remote population areas are increasingly in demand in the rapidly ageing Asian countries.

Heta Hytönen, from FinlandCare program writes about Vietnamese-Finnish cooperation within elderly care and a delegation visit to Vietnam.

“Many South-East Asian countries are openminded when it comes to co-operating with Nordic healthcare ser vice providers. Large infrastructural and financial reforms are taking place in the area, which opens doors for those brave enough and equipped to grab them.”

From ”Nuoc Phan Lan” co-operation to care collaboration in Vietnam

Vietnamese-Finnish cooperation goes back decades, where Finnish water expertise has paved the way for other Finnish competence areas such as green technologies, healthcare education and solutions.

“Approximately 10 % out of a population of 96 million in Vietnam is now over 60 years old.

Vietnam is one of the most drastically ageing countries in the world. In the capital Hanoi there are only five nursing homes covering a total population of seven million people; the need for care homes is tangible.

The 60+ market is expected to rise rapidly when the upper middle class citizens will retire. As the central family takes the lion’s share in taking care of their elderly, services and applications for remote care is estimated to become increasingly important.

The Ministry of Health in Vietnam has decided to focus on the problem at hand and renew the

entire elderly care system. Money is allocated to these projects from the government, international funding agencies, as well as private investments.

‘In a nutshell, Vietnamese health officials are looking for high-quality elderly care services, rehabilitative technologies and healthcare engineering, as well as hospital management,’ states Ms. Do Hoang Anh, the managing director of OriHome, one of the first elderly care homes in Hanoi.

“Vietnamese Ministry of Health is looking for concepts around focal themes: elderly care, rehabilitation, hygiene“, Do Hoang Anh adds. In her opinion, with so few care homes the market is wide open for new providers to mould the modus operandi nation-wide.

Finland a tempting technical partner for Vietnam

Vietnam is open for all kinds of par tnerships regarding Finland, be they financial, technical or educational. There are several high-level decisionmakers who have expressed their interest in collaborating with Finnish companies in reforming the Vietnamese elderly care sector.

Professor Pham Thang, a revered Vietnamese gerontologist (elderly care specialist) and director of the National Gerontology Institute in Hanoi visited Finland to meet FinlandCare rehabilitation and elderly care companies, to see what Finland has to offer.

“Ministry of Health is finally getting an elderly care department. We want to do a pilot project hopefully in 2017, where elderly care services and facilities are renewed. A basic service package will hopefully be developed with foreign partners”, states Professor Pham Thang.

Joint offerings and devotion needed from the Finnish side

German and US providers have an undeniable foothold especially in the Asian healthcare technology industry. However, Finns are extremely equipped to form clusters around integral themes for hospitals, and this kind of well-round process thinking is what we should cherish and invest in.

Finns are good in seeing the big picture.

“What we need is constant and devoted co-operation from Finnish companies that are equipped to come here more than once.

Sporadic one-time visits gain little. Rule of thumb in this business is patience “, says Ilkka-Pekka Similä, the Finnish Ambassador for Vietnam.

Also, the Head of Region India & APAC of Finpro, Mr. Juha Miikkulainen stresses the importance of co-operation between companies and internationalization organizations such as Finpro when entering the market area. Currently for example FinlandCare is active in the area.

Miikkulainen encourages more companies to get involved in the growing APAC region healthcare markets and get Finnish SME’s acquainted with Team Finland’s resources globally.”

February 2017 • ScandAsia.Singapore 11

Business

32 years

of Internet of Things: Axis Communications

I

By Joakim Persson

t is sometimes interesting to get a slightly longer, historic perspective, in this ever-increasingly digital world, and Axis Communications, a Swedish IT company, represents this well.

The example concerns ‘Internet of Things’ (or IoT), a buzzword and relatively recent concept.

“IoT, to get things to function over a network, we’ve been doing for 32 years. Within Internet Security of Things, as we call it today, we give everything an IP address, be it a camera, speaker or a door locker. With our network knowledge being one of our core technologies our first innovation was to come up with a box that could connect all the printers on the market to an IBM computer,” says Magnus Zederfeldt, Regional Director South Asia Pacific That represents interconnection of computing devices prior to the Internet era.

