On the morning of August 20, Mayor Otis Johnson of Savannah did something that’s not part of the routine of the office: he sat down for a long talk with the mayor of Vaxjo, Sweden. As we reported that day, it’s part of a new partnership between the towns to exchange business and technology. See our story: The Swedish Connection: Savannah, Vaxjo Trade Knowledge, Industry.

The idea is for local businesses to have a “landing pad” in Europe, and vice versa.

“In some ways, we decided we would just sort of shortcut the whole talking phase and the meeting phase and just jump straight to making things happen,” Chris Miller, executive director of the Creative Coast Initiative and one of the prime movers behind the concept, explained. “The meetings are great, and talking’s fine and very entertaining, but at the end of the day, it’s really about results. So we’ve jumped straight to the results phase and we’ve found it turns out you don’t really have to go through all the meetings and all the talking to make stuff happen.”

It’s the kind of thing Miller has been doing at the Creative Coast Initiative around Savannah for years. “When a new company comes in or an existing company is looking for a way to grow their business, my job is to sort of listen to what they need, what they think they need to be successful, then attach them, connect them to those resources,” he said.

And it turns out he has a counterpart in Vaxjo, Johann Gustafson. “This is what I like about working with Johann,” he said. “He’s sort of a no nonsense, straight-ahead guy and he really just wants to make stuff happen.”

So the two are melding their local business networks across the ocean. To that end, Miller accompanied a contingent of Savannah business leaders on a recent trip to Vaxjo and other cities across southern Sweden. The trip was about cutting out the middle man, and getting local business people directly in touch with their Swedish counterparts.

It seems to be working for local security firm Digitus Biometrics. The direct connection has resulted in several sales for the company, and even more leads.

Digitus’ Claude Galipeault admits he was skeptical at first, but when we caught up with him after his return from Sweden, he said the trip was the “best $3,000 or $4,000 investment Digitus has ever made.”

“It was awesome,” he said. “Everything was so well directed to our business, and the planning that went around this…the Swedish people were open armed, welcoming us. All kinds of activities. And we met only with CEOs of top companies while we were there, and we were able to do some pretty good business.”

Now, he’s ready to return the favor when a group of Swedish business people comes to Savannah in the fall. “I actually committed to the Swedish people that I would help whatever company came over to the United States establish themselves, get them some meetings just as they treated us,” Galipeault said.

The warm welcome on either end is key to the landing pad concept. As Miller explains it, all the connections between business and civic groups have been made, and people looking to do business in either country can take advantage of that.

“We’ve really already established the business relationships we need, we’ve created the conduit if you will that allows us to move the companies, and we’ve got the landing pads on either end that allow us to land those companies in a soft place,” he said. “That lowers the risk, lowers the cost and increases the opportunities for them.”

For Digitus, getting into Europe wouldn’t have been financially feasible without the landing pad. But he’s finding enthusiastic partners to distribute his security systems abroad.

“We’re hitting the European market in a big way and literally have no investment in that market, because people are willing to take the product and the technology throughout Europe,” Galipeault told us. “So it now becomes a management issue versus a capital issue.”

The transatlantic arrangement already seems to be working better than anticipated.

“I think it’s a surprise to everyone, not least of all us,” said Miller. “We thought, ‘Well, there’s this long, formal process you have to go through. And you have to work through the formal organizations and you have to do all these things.’ And it turns out, that when you establish a business-to-business connection directly, things happen much quicker.”

Miller’s job now is simply “to introduce the companies in Savannah to the companies in Sweden and just let them go. And Claude was living proof that when you do that, great things happen.”

And it’s to be hoped Digitus’ success story will soon be told from the Swedish perspective as well. The next group from Sweden is expected to visit Savannah in October. We’ll let you know what they think of the Hostess City and doing business here.

Reported by: Charles Gray, WTOC News cgray@wtoc.com

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