Macro impact on Nordic procurement strategies

14–15 October 2026 Hotel Birger Jarl, Stockholm
The 23rd EBG | Network summit

Foreign direct investment into Europe rose 38 per cent in 2025. Export sentiment towards Asia dropped 15 points in a single quarter of 2026. And Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden are not moving on the same clock. A pre-summit read on the data behind Lena Sellgren’s opening keynote at CPO Outlook 2026.

A CPO Outlook 2026 discussion piece · EBG | Network

Procurement functions live at the point where the world outside meets the business inside. That is a familiar sentence — the more interesting question is what the world outside actually looks like right now, and what parts of it are worth building into next year’s planning cycle.

Two recent releases from Business Sweden — Sweden’s export and investment agency — offer a useful starting point. The annual analysis of foreign direct investment (FDI) was published on 21 August 2026 and covers full-year 2025 flows. The Export Managers’ Index for the third quarter of 2026 landed the same month. Both are authored by Business Sweden’s Chief Economist, Lena Sellgren, who opens CPO Outlook 2026 on 14 October.

A note on timing before the numbers. FDI is a slow-moving statistic — full-year 2025 figures are the most recent set that can be reported with any completeness, and they arrive in the autumn following the year they describe. The Export Managers’ Index is quarterly and captures what companies now expect for the months ahead, which is why the two releases are useful to read alongside each other. Events that have shaped 2026 — the Middle East conflict that intensified early in the year, energy price volatility, continued shifts in US trade policy — sit in the Q3 2026 index rather than the 2025 FDI numbers, and where they show up they are called out below.

Where the money went in 2025 — and where it did not

Global FDI rose 6 per cent in 2025 to USD 1,624 billion, according to Business Sweden’s analysis drawing on UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2026 and Statistics Sweden (SCB). Almost the entire lift came from Europe. FDI into Europe grew 38 per cent to USD 296 billion, while both Asia and North America edged down 1 per cent. Sweden alone attracted SEK 287 billion — up 37 per cent, its highest inbound level since 2022, and third in Europe behind the United Kingdom and Germany.

Two details are worth pausing on. The first is the American position. Business Sweden’s press release states plainly that “US companies are the largest investor group, representing 24 per cent of total assets” once foreign-held direct investment stock in Sweden is calculated by ultimate controlling owner rather than by the first counterparty country. Under the “first counterparty country” method, US ownership is reported at 9 per cent. The methodological difference — and the underlying data — is set out by Statistics Sweden. For a procurement organisation building a view of who its ultimate counterparts really are, the corrected figure is worth having.

The second is China’s shift. Mainland China’s inbound FDI fell 10 per cent in 2025 to USD 105 billion, and according to UNCTAD’s data — the underlying source Business Sweden draws on — Singapore took the top spot in Asia for the first time since the 1990s. Business Sweden’s own commentary on the shifting pattern is captured in a quote from Lena Sellgren in the press release: “Companies continue to adapt their value chains, locate production closer to strategic markets and prioritise investments that strengthen resilience and competitiveness.”

Exports are steady overall — but Asia is not

The other side of the picture arrived in August 2026. Business Sweden’s Export Managers’ Index — a quarterly survey of around 225 Swedish export companies conducted by Statistics Sweden — landed at 56.1 for the third quarter of 2026. The index is a diffusion measure: readings above 50 signal that more export companies expect improvement than deterioration, and readings below 50 signal the opposite. Q3 2026’s 56.1 is above the historical average of 55.4 (2007–2026) and comfortably in the “more optimism than pessimism” zone.

Beneath the headline, one regional shift stands out.

A single-quarter drop of that size is unusual, and Business Sweden itself flags it as the most unexpected finding of the third-quarter survey. Whether it turns out to be a turning point or noise will only become clear across the next two or three readings. The report is careful not to draw firmer conclusions than the data supports, and this piece will do the same.

The corresponding move on the other side of the map is easier to overlook. Expected demand from the Middle East, Türkiye and Africa recovered by 20 points from Q2 to Q3, landing at 50.2 — barely above the 50-line but a marked improvement from the previous quarter. That is consistent with the FDI numbers: the Middle East grew inbound investment by 29 per cent in 2025.

Norden is not moving as one country

A Nordic room needs a Nordic picture, and this is where the standard summary starts to fray. The four countries are moving on different clocks in 2026.

Denmark: a record year on outbound investment

Danish outward direct investment reached DKK 244 billion in 2025 — the highest ever recorded — according to Danmarks Nationalbank. The number was driven by a small set of very large cross-border acquisitions: DSV’s DKK 107 billion purchase of DB Schenker, Genmab’s acquisition of Merus, Carlsberg’s of Britvic, and Novo Nordisk’s of Akero Therapeutics. On the inbound side, Denmark was the leading Nordic recipient of foreign investment projects across 2023–2025, with 367 projects tracked in the fDi Markets database — ahead of Finland (308), Sweden (299) and Norway (146).

Finland and Norway: different reasons for caution

Finland’s outlook is more subdued. The Bank of Finland’s June 2026 forecast puts economic growth at 0.7 per cent in 2026, rising to 1.4 per cent by 2028. The forecast notes that “geopolitics and trade policy tensions will nevertheless curtail demand for some time to come.” The IMF’s 2026 Article IV consultation on Finland flags a related point: Finnish exporters are deeply integrated into European value chains, particularly through Germany and Sweden, which is both a strength and a transmission mechanism when European demand softens.

Norway’s near-term outlook is shaped by external volatility. Norges Bank’s Monetary Policy Report 2/2026 puts weight on the Middle East conflict, energy price fluctuations following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and disruption to maritime transport. The OECD’s 2026 Norway Survey adds a structural observation: “Trade costs remain considerably higher in Norway than the OECD average and exposure to countries without free-trade agreements has increased on both the import and export sides.”

A procurement organisation with operations, suppliers or customers spread across all four countries is now working across four different macro pictures. That is not a strategy prescription — it is an observation. What follows from it belongs inside each function’s own planning discussion, not in an article.

Three questions the data raises for procurement

None of the numbers above tell a procurement leader what to buy, from whom, or on what terms. That is not what macro data does. What they do offer is a set of signals that arguably belong one layer up from the sourcing decision — in the conversations about where the business is going.

Is procurement in the room when the investment decision is made?

FDI flows and foreign investment projects are decisions about where products will be made, where offices will open, where customers will be five years out. Once a factory location is signed off, a market entry is decided, or an acquisition is closed, the supplier landscape is already partly determined. That is not new — the question is whether the timing of procurement’s involvement has moved with it.

How exposed is our business to the Asian sub-index drop — directly and through our customers?

A 15-point single-quarter drop in expected demand from Asia is a signal worth taking seriously — not only for organisations that sell into Asia directly, but for those whose European or global customers do. A softening Asian order book upstream reaches suppliers with a lag. Whether that lag is a quarter or a year depends on the sector, but it belongs in the forecasting conversation now rather than after the effect lands.

Which country-level differences are we currently treating as noise?

The four Nordic economies are moving on different clocks in 2026. Sweden is pulling in record foreign capital. Denmark is doing large outbound acquisitions. Finland’s growth is capped at under one per cent. Norway carries structurally higher trade costs than the OECD average. For a procurement function with operations, suppliers, customers or plants in any of these countries, the country-level differences are real and increasingly worth naming — in cost forecasts, in supplier due diligence, in scenario planning.

The keynote is deliberately the first session of the summit. What follows over the two days — practitioner peer labs, sponsor-hosted theme discussions, the inaugural Nordic CPO of the Year Award, and a Day 2 working session on AI and competence development — sits inside the world the keynote describes. The macro reading and the procurement conversation are in the same room because, increasingly, they are in the same job description.

What comes next

Business Sweden’s next major release — the annual Global Economic Outlook — is expected in the weeks before the summit. It will add another data point to the picture, particularly on the growth trajectories of Nordic trading partners and the assumptions worth building into 2027 planning. A separate discussion piece will follow.

What sits under all of it is a simple observation. The macro picture and the sourcing job are closer to each other than they used to be. The picture doesn’t decide the job — but it does change the questions worth asking before the job starts. October is one of the few occasions in the calendar where the picture, the peers and the questions are in the same room for two days.

CPO Outlook 2026 · 14–15 October · Hotel Birger Jarl, Stockholm
Since 2010 — Nordic procurement leaders learning from each other.