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December 29, 2022 20 mins

In this episode we get to meet Niklas Grybe, Business Sweden, who tells us more about this organization and how IoT Sweden and Business Sweden can collaborate. 

Produced by: Nicolai Slotte

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Episode Transcript

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(00:07):
Welcome to today's episode.Today we have a special guest
from Business Sweden, Niklas Grybe,who has joined us in the studio today
to tell usabout his work at Business Sweden.
Niklas Grybe,please introduce yourself. Okay.
Thank you,Nicolai. I'm happy to be here.
I'm 53 years old.I live in Åkersberga, north of Stockholm.

(00:28):
A family of six, plus a cat.My background,
and I guess the reason why I'm hereis that I've been working with IoT
half of my life, almost 30 years.And I have done so
from different parts of the industry,but also research institutes

(00:50):
and now in a governmental kind of role.-All right. And I understand
that you've workedwith IoT Sweden previously.
Yes, I have.Could you please tell us a little bit about it?
I have actually, I've been, yeah,since the birth of the program
back in 2013,2014, I was part of writing
program application,and from an industrial

(01:15):
point of viewon how IoT could help mining,
forestry, farming, autonomoussolutions and so on.
Yeah, that was the beginning.And now we've set another direction
for more the public sector, as you know.-Yeah, exactly.
And that was really good,because, for Sweden to take
kind of a leading positionin all these areas,

(01:37):
all these technologyopportunities, was a little bit tough.
So I think we have...actually, the program
has made a very good kind ofown
kind of area to grow from.-You now work

(01:57):
at Business Sweden.Could you please tell us a little bit
about Business Sweden?Business Sweden is a very special and exciting
kind of place to work from.Business Sweden
actually is half ownedby the government or the state,
represented by the Ministryof Foreign Affairs.

(02:20):
Then the other half of the companyis represented by
the industry, or actuallythe Swedish Foreign Trade Association,
which means big and midsizeand small Swedish companies
needing support forexport and investments.
Okay, great. And could you tell usa little bit more

(02:41):
about whatyour role at Business Sweden currently is?
My role? I'm a program managerwithin one of the seven ecosystems.
We have divided our business into,as many other organisations
and companies, related to different areas.We have smart industries, smart transport,

(03:02):
smart energy, materials,and in that we have digital technologies.
And I'm part of the programfor digital infrastructure related stuff.
And that is, besides IoT,5G, cybersecurity, data centres,
and those kinds of areas.Then I have colleagues in my group

(03:27):
looking into other big areaslike AI and fintech
and edtech and other stuff.So even
if we are only one seventh of BusinessSweden, we have a lot
of different areas to cover.But IoT is, I would say,
the main area for me.-IoT is such a broad sector.

(03:52):
Could you tell us a little bitabout how you narrow it down?
Or do you narrow it down?-Yeah, this is a really good question.
Sometimes we have to narrow it down,sometimes
we have to broaden the perspective.We usually talk about
kind of the horizontal view,which is then the technology itself,
the standardisation, kind ofthe architecture

(04:15):
and things to get the IoT solutionsto work. Then we have all the verticals
where we actually do the business,and that's autonomous solutions,
energy, smart cities.and sometimes we talk about proptech,
so it’s both those dimensions.Sometimes we have to go deep in technology

(04:38):
to get the intentionand get the right circumstances
to get a business.Sometimes we have to take
the broader perspective,it depends on.
So please tell usabout what Business Sweden does.
Business Sweden,it's jointly owned by the state
and the industry,with a purpose to help Swedish companies

(05:00):
to grow globally, and internationalcompanies to invest in Sweden.
So that's the two main objectives,help companies to grow abroad
and attract investmentsfrom abroad to Sweden.
Why is the workthat Business Sweden does important?
Sweden, as you know,is a small country.

(05:20):
We are very export dependent.So to be able to grow our business
and tax money and competence,we have to
work with partners abroad.-And how do you do that?
You coulddescribe us
as a consultancy company,and combined

(05:44):
with some governmental enabled services.-So within the consultancy
services side of things, what do you do?-A lot of things,
dependent on the need from the companies,so where they are
in their growth.It could be the first steps
on establishingtheir go to market plan

(06:09):
and priorities.And then also sales acceleration,
market expansions, and a lot of things.The need they have while they are growing.
And what kind of companiesdo you like to interact with?
Is it a start-upthat just started yesterday,
or do you need to havesome years behind you and some sales?

