The scaling gap
Waiting for Wind
How do we build companies that dare to challenge the established?
Norway and Europe have capital, expertise and good ideas, yet build fewer companies at global scale than their resources would suggest. This session explores the gap between the conditions we have and the results we create.
We want to understand what founders, owners, investors, boards and leaders do differently in countries and communities that are better at scaling: how capital is managed, how risk is assessed, how long owners are willing to wait for results, and the role culture and ambition play.
At the same time, the session is action-oriented: what can Norwegian business itself do differently to build bigger companies, back more radical ideas and accept that more attempts fail – without waiting for politics to solve the problem?
Questions we explore
- Why does Norway build fewer companies at global scale than the countries we naturally compare ourselves with?
- Is the scaling gap first and foremost a question of capital, talent, incentives, ownership or culture?
- What do long-term owners in other markets do differently from Norwegian owners?
- Why do we so often choose the safe over the big? And what is the real risk of going for it?
- How do you build organizations and cultures that can tolerate ambitious projects failing?
- How active should the state be in setting direction and mobilizing investment?
- What can founders, owners, boards and business leaders themselves do differently, starting today?