The door is closed for a reason: how a Swedish region buys new solutions
Region Värmland employees are not allowed to take sales pitch meetings when founders come knocking on the door. It is not a policy choice. It is the law. Founders heard this early on at our second Ask Me Anything, where four key people from the region answered their questions about how it buys new solutions.
In Sweden, public healthcare is run by 21 regions, and they buy under strict public procurement rules. For a healthtech startup, that makes a region an obvious customer and a difficult one to reach.
The purpose of this Ask Me Anything was to close the gap in understanding and expectations between the two sides. We wanted an open, unscripted conversation. The event was part of Health Data Sweden, a national network of 19 partners that supports innovative companies and the public sector, with a focus on health data. After an introduction and a short moderated Q&A to set the scene, founders put their own questions directly to the panel.
The panel consisted of Mari Banck (Innovation Advisor and Lead for Innovation Gateway Vivan), Jessica Clarenbach (Senior Procurement Officer), Ida Lundblad (Head of Sustainable Development) and Thomas Miliander (Head of Healthcare Customer Department at Region-IT). Tetiana Siianko Eriksson of DigitalWell Ventures moderated. All quotes are translated from Swedish.
Getting into a region is hard. The reasons are worth understanding.
Go through someone who can open the door
Jessica Clarenbach was direct about why the door is closed.
“You can’t walk up to a department, knock and say, ‘Hi, I want to sell my stuff.’ Region staff are not allowed to see you.”
That doesn’t mean the region won’t talk to companies. It just has to happen through the right channels. In Värmland, those include Innovation Gateway Vivan, DigitalWell Ventures, DigitalWell Arena and Almi, the state-owned business development agency. Vivan is run by the region itself and can step in early, at the idea stage. It takes ideas both from inside the region and from outside, checks whether there is a real need in the organization and routes them to the right people.
“The best way is to put together a short presentation of what it is and what it can solve, with names and contact details,” said Mari Banck. The region then works out who should get in touch with you. Her advice is to start small, ideally in a single department, and not to assume the region has to buy just because you reached out.
The needs are out in the open
Jessica Clarenbach pointed to e-Avrop, an open Swedish database of public contracts where anyone can create a free account. It shows which contracts regions and municipalities have and when they expire. The region also puts together a plan every year that shows where it intends to invest.
Talk about impact, not savings
“You have to create value without becoming a burden,” said Mari Banck.
She advises against building your pitch around how much money the region could save. That surprised one founder working on support for children with neurodevelopmental disorders. Plenty of startups use savings as their main selling point. So how should they frame it instead?
Describe how the work is done today and how it would look with your solution in place, Mari Banck answered. The difference between the two is the impact.
“Managers are usually more convinced when they can see [the impact] than when you present it purely in money. It turns into money in the end.”
Ida Lundblad added that the value should be described for each group of users, in this case the children, their parents and their teachers. “It’s not as if anyone will get angry because you describe something in money. But I think you should describe a bit more than that,” she said.
A pilot is a contract too
Even a pilot that costs nothing needs a contract. Jessica Clarenbach listed what it has to cover: who does what, where responsibility starts and ends, timeline, scope and money. It must also state what data will be handled and why.
If you want to expand to other regions, she recommends one pilot per region.
“No two regions are alike. No two sets of systems are alike.”
Thomas Miliander explained that pilot agreements have clear limits, such as two departments and up to 100 users. When the pilot ends, it ends. The company is then free to bid when the next tender comes around.
There is no standard template for what to measure, Jessica Clarenbach said. The needs have to be described and followed up every time.
Security requirements apply from day one
Another founder asked whether data security requirements are lower in a pilot than in a full procurement process. “The same requirements apply,” said Thomas Miliander. GDPR has to be followed, as does the EU AI Act where relevant.
His advice is to avoid US cloud services and choose European, preferably Swedish, hosting. Storing data in Sweden is not enough. It must not be processed outside the EU either.
Jessica Clarenbach has turned down vendors who offered the region free trials but would not meet its IT security requirements.
Security is not the only thing that gets checked. Region Värmland has dedicated staff who review requirements on social sustainability and accessibility. Others cover security and emergency preparedness. “It’s taxpayers’ money we’re handling,” Ida Lundblad pointed out.
The hardest part comes after the contract
Mari Banck described implementation as possibly the hardest step, as this is when staff need to adapt their ways of working.
Thomas Miliander gave an example. Video consultations rose sharply during the pandemic and then fell again, even after several years of use. “Introducing new ways of working usually takes several years,” he said.
Ida Lundblad recommends involving staff and other users as early as possible. People who have been part of tests and conversations see the value from the start. Thomas Miliander cautioned against approaching customers with a fully finished product.
“Once the product meets real-world conditions, it may require significant rework.”
Jessica Clarenbach sees procurement as part of the change itself. Training, communication and long-term management all have to be planned before a tender is published.
“Procurement is where change and development begin. If you don’t take the chance to change and develop, you are stuck with the old way for as long as the contract runs.”
She speaks from experience. In 2018, Region Värmland procured remote interpreting over Skype. At the time, she said, only one supplier in Sweden could deliver it. The departments thought she had lost her mind. Today it is routine.
You’re never done
Ida Lundblad admitted the region still has work to do on managing change.
“We’re not there yet. That’s why it’s fun to work at Region Värmland. You’re never done.”