That Denmark has one of the world’s highest tax burdens, shortest working weeks and most generous annual holiday entitlements are widely accepted facts. Other unusual features, including the exceptionally high degree of unionisation and the obligatory inclusion of employees on company boards, are well known outside a country that is also renowned for its lack of natural resources and its inhospitable climate.

However, the fact that Denmark is an extremely competitive industrial nation that has spawned a host of the world’s leading companies, is frequently overlooked.

This book tells the secret story of Denmark and a selection of its world-leading companies.

As someone who has lived and worked outside my home country for more than 40 years, I’ve often found myself asked questions about Denmark as an industrial nation. “Do you produce and export anything other than butter and bacon?” is a typical fi rst question, and a comment such as “aren’t most Danes farmers?” is another classic remark.

Even after all these years (and my frequent efforts to enlighten the world at large!), I am still surprised by the general lack of knowledge about Danish companies and Denmark’s role as an industrial nation.

When I have discussions abroad about the Danish business environment, I often start by asking my non- Danish colleagues whether they know any Danish companies. In most cases, these foreign colleagues need a lot of nudging to get to names such as Mærsk, Bang & Olufsen, Carlsberg and Lego. By any measure, Mærsk is a world leading company and is in a class all of its own in Denmark. Bang & Olufsen, Carlsberg and Lego are known because of their strong brands rather than because of their size.

Thus, my conversations abroad about Denmark as an industrial nation invariably follow the same pattern but it is not without a sense of pride that I point out that there are hundreds of small and medium sized Danish companies that are number one, two or three globally in their particular niches.

I often mention examples such as Vestas with 28 per cent of the world market for wind turbines and Oticon, Widex and GN Resound, three of the world’s six largest manufacturers of hearing aids. People are genuinely very surprised when I talk with great enthusiasm about these and other Danish front runners. Even well travelled business people have little idea of Denmark’s position as a very competitive industrial nation with hundreds of small and medium sized companies that are world leaders.

In 2000, I became one of about 80 Goodwill Ambassadors for Copenhagen. This was a great opportunity for me to talk even more about Denmark as a highly competitive industrial nation. It is our task to help promote Denmark as an attractive place to do business.

In the course of this work, I have found that I need to know much more about the subject to be able to better answer the questions I’m asked. With this in mind, I put a team together, which, supported by a great network of people, organisations and companies, set out to write this book about the country and the many fascinating companies that represent industrial Denmark so well in today’s global world.

The book does not pretend to be academic. It is an anthology of stories and of different viewpoints. Our ambition has been to tell the story about Industrial Denmark in a manner that is both insightful and enjoyable to read. We wanted to document how Denmark’s blend of entrepreneurship, dedication and education has helped it beat the odds and become a leader in many fields.

The book has been written by people who have a profound collective knowledge of our subject matter. It is the result of typical Danish teamwork with individual footprints from all of the team members. I believe that the many individual footprints make the book more valuable. We have not dictated very strict guidance to our contributors. We let them give their own views and then just weeded out unnecessary overlaps and ensured a measure of stylistic coherence.

The book is structured around two main features: a selection of introductory or explanatory articles by invited experts, interspersed with a collection of stories about individual companies. The latter are not meant to be comprehensive and fact-fi lled studies of an individual company or its industry. Rather, they are brief narratives, designed to give a fl avour of the companies concerned, with some stories focusing on historical origins and others scanning recent big developments.

As the book took shape, the sheer number of quality companies that merited inclusion amazed the team. Unfortunately, the constraints of space made for a lot of tough choices – who was in and who was out. Within the team, there was much discussion for and against particular choices but in the end – in true Danish fashion – we arrived at a consensus. We know our final selection won’t suit everybody but we hope that all readers will agree that the exercise was well worth undertaking.

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