“Then we invented the first digital surveillance camera 20 years ago and we have since then developed a very deep knowledge about camera technology.”

Axis Communications pioneered the networking surveillance market with the launch of the world’s first network camera in 1996. Now a global market leader in network video solutions, 12 ScandAsia.Singapore •February 2017

Axis with its extensive experience and innovative network video solutions is driving the ongoing shift from analogue to digital video surveillance.

This has also opened up significantly to new and increased business, by being able to fulfil various needs in ways previously not possible.

Axis, now selling in more than 70 countries, in South Asia Pacific has around 7000 resellers, stretching all the way from New Zealand to India. Customers are in in all verticals (end-user segments) covering education, banking & finance, retail, transportation, government and industrial.

Axis’ end users range from large multinational corporations to small-to-midsize enterprises.

“This region incorporates everything from Australia’s ver y mature market to Myanmar where we have just set up our first distribution, starting from scratch, and all countries in between.

That’s also what is exciting in this region that we have this wide span,” says Magnus at the regional headquarter in Singapore.

“In per cent we are growing the most in the markets where we have entered relatively recently, like Vietnam and Philippines. But of course if you take markets like Thailand, Singapore and Australia, we are growing but from a mature market level.”

He also explains that their worldwide strategy is to be local and have local resources. So Magnus is actually their only expat out of around 2600 employees worldwide. And even his assignment is temporary: “I’m here on contract and one of my tasks is to find a local regional manager.”

“I have been here for a bit over two years, and I have worked for Axis for 8 years and 2+ of those here in charge of the region. We have opened here 20 years ago, so we have been here for fairly long and today we have 95 people in this region.”

“We want to have our own resources and expertise on the markets to support our resellers. So from the beginning we were a few in Singapore selling to distributors and resellers around all the countries. This local presence is par t of our strategy to be the global market leader.”

“It’s a challenge to put two men in the Philippines, for instance, and to steer it. But we think it is worthwhile even though losing a bit of control but also getting a completely different closeness to the market.”

Axis is a value-driven and not a process-driven company at the core:“When you have many small offices in this way you cannot effectively run them in a process but one must get all to be

entrepreneurs in their own respective markets.

Therefore we dedicate big resources to educate our employees how Axis thinks and put up fiveyear plans so that everybody understands where we are heading and have a platform to base decisions on, in their daily operations.”

They send all employees to Sweden for training and within each function there are either regional or global meetings held annually.

“They meet others with the same tasks to discuss best practices, experiences and to learn.

It is a way to manage the business, to understand what the expectations and the framework consist in. but also to give people the self-confidence to act on their own and take decisions,” explains Magnus.

Last year, he was also honoured to present Axis’ success at the Sweden-Southeast Asia Business Summit, where he pointed out three things: Fist, being local: “When you are out here the expectation is that we should open offices in a lot of countries.That makes the whole difference; you are not in Europe just because you’re in Sweden, every country is different.”

Second, trust the Swedish value proposition: “I don’t agree that Swedish companies need to

develop products for this market. We have it in our DNA to deliver quality and the best service.

I am talking about 3-5 years, while my customers talk about two weeks. I think if we say we need 3 year warranty our engineers in Sweden design it for at least nine! If you’re not resilient to the everyday request to lower your price in this part of the region then you’re going get into problems, so it’s an everyday fight to educate your staff and your resellers giving them the confidence to sell that premium product with premium value. We ask ourselves: Are our customers really asking for cheaper products or maybe they need our help to see why they should invest in quality.”

Third, recruit people that share your values: “It’s all about people in the end. And as we talk about culture there are so many similarities between Swedish and Asian cultures in general; we are considerate and don’t necessarily like conflict. We are also fairly family-oriented so I think Swedish companies have it quite easy to make friends and relations in Asia. And be responsive! There is this confusion about this most shameful thing in the world: to be wrong.

Building that self-confidence to dare to make mistakes and to learn from them, and dare to step out of the box, is a big challenge.”

February 2017 • ScandAsia.Singapore 13

Business

It’s a challenge to put two men in the Philippines, for instance, and to steer it. But we think it is worthwhile even though losing a bit of control but also getting a completely different closeness to the market.

Axis has come a long way with innovations and technology since around 2005 – as processors have become stronger, Internet grown faster etc.

