Why work at Saab?
Saab is a company that offers a huge amount of choice and freedom to it’s employees. Michael, the man who showed us around the facility had worked there for over 20 years, eventually becoming manager of the live training division of the company.
He stayed at Saab this long primarily because of this liberty enjoyed by the people working there, employees have free reign of what Saab facility they work at, this could be any one of Saab’s many operations in Kenya, the United States or Slovenia, to name a few. For example, in 1998 Micheal was offered a job in Britain and Saab had no problem giving him a transfer. His ascension from an engineer repairing laser units to a very major figure in the company shows that people working in Saab are not held back from achieving their true potential, if you are skilled enough you will go very far.
Furthermore, working at Saab will offer great opportunities in the future as the company is entering a period of great success, shown by the lucrative contract they just won in Brazil. Not only will this bring in a lot of revenue for them, it will open up the South American market and open up a lot of opportunities for both the employees and the company itself. Finally, Saab seemed like an eminently positive working environment, the atmosphere was very relaxed and everybody was very friendly.
About
The Erasmus+ Project is an EU funded joint effort from Scottish, Swedish, German and Dutch students to bridge the gap between education and work by exploring the multitude of job opportunities available in Europe. On our visit to Sweden, seven of us visited the Husqvarna division of the Saab defence company. In order to share our findings we have set up this web page with all the information we could squeeze out of our guides at Saab.
Competitors
Job opportunities
Saab offers jobs in almost every kind of field of work. This is why it’s really interesting to think about working at Saab. During your studies you have the chance to do an internship at Saab. You mostly get to know the engineering and production parts of the company which mainly deals with training and simulation products and systems.
As a pupil you also have the opportunity to apply for a summer job during vacations. This job will show you different parts of Production/Engineering and you will learn about the newest technology. To work at Saab you need specific skills like working as a team, being open minded and communicative as well as a high English knowledge. When you are already working at Saab you have variegated possibilities, for example changing your location and job by accepting an open post.
Saab serves the global market with world-leading products, services and solutions from military defence to civil security. With products designed for customers on every continent, Saab continuously develops, adapts and improves their products to fulfil the needs of the different customers worldwide.
Saab’s main products are fighter jets, military aircraft and systems, as well as Radars. Its most important markets today are Europe, South Africa, Australia and the US. Saab has around 14,000 employees worldwide. Saab’s revenue in 2012 was around 24 billion euro. Because Saab has offices and production facilities all over the world, there is a huge diversity in the nationality of the people who work there. There are employees from 60 different countries. People at Saab have their origin in 60 different countries.
Saab exists since 1938. They started with building aircrafts, also military ones. After WWII Saab started producing cars for normal use, while still producing military aircrafts. Saab stopped working with cars when the company sold Saab Automobile AB to General Motors back in year 2000. Today it still produces military defence products for a worldwide market.
At the Saab in Husqvarna the focus is on the Training and Simulation part of the company. This is a subpart of the Dynamics Business Area of Saab. Here they produce military and security training systems. Their product family is divided into 4 sections.
Firstly, live training. These are detectors on soldiers connected to simulator systems which can easily assess soldiers skill and tactical behavior. This means that soldiers can receive constructive feedback improving their performance.
Secondly, live fire-training. For over 40 years Saab has been a leader in this due to their innovation when designing pop up targets to help train soldiers for target and urban training.
The newest type of product is only approx. 10 years old in Saab, virtual training. Similar to video games this training puts a soldier into a situation dependent on their decisions. This means soldiers improve their decision making skills and their response under pressure.
The final type of product offered at Saab is training services. This provides people to aid in running the training simulations and showing not only how to improve the training but also how the soldiers can improve.
In all of these subcategories Saab is successful in meeting the customer’s needs and keeping the technology update even with the 15 year durability requirement.
Saab is always improving as an organization through fierce competition with other weapons manufacturers. These competitors include the US based Cubic Corporation and the Thales Group from France. Their main advantage over Saab is how cheaply they can make their products using poorly paid labour in countries like India and China, and specific to Cubic, they can take advantage of United States law that prohibits the US military from purchasing equipment from organisations with no presence in the US. However Saab uses a more realistic laser technique on their guns which helps put them ahead of their competitors.
Saab has a division there but are at a significant disadvantage to Cubic who have had sixty years of operating primarily in the States. The threat of these companies means Saab is constantly updating and improving their products to win contracts all over the world, for example the contract they very recently obtained in Brazil.
Saab has many competitors. Here are a few:
Boeing. Boeing is the world's largest aerospace company and leading manufacturer of commercial airplanes and defence, space and security systems. Employees: 92,240. Estimated revenue: 90.8 billion
Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin Corporation is a global security company specialized in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration, and sustainability of advanced technology systems and products. Employees: 112,000. Estimated revenue: 45.6 billion.
Northrop Grumman Corporation. Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) is a leading global security company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding and technical services to governments and commercial customