SACC-USA’s new online Swedish-American Business Directory contains 1,500 companies. The idea of creating an online directory of companies specializing in helping Swedish companies do business in the U.S. has been around for a few years, but it was less than a year ago that the project got started. And now it is done.
Bertil Fredstrom, Chairman, SACC Texas.
“The new online service will help SACC-USA’s members to gain visibility and make it easier for Swedish and American companies to find out about each other and get in touch,” says SACC-USA’s Vice President of Communications Bertil Fredstrom. For the job he recruited Jakob Wallsten, a SACC-USA trainee who recently earned a Masters of Science from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden. It was thanks to SACC-USA’s Trainee Program that Jakob could get his J1Visa, and move over to the U.S. last August.
The budget for the project – this was in the middle of the global financial crisis after all – was almost nil, but he found a way around that problem by engaging a programmer in Estonia that wrote the code, and a systems designer in Canada that helped give feedback during the development process, and ensure that the system would match SACC-USA current standards.
The online directory was developed by a virtual team with Jakob Wallsten in San Francisco, sometimes sharing office space with SACC San Francisco, Bertil Fredström in Austin, TX, and SACC-USA’s President Gunilla Girardo at headquarters in Alexandria, VA. Once the project was under way, it took only four months to finish, and the result can be found at www.saccdirectory.org. The site went live in December 2009.
The initial feedback from users has been positive. “When I need to know something about a particular industry, I can search the online directory and find a friendly business that I can ask. I tried it out this morning when I needed a contact in the mining industry and it worked just fine,” said an early adopter in Chicago, IL.
“Thank you for compiling and providing this directory. Nice and clean without a bunch of ads, banners, or flash-ware,” another early user in the field of manufacturing wrote.
Johan Vestermark
Johan Vestermark, a SACC-USA trainee based in Austin, TX is now in charge of the marketing effort for the new online business directory. “It is easy to see why SACC-USA members in America can benefit from using the directory,” he says.
But what’s the benefit for companies in Sweden?
“The U.S. market is so large and complex that it is often hard for foreign companies to grasp it, and many are afraid of navigating it. But if they use the new directory, they can get in touch with other Swedish companies who have been through the same thing, and they may be willing to share there experience. They can also search for potential U.S. partners, whether it is distributors, agents, marketers, lawyers, consultants etc.,” he says.
The online directory is designed to be easy to use. You can search for a business area or geographical region, or a combination of the two. The result will be a list of all companies matching your criteria, and if you select one you will find a short description of the company, and a link to the company’s website.
Best of all. It’s free!