– caught up to enable the digital camera to fully be utilized and be part of further innovations.

“There are so many advantages with digitalisation. A digital camera also has a brain, so it is a very intelligent video; which is a sensor that should give an alert. But, of course, in order to create that brain one must have some image data to analyse. It’s about software, as it’s a combination of optic and sensor but also what you do with the information. The other aspect is that a digital image has much higher quality than analogue.”

Today the expectations are different. And while people equals surveillance cameras with monitoring people, Magnus says that is just a small fraction of the market.

“We listen to consumers problems, and often we have a solution we’ve already done somewhere else. So therefore our marketing today is focused on different verticals where we, instead of selling products in different categories, try to sell solutions that meet the needs and solve problems; be it shops, hotels or airports.”

It’s all about obtaining the information proactively from a smart sensor.

14 ScandAsia.Singapore •February 2017

“The camer a can tell the mar keting depar tment for a store where you have the most frequented spots in the store and at what times of the day so they run campaigns and set prices based on that. And if there are parts of the store where not many move they can go in and redesign the store.”

In a hotel, as another example, other needs and challenges must be met. There is often a need for cameras to protect guests without being invasive of their privacy and that can fit in perfectly with modern architecture, and deliver a detailed overview of narrow and deep areas, such as long corridors.

Axis’ innovations continue to meet such needs.

“A sur veillance camera must be able to handle that the sun rises, shines straight into the lens, for instance, and also darkness. So quite advanced camera technique is required to be able to handle all kinds of situations and problem scenarios. You want to have the information you are looking for at all times.”

“The other thing is the continued development of products to fit into various environments.”

A lot of the growth in the region happens as countries invest in the increasingly networked

infrastructure that forms the fabric of the modern society (monitoring of traffic and counting cars etc.), in par ticular when emerging economies are leapfrogging in their security infrastructure implementations of network-based surveillance.

“Anything from wireless transmissions in city surveillance to putting cameras all over the city running on power over the ethernet with no need for an electricity grid connection at every place.. There you have lots of innovation.”

The fact that Canon is today Axis’ majority owner is a strong indicator of the Swedish company’s significance, and something Magnus thinks makes good sense: “We are best-in-class worldwide on designing surveillance cameras and have all the software and technology required for those challenges. Canon are the world leader in sensors and optics so those are two central parts of the products that we do not produce ourselves, so it is a good match. It feels like a good owner to have.”

A

Business

t last, ScandAsia has caught hold of a Trade Commissioner to learn more about Business Sweden (since the organisation was changed and renamed) and their activities, scope of work, clients and the development for Swedish business and trade in and with Southeast Asia. And who could then be a more ideal spokesperson than the Country Manager for Thailand and Vietnam, incl. Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos (Mekong region)!

Meet Vivianne Gillman, based in Bangkok since Februar y 2015, who actually opted to leave New York City for Southeast Asia as an irresistible next career step.

“I was asked if I would be interested in coming here, while I still had a few years left on my US contract. Being the Head of the New York office was very exciting, as a very dynamic and ripe market with many Swedish companies already established and many others on their way. But it was difficult to say no to Southeast Asia; there are few markets growing as fast as this one right now.”

And this growth has had a positive impact on Business Sweden’s operations in the five countries Vivianne is in charge of.

Vietnam on top

Business Sweden in Southeast Asia busier than ever Vivianne Gillman oversees the Mekong region

By Joakim Persson

“We have seen vast changes only during the period I’ve here. And we are experiencing incredible demand and interest, especially in Myanmar and Vietnam and still with plenty of interest for Thailand, the most mature market of these.”

In late 2016 Business Sweden actually had quite many assignments in Thailand assisting companies in establishing presence.

“Even if we are seeing less demand in the more aggressive growth strategies. it’s interesting to see that many companies are making the decision to establish legal presence at this moment. This often means they already acted on the market for some time, or that there is some other strong incentive to invest,” Vivianne elaborates on Thailand. “So that’s a positive sign in an economy that does not have as strong growth as some of the other markets.”

“Of the five Vietnam is the market with the absolutely highest demand with regards to the Swedish companies contacting us, At one point we had to put new assignments on hold as we simply did not have capacity to take on more.”

So Vivianne’s team is overloaded with work.

As we meet they have already employed nine more people since she arrived – and need to hire even more.

Commenting on what sor t of talent they hire she says that one must understand both Sweden as well as the local market, but also being able to navigate in two worlds.

“This can sometimes be difficult, but this is also what makes us unique - being internationalization exper ts who combine analytical skills with government access.”

What makes organisations grow

Vivianne’s career within the organisation started as Head of the New York office back in January 2012, when it was still called Swedish Trade Council, and continued on the same position as February 2017 • ScandAsia.Singapore 15

Business it became Business Sweden (the Swedish Trade and Invest Council) in January 2013.

Employees at Business Sweden work for the Swedish state, repor ting to the Ministr y of Foreign Affairs and the Swedish industr y.

Through an or ganisation called Sver iges Allmänna Utrikeshandelsförening (Swedish Foreign Trade Association), the organisation is indirectly owned by businesses.

Vivanne has a double Masters degree from Stockholm University; in Business Administration and Economics as well as Systems Development and Software Engineering. She also fur thered her studies in New York with a course in Venture Capital and Private Equity.

“For me that’s a red thread - to understand what makes different organisations to grow is very interesting,” she comments on that course.

“And I think start-ups in general do not have this large structure to carry around like large corporations have, but you find a lot of driving force in these companies. I worked quite a lot with start-ups in New York and we did a few activities towards those to meet other potential investors and other players on the market etc.”

“Also here in Southeast Asia I can use the knowledge in the sense we are working with mergers and acquisitions. Then it’s more about larger corporations, but all the same about understanding what makes a company attractive,

Business Sweden as such is quite complicated to understand.

It requires some time; there are not that many organisations that operate as ours, having such strong connection to the state while having a private side as well.

valuation-wise. So when looking at various ways to enter markets here it is not unusual at all to start by acquiring up companies.”

Innovation and sustainability

Prior to her New York appointment Vivianne worked as a strategy and management consultant back in Sweden with Connecta between 2007 and 2011. There she also spearheaded the internal CSR and sustainability efforts, but also advised the non-profit sector and companies on sustainability – how they could integrate their sustainability strategies within their business strategy.

“We worked towards the head offices but it was often with an international scope as so many Swedish companies are spread throughout the world.”

Sustainability is also par t of the DNA when it comes to promoting Sweden and Swedish companies internationally as attractive, innovative and competitive business partners.

At a minister-lead delegation to Indonesia and Vietnam in November innovation and sustainability were the two themes.

“That is often how we want to profile our Swedish companies, most have that as their unique selling point, which often also mean higher prices, and that’s something that most of them have in common, where we assist together to convey the benefits of these innovative solutions that can lead to higher effectiveness, and productivity. So the total cost is actually lower even if the initial price tags is higher than average. That message applies for many companies and sustainability is another factor coming up on the agenda more and more in Southeast Asia,” she comments.

Why companies need us

In Southeast Asia they work quite a lot with large corporations and as these markets are hard to navigate Business Sweden’s role becomes valuable. When we do business delegations, for example, we typically involve both the private and public sector,” explains Vivianne,.”

“You often have governments or stateowned companies as buyer s, and often development banks joining as stakeholders.

This makes the region interesting, but also quite challenging. This is one of the ways in which we can support teh companies,” smiles the Country Manager. “There is a lot of potential but it is a bit challenging, especially when it comes to navigating the government jungle.”

Business Sweden in Southeast Asia is concentrated on supporting and advising Swedish companies who want to establish or grow their business in these markets. And currently many companies are asking for assistance.

“To a large extent we work with regional management, usually based in Singapore , Shanghai or so, who need assistance with market entry. That is the normal need for Myanmar, and also Laos, as an example of a white spot market still for many companies.”

“We also do many assignments for companies who have been on a market for a long time, such as in Thailand, but the market has changed and they need assistance to find new revenue streams, such as new customer groups.”

16 ScandAsia.Singapore •February 2017

Business

Vivianne says that to grow sales revenue on international markets are very grateful tasks to work on, compared to when she was a strategy consultant, which involved issues such as costcutting, re-organisation etc.

