Do As the Swedes Do: Drink, Eat, & Fika

Jenna, Tai, and Theresa in Stortorget, the famous public square in old town Stockholm

We’re enjoying our time here in Stockholm! We’ve had our share of Swedish meatballs, visited the Vasa Museum, the ABBA museum, and strolled through Gamla Stan. Our company visits here in Sweden have been very interesting and engaging. Three of the major companies we’ve learned about are Ericsson, Northvolt, and Sinch.

Ericsson

Ericsson is a leader in Information and Communication Technology. As we have learned from their headquarters, the company has a complicated portfolio, but their main purpose is creating infrastructure and building to improve it. Ericsson is a B2B company, and they sell their services and technology mainly to telecommunication companies.

Ericsson’s biggest competitor is Huawei. The biggest advantage that Ericsson has over Huawei is becoming the leader in developing the 5G network. After visiting Ericsson’s studio, we were lucky enough to see their innovation in action. They have already deployed 5G networks through many areas around the globe. With an increase in mobile data traffic, the 5G network evolves speed and performance from the 4G network.

@ Ericsson Studios

In their innovation, Ericsson prides itself upon their security, transparency, and reliability of their network and services they provide. Their customers own their own data, as opposed to some of their competitors. As we learned from Johanna Snickars and Behdad Banian, Ericsson has become a company that is known for treating their employees well, having great service contracts with their providers, and never leaving a customer behind. In addition to being one of the biggest innovators, Ericsson wants to earn trust from their clients, giving them this personalized advantage within their industry.

Northvolt

Northvolt is a company that specializes in high-quality green batteries. Founded in 2016 by Peter Carlsson and Paolo Cerruti, their goal was to create an eco-friendly battery with the smallest carbon footprint. We met with Josephine Korijn who gave us information on Northvolt and their plans for the future.

Northvolt’s competitive advantage is easily their practice of sustainability within the battery industry. Their batteries are 100% powered by low cost hydro energy. They operate a full circle business model by getting suppliers and resources from the Nordics and vertically integrating their battery process. Reasons for this integration is to track where their materials come from and assure they are of high quality. Northvolt is in close collaboration with European industrial partners that engage in supporting their sustainability goals that align with the goals stated by the UN.

In comparison with Northvolt’s competitors, their carbon emissions are almost nonexistent. They have plans to start factories in building their own sustainable battery cells and having their own recycling facility. For a company that just started 3 years ago, Northvolt is well on its way to becoming a leader in clean energy and becoming as powerful as their competitors.

Sinch

Sinch is a software company that provides communication tools to other companies that allow them to engage with their consumers. They are a B2B company that helps firms deliver a message to improve consumer response and engagement. For example, they have worked with Uber to allow drivers and riders to contact each other without knowing the other’s phone number.

Sinch promotes enriching engagement to its clients and that each of their customers’ journeys are different in implementing their software. Sinch has been very successful and is making a profit, however, it is a little unclear on what their competitive advantage may be in their market. After speaking with Sinch representatives, their strength is that their competitors are also their customers. They have created partnerships with large companies like Google to work with their business model and their transactions to users.

Sinch’s success comes from working with demanding enterprises and maintaining the best clients. Keeping those client relationships is important for Sinch to continue its success. Since technology is always quickly evolving, Sinch believe that their advantage is their speed of execution over their competitors. Sinch works directly with their clients to find the best communication to their consumers and assist to improve it.

Sinch differs from other technology companies, such as Ericsson, in that they are focusing on marketing and engagement rather than engineering. In a way, their advantage is their client relationships and being able to have a personal connection with those firms to implement their product. This differs from larger software companies that may not operate in a personalized way.

It is somewhat hard to understand how Sinch has become so successful in the communication technology industry with so many larger companies in the same business. They are clearly doing something right in working with the right clients and hopefully will be able to grow larger to compete with the bigger firms.

Stockholm has been good to us, and is one of our favorite cities thus far. We have learned a lot and are excited for our final destination.

Till next time, Super Troupers! (@ the Abba Museum)