(06:30):
Basically, we are working with everyone.Of course, you need to be
mature enoughto have a plan and
some competence and some funding,enough to do the
international expansion.But with that said,
it could be a very small company,but also midsize

(06:51):
and even the biggest companies.Sometimes we do things together
in different events and fairs and so on.We can do things with the biggest together
with the smallest, because there is a kindof ecosystem view on it.
All right. So basically you can also helpa company identify
where they're atin their expansion abroad.

(07:13):
Yeah.And to do that we have
45 different officesaround the world.
By that we are able tohelp them to understand
how the local market looks likeand what conditions
and what is needed to be successful.So that's the value, actually,

(07:35):
that we are bringing, local presenceand close to the market together
with other actors in a Team Sweden context,very close to the embassies usually.
In terms of investments,the other objective
that was mentioned, the other track,so to speak,
do you workin a similar fashion there or…?

(07:56):
Yeah. And in different areas as well.These days there's a lot of
attractions around battery factoriesand the supply of
resources and competence in that area.It's a strong position
that we have already,but there’s a big interest
to be part of that,invest in both money but also competence,

(08:20):
which is a great opportunity.And that goes for other areas,
traditionally strong areas,
that we are constantly reviewingthe situation
and finding if there is possibilityto grow.
So if I was a company contacting youand interested

(08:42):
in expanding to another country,how would you start?
We have a lot of different waysof interacting.
For this particular needor this usually small company,
we have a program called Leap,a Leap program, and that is
free of charge,is one of the subsidised activities.

(09:05):
And it's a three days’ workshop.And you do that
together with a few other companieswith a similar kind of situation.
And in that we help to formulatethe go-to market strategy,
based on data driven analysis,looking into factors

(09:27):
like market size, market fit,and so on.
So we have developed a few toolsbased on the experience
that we have seen from different marketsto help. Many of the companies
have already done this,and they have a fairly good view,
but we could help themto have a second opinion and
some reflections onon why they have chosen a country or not.

(09:51):
Sometimes they realise that they should gosome totally different place.
Do you explore data during the workshop?Do I need to do any preparations?
That's my basic question.An IoT company is
usually best on the data,what is needed, themselves.
But we couldsometimes point out

(10:11):
some obvious but notwell known sources of information.
So that is provided, and howto get hold
of that kind of information.Also pointing at directions
to talk to expertsand knowledgeable persons

(10:32):
in different areasto help to broaden the perspective
when you do the analysis. It's usually…it's never better than
the data input that you give to analysis.So we will provide some more sets of data
for doing that.-So you know what questions to ask
and what questions to answer,basically, in terms
of getting the right strategygoing abroad?

(10:55):
Usually we have some good insights onon things that have gone well
and sometimes when it's not so well,and we could help to sort out.
And that is one of the reasonswhy they are turning to us
to shorten the time to marketand hopefully
learn a little bit of the mistakes.-So let's say I started

(11:17):
and I've gonethrough the Leap program.
What's the next step?-There could be
different possibilities.We have other programs,
we have a catalyst program,which is done,
let's say, for the 10% best companiesin a certain area
that could do some more tailormade project together with

(11:39):
one or maybea few or our local offices
and to expand to havethe first customer meetings,
maybe, meeting partners,and maybe to validate
some ideas into the market,that is really appreciated
by those companies,to get that opportunity.

(12:00):
Otherwise, it's a broad rangeof activities that we could do.
We could help out market validation,we could have partnership search,
finding the right partners in the market,something that we do quite a lot.
Do you have any good examples ofcompanies that
you've worked with recently?Yeah. Please remember

(12:20):
that I'm still quite new,eight, nine months into the business,
but already I've been participatingin a few projects.
And it could befor instance a company,
an IoT company, tryingto understand

(12:41):
how it works in Hollandfor a certain
IoT application.And then we have had the office
to help out to find right partnersand also understand the market,
because the housing marketis not exactly the same.
So they could point outthe structure of a market

(13:05):
and validate a few things,so that has been done.
In other projects we have been talkingabout the need for capital.
So we have reached outin that case in the US,
so there my colleaguesin… we have several offices
in the US, but in San Franciscoin that case, they have been helping out

(13:30):
formulating an investment strategyfor the company
that we are talking about …They have some
ideas on how they would liketo have an investment and
so there we could help outwith that discussion.
What kind of capitalare you reaching for when you do that?
Is it pension funds, or venture capitalists, or…?
Yeah, that is one source. And in this caseit was a corporate venture,

(13:54):
so they would like not only money,they would like to have
involvement.And by that they gain some credibility
in the market that they are,in the IoT solution.
So for that,they outrule kind of
some of thecapital intensive investors.

(14:15):
They have a tailor made idea,and then we could help out
to find them, approach and havediscussions, the initial discussions,
and on helping them with that investment.And then sometimes
to just find an office,they would like to have…
a company would liketo have an office in New York,
and we could point to a direction,and sometimes
they can even work at our offices.That is a service

(14:39):
that we can provide initiallyfor companies
that haven't decided other things to do,so we could help out
with that as well.-Do you usually just work
through the local offices,or do you participate in,
for example, trade fairsand other events to meet actors?
Yeah, we do a lot.The main activity

(14:59):
is through our local offices,because they have the knowledge
and contacts and so on.But sometimes we do things together
with different customers,or, as you mentioned,
the trade and events.We have we have a few of them
that are recurrent.I know that you have been
in IoT SolutionsWorld Congress yourself,

(15:23):
and we are looking into that.Otherwise we are looking
into Mobile World Congress.And we have other events.
And this is fromthe digital technology ecosystem.
We have anevent in Helsinki called Slush,
and we have one in Portugal, Web Summit.So those are the biggest

(15:44):
where we have a presence,a pavilion or a stand,
but we will participate in others as well.There are many events going on.
It seems like the two last yearsof lockdowns have created
a big need and interest of events.So you could spend
all days on events if you would like.We are not able to do that,

(16:08):
we have to make a choice there.-If you're a company,
should you go on these events?-The question would be
if you have a solutionand you would like to market it.
Yeah. So for the right event,
that is an excellent opportunity.But then, you could decide maybe

(16:28):
if you should…what you should do at the event,
different options.And we are offering
an alternative solution to that.Usually we have events that is a pre-event
or we have events at the eventswhen we are bringing our friends
in the embassiesor local trade associations,

(16:51):
that we could do things off-site.-You can collaborate with you basically.
Yeah.So that is usually the best way
that we could help to add onto the event itself,
to create the environment,to bring in
interestsand set up meetings and discussions.

(17:14):
That's great.We're reaching the end of this interview,
but it would be nice to kind of hearwhat your key call to action is.
What would you like the audienceto do when they listen to this?
Could you please tell usa little bit about that?
We spoke about this a little bit earlier.-Yeah, the purpose or
the main objectivesfor our organisation

(17:37):
is to help companies going abroad.So I would like to get in contact
with all the companiesbehind the excellent project
that is running within IoT Sweden.I would like to understand who they are,
where they are,and what they need to do going abroad.

(17:58):
So that that would be avery important and interesting
point from my view.Doing so, we would like to put Sweden
into the leading position,as it was meant to be
in the early program, to have Swedenas the leading IoT country.
So beside the companiesthemselves, we would like to really show

(18:24):
what we are doing with this programand all the good projects and initiatives.
We should make surethat this is seen abroad.
So we attract maybe countrieswith a similar situation,
and they would like to come to usto understand how have we done this,
and by that we are generatingnew opportunities

(18:45):
for the companies behind the solutions.-Are you also interested in showcasing
maybe for examplethe projects that we run within IoT Sweden
and the way that they have been workingto develop new solutions,
even though they might not be a companybehind it
today, to showcasethese good examples of how we've dealt
with challenges.Absolutely. And we have lots of opportunities

(19:09):
to show this into different groups.We have delegations coming more
or less every weekfrom different parts of the world,
and we are creating programs for themto see
and learn about how… what we are doingand what companies we have
and opportunities.So in that discussion

(19:30):
it's very importantto make sure to explain
how can you interact.It's not only to show,
showcase and demonstrate,but also give a good understanding,
how can you as a foreign entityor organisation
take part of that,and what can they bring to be valuable?
Well, withthat I think it's time

(19:51):
to end the interview.And I thank you so much
for your visit to our studio.And I guess I will be
inviting you again, Niklas,because you seem to have a lot to tell us
about how Swedish solutionscan reach beyond the Swedish borders.
Thank you, Niklas.Thank you, Nicolai.
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