“In assisting companies on market entrance and market growth we do whatever it takes, almost.”

In terms of areas of activities and being available Business Sweden produces and publishes market repor ts, arranges seminars to share information and replies to queries – all assignments from the Swedish state. Then, where most resources are spent, is on serving the individual companies with advisory services.

“Usually that we assist in evaluating whether a market is attractive or not, how to enter or how to grow, and third being these delegations.”

“Market analysis is our core competence and what we are doing on a daily basis, and mostly for individual companies,” she adds.

Gazelle companies and start-ups

Collaborations within Team Sweden are also important.

“When it comes to delegations we work very closely also with the Swedish embassies, so most delegations are lead by our Ambassador or by someone from Sweden; a state secretary or minister. We invite relevant companies, so there is always a combination of interest and what is in focus from back home.”

“We all have a lot of dialogue with our colleagues in the other markets as well, in par ticular as many are looking at targeting

Southeast Asia as a whole and which countries to prioritise first and where to invest the most resources and so on.”

“What is important to emphasize, where we ourselves prioritise our resources, that it does not only mean large corporations but might just as well be Gazelle companies, interesting start-ups or those being best in class within their sector. Somewhere we want to prioritise helping those companies that best benefit Sweden.”

Minimising corruption

In assisting companies Business Sweden also encounters corruption, described by Vivianne as a “large challenge all over Southeast Asia”.

“What we assist with is that par tly we can par take in various meetings with public companies, government organisations or other to show that Sweden thinks this deal is important and interesting and that we are monitoring it in order also to minimise the risk for corruption factors being brought to the table. And we frequently assist in finding local partners. That is very difficult to do 100 per cent but then conduct certain due diligence, and it depends a bit on the company how deep we should dig.”

“When it comes to acquisitions we do commercial due diligence, e.g. looking at that that business, customers and business connects.”

Going forward, Vivianne says that Business Sweden believes there are significant growth opportunities for Swedish companies and that Sweden has not reached any ceiling on yet.

Swedish companies selling solutions to the manufacturing industry, including industrial

equipment that assists the local industry, are among the strengths.

“The strongest BNP driver on most markets are manufacturing, so they need to improve as stronger manufacturing hubs as the main driver for a market to thrive. Here the Swedish companies can enter and develop the local manufacturing sector.”

Infrastructure, including both transportation and energy, is another focus area.

“Looking at a market like Vietnam both Norway and Denmark have significantly higher export than Sweden today, despite them being smaller economies than ours. And we are seeing the same tendency in Myanmar. But we could do even more and especially in Southeast Asia we could do much more.”

February 2017 • ScandAsia.Singapore 17

Community

Baked Salmon Fillet in foil

T

his is a great fish recipe and believe me, Norwegians know how to cook seafood.

Not only is this an easy way to bake fish, but preparing salmon fillet with savory rosemary and vegetables makes this a delicious and flavorful meal.

It is a known fact that seafood is healthy food and that salmon, especially, is very rich in Omega 3 Fatty Acid, which lowers our cholesterol.

Baking the fish in aluminum foil makes the clean-up easy, so this recipe has numerous benefits.

18 ScandAsia.Singapore •February 2017

Serves 4 Preheat oven 350°F. Ingredients: • 1 pound fish fillet - skin on • 1 small onion, thinly sliced • Fresh rosemary, chopped.

• 1/2 tablespoon olive oil • 1/2 tablespoon lemon zest • 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice • Ground sea salt • Coarsely ground black pepper • Aluminum foil

Preparation: • Brush olive oil on a large • piece of aluminum foil.

• Place rinsed and dried fillet, • skin-side down on foil.

• Sprinkle lemon zest, salt, • pepper and rosemary

Spritz lemon juice and sprinkle ground sea salt sparingly. Fold foil tightly around the salmon fillet and vegetables and place on a baking sheet. Bake 20 minutes.

Serving Suggestion: Place serving platter on top of Vegetables: the foil-covered salmon fillet.

• Broccoli florets Turn platter over and remove • Sliced red peppers foil. Remove skin from fillet.

• Sliced yellow squash Garnish with tomatoes, parsley • Thinly sliced red skin potatoes sprigs and lemon slices.

Arrange vegetables over fish.

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