Sweden Study Tour 2024 for SMBs — Trip Conclusions

10 Ukrainian companies—COAX Software, Devlight, 8allocate, Unicsoft, FEEDGEE MARKETING, Lionwood.software, Advantiss, SoloWay Technologies, Advanced Software Solutions, and Partnerway—concluded a four-day business trip to Stockholm, Sweden.

On February 12th, representatives from 10 companies participated in the workshop “Strategies for Engaging the Swedish IT Market” by Mikael Wällstedt, Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) in Ultiro AB. Among the key theses:

• Overview of the Swedish market: out of 1.2 million companies, only 48,000 are under the Small and Medium Business (SMB) classification — 1,300 are large companies, and the remaining majority—1.1 million—is comprised of private entrepreneurs and micro-companies;
• The continuation of digital transformation and the transition towards “green” technologies are creating a favourable regulatory environment for the implementation of 5G, IoT, blockchain, AI, cloud technologies, M2M, and much more;
• Strategic plans of the ICT sector until 2030 encompass a focus on “smart country” technologies, including the Swedish government’s Digital Strategy that stands on five pillars: digital -literacy, -security, -innovation, -leadership, and -infrastructure;
• Among the future priorities are IT specialists’ education and creating appealing market conditions (as approximately 18,000 industry newcomers are needed annually), in particular by encouraging immigration and speeding up the adoption of Big Data Analysis among companies.

The Ukrainian SMBs embarked on a comprehensive visit programme to the largest Swedish Information and Communications Technology (ICT) cluster, Kista Science City (KSC). KSC has some of the world’s largest companies as its members, among them Ericsson, IBM, and Intel. The KSC model—known as the Triple Helix Model—integrates the government, business, and academic sectors. On February 13, Ukrainian participants immersed themselves in the Swedish innovative environment within the KSC, having attended:

• Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions, focusing on achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the promotion of “people-centric technologies”;
• Gaming Lab aiming to strengthen Sweden’s position in game development;
• Stockholm Science & Innovation School (SSIS) that engages with the global business and academic community to develop educational plans aligned with current and future industry demands;
• Startup story of Xtactor; 
• Kista Mentor Space, bringing students and companies together for idea brainstorms and prototype development;
• Intel 5G Innovation Center (5GIC)—a 5G development and testing environment.

Perhaps the main focus of the trip was the two-day attendance of The Stockholm Fintech Week, wherein the delegation engaged with representatives of the Swedish IT ecosystem, its business community and investors.

Study tour to Sweden was organised by the IT Ukraine Association with Open Trade Gate Sweden in cooperation with Entrepreneurship and Export Promotion Office, national project Diia.Business with the support of the project “TIPSTER: Trade, Intellectual Property Support, and Technical Regulation”, which is implemented by the Non-Governmental Union “Foundation for Support of Reforms in Ukraine” with the financial support of the German government within the framework of the international cooperation project REACT4UA (“Utilization and Implementation of the Association agreement between the EU and Ukraine in the field of trade”), the executor of which is the German federal company Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.