What is your background and role at Axelent?

I was born and bred in the countryside near Hillerstorp. You could say I’ve been fed mesh walls since birth because my father and uncle founded Troax, a company that makes the same sort of products as Axelent. Troax was eventually sold to an investment company and my family has not been involved with them since the late 1980s.

I’ve always had an interest in sales. While still in 10th grade I ran my own company through a Junior Achievement scheme. When I was nineteen I worked as a seller in a company that sold lampposts to road and energy authorities in Scandinavia and the Middle East.

A year later I founded Axelent together with three of my cousins. Two years later it became my fulltime occupation. The company has gradually progressed and, at the turn of 2000, the ownership changed when Johan Axelsson and I bought out the others. We brought in a third partner, Mats Hilding, as CEO. Back then the company was represented in ten countries and had annual sales of around SEK 53 million.

How do you establish on new markets and what is the focus going forward?

When we enter a new market, in eight out of ten cases we seek assistance from Business Sweden. They help us find good dealers / agents. In some countries we get help from their chamber of commerce and other interest organisations to find suitable partners.

It usually begins with a dealer or agent for a couple of years. In some cases, the partnership works so well that they eventually become a subsidiary. Today we own twelve sales companies abroad, in addition to which we have a couple of partnerships in France and Thailand. The decisive factor in establishing a subsidiary in a new country is the size of the market. There has to be sales grounds for it to be strategically viable.

Thus far Axelent has met the expansion goals and is expanding by one to three new countries a year. We are still very big in Scandinavia and Germany but are even growing rapidly in the USA and Asia. In some countries we have only scraped the surface.

In 2018 our focus will turn to Asian markets. In Thailand, for example, we are building what we hope will become a logistics hub for Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and, eventually, other countries in the ASEAN free trade area.

Also, in Hillerstorp we are expanding the business with a new logistics centre and an even more efficient order management system to ensure profitable flows and speedy deliveries to all corners of the earth. The aim is to leave all manufacturing in Sweden, but in the long term it might be necessary, for logistical reasons, to establish manufacturing in other countries as well.

What are the greatest challenges in establishing a Swedish company abroad?

Cultural differences and language barriers are naturally great challenges. Within the EU we often have the same ideas and want to move forward on the same path, a joint approach that is lacking in many other parts of the world. 

When you enter a new country, you do not know what is expected of you as a supplier either, or what you can demand of authorities and partners. In some countries there are moral aspects to consider also. For example, the labour they use, which can be a sensitive issue in Sweden. The security risks are often greater than in Sweden and could pose a challenge.

While there are many challenges in establishing abroad, one should also bear in mind that Sweden has an excellent international reputation. For Swedish companies, the way has been paved by the likes of Volvo, Scania, ABB and Ikea, who have been active on most markets around the world for many years. The Swedish Royal Family has also meant a great deal for the Sweden brand, not least in Asia. In many Asian countries there is a lot of interest in our Swedish royalty.