Presentation of the Authors
Internationalizing the Small and Medium Sized Firm – four cases
Hans Olofsson has worked in the United States for a total of more than a year. His first experience was while working with The Swedish American Chambers of Commerce in the USA, Inc. Through this he came in contact with many smaller Swedish companies, both those already having a presence, and those wanting one on the American market. Lately he also worked more specifically with Swedish companies entering the US market. Working with SwedeLinkCalifornia, an incubator/market entry facilitator in Southern California, he came in contact with both people with extensive experience from foreign market entries, as well as companies who recently had entered the US market or were in the planning process for doing so. His main experience from this can be summed up in a few points. Few smaller companies have well-planned strategies for their expansion. Coincidence, intuition and personal preferences are usually involved. Lack of time due to both weak commitment and scarce management resources are common. Outside help is usually hard to get, consultants are expensive and not always competent enough. Trade Councils’ and Chambers’ of Commerce involvement should be limited to practicalities and access to local networks.
Michael Wahlgren has worked with internationalization processes for 2,5 years. The first experience he got was at Avanza Fondkommission AB, where he worked with the company’s international expansion. It involved market research prior to entry of market and also being one of two persons sent out from the head-office to open the German office. Later on it also involved opening up another office in the Netherlands. The second experience was gained when working at Etheraction AB, a company in the mobile Internet industry. Here it involved setting up the company’s business in Canada. Both of these international expansions can be regarded as failures, since both have terminated their international operations. The direct reason for this was the burst of the recent IT-bubble which made it more or less impossible to raise more money for further expansion. In retrospect he question if these internationalization endeavors should have been started at all. According to him the risk was too high in relation to the size and maturity of the two companies. A more risk-averse strategy would in his mind have been a wiser choice.
