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Organisations must understand and manage risk and seek an appropriate balance between risk and opportunities.
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As organisations become increasingly dependent on digital technology, the opportunities for cyber criminals continue to grow.
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We can formulate solutions to keep you ahead of disruptive change.
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Our valuation specialists blend technical expertise with a pragmatic outlook to deliver support during transactions, restructuring and disputes.
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Helping you with successful growth deals throughout your business life cycle.
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Workable solutions to maximise your value and deliver sustainable recovery.
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Strategic growth decision making. Globalisation and company growth ambitions are driving an increase in M&A activity worldwide.
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Rapid and customised approach to investigations and dispute resolution.
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Our member firm IFRS advisers can help you navigate the complexity of the Standards so you can focus your time and effort on running your business.
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A key component of our global strategy is to promote the delivery of consistent, high quality client service worldwide.
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We apply our global audit methodology through an integrated set of software tools known as the Voyager suite.
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Growing businesses need strong tax management to meet current and future tax liabilities and we can help you achieve this, whatever challenges you face.
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We have the insight and agility to create the strategies you need to respond quickly to ever-changing tax laws.
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Global mobility services
In a globalised world, businesses must work seamlessly across borders. Organisations operate in multiple countries and view international expansion as a strategic objective.
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With more goods and services crossing national borders than ever before, you may be facing indirect tax obligations in many countries – even those where your customer is located.
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As organisations grow, back office processes and meeting reporting requirements across multiple jurisdictions can become a distraction. We remove the burden of back office operations and worries about compliance to enable you to focus on growth.
Sweden is open for business
15 Jan 2014How a sound business operating environment supports growth
Sweden is an open, trade-oriented economy with a strong emphasis on supporting enterprise. It is therefore perhaps unsurprising, if still pleasing, to find the economy ranked third for the dynamism of our business operating environment in the Grant Thornton Global Dynamism Index (GDI) 2013. We are behind only Ireland and Canada on this measure in the 60-economy study.
So why is a sound operating environment so important to growing businesses? And what is Sweden doing so well in this area?
A strong operating environment offers key safeguards and security to business leaders. But the weaker the operating environment, the higher the risk of a particular investment. Take the expropriation of YPF from Spanish company Repsol by the Argentinian Government last year. Repsol have still to be compensated, even though Chevron agreed a deal earlier this year to move in and invest. The case highlights the difficulties businesses can face when investing in different jurisdictions. Perhaps tellingly, Spain ranks 21 for the dynamism of its business operating environment, with Argentina down at 55.
Sweden performs well across this category, not ranking outside the top ten for any of the four indicators. The economy ranks second globally for both political stability – only Switzerland is ranked higher – and legal and regulatory risk. This speaks to the stability of the economic and political environment and the transparency which permeates local business operating frameworks.
In terms of policy towards private enterprise and competition, we rank tenth, level with Hong Kong, Switzerland and Singapore. We also rank tenth for our foreign trade and exchange regime, ahead of all our Nordic neighbours. This reinforces the point that Sweden is open to foreign investment. Domestic legislation applies to foreign-owned businesses and there are no restrictions on non-Swedish operations or ownership.
Elsewhere in the GDI, Sweden ranks fourth for science & technology, behind just South Korea, Israel and Finland. This is driven by high levels of R&D (3.4% of GDP) which befits a knowledge-intensive economy which has brought companies such as Skype and Spotify to the world in recent years. Despite lower rankings in the other categories, this supports us to an overall ranking of ninth, just ahead of Norway.
The message from the GDI is clear: Sweden is open for business.
Peter Bodin is Managing partner of Grant Thornton Sweden.