Published on SavannahNow.com (http://savannahnow.com )

Sweden-Savannah connection on the horizon
By Savannah Morning News

Created 2007-06-04 23:30

Get out your ABBA CD and rev up your Volvo, because the Swedes are interested in Savannah. Johan Gustafson, a partner in the Swedish management consulting firm InfoSphere, was so taken with the opportunities for business relationships between Savannah and Sweden that he swiftly brought together the Savannah Economic Development Authority, The Creative Coast Initiative and Gunnar Lindqvist, a Swedish national who has been living and working in Savannah since 1983, to get things rolling.
"I saw the possibilities immediately," Gustafson said.
Gustafson, who describes himself as a "serial entrepreneur," now leaves his home in Stockholm every month to spend 10 days in Savannah.
You may have even seen him. He said he has been zipping around town in a scooter borrowed from Creative Coast Executive Director Chris Miller.
Miller says that the opportunities between Savannah and Sweden should flow both ways.
"You have the port here in Savannah, and that's important, but in today's knowledge-based business environment, knowledge can travel over fiber-optic cable," Miller said.
Miller also said the cities that win in the new economy are going to be those that think globally.
One Swedish company already doing business in the area is JLT Mobile Computers, makers of handheld computers and vehicle-mounted PCs. The company specializes in making rugged computer products that can withstand a bang or two, water, heat or other non-computer friendly environments.
On the horizon, Gustafson and Lindqvist said they are moving forward in forming a relationship between Design House Stockholm and Savannah. Design House specializes in upscale home design and has retail stores around the world.
The prominence of design in Savannah and the presence of the Savannah College of Art and Design are attractive features for Swedish companies, said Gustafson and Lindqvist, who both believe that design will be essential in the economy of the future. You can count Miller in, too.
"Other cities can have the retail stores," Miller said. "You want to be the place where value is added, and value is added with design."
All of the men believe the potential to make Savannah a design capital is an exciting prospect for a stronger relationship between Savannah and Sweden.
Gustafson said that bringing Swedish business to Savannah is not a matter of trying to compete with businesses in the area, but rather filling in "the gaps."
One of those gaps, according to Lindqvist, who runs Cash Management Inc., a management consulting firm, is the advances Sweden has made in "green" energy and design - advances they are eager to bring to the United States.
"There is no reason to have to reinvent the wheel," Lindqvist said.
Sweden has made strides in reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and the use of biofuels.
Savannah is particularly attractive to Europeans because of its graciousness, Gustafson said.
"This is such a soft spot for Swedish companies to land," he said. "Savannah is very much like a European city."
The ease with which people can network in Savannah also was a big plus.
Gustafson's original trip to Savannah was just to have a look around, but a conversation, which started at a local restaurant and led to contact with The Creative Coast and the Savannah Economic Development Authority, convinced Gustafson of Savannah's possibilities.
Both Gustafson and Lindqvist find that Sweden and Savannah have much in common; plus, because most Swedes speak English, there is very little in the way of a language barrier.

For more information, please contact: sofia@sacc-atlanta.org or 770-670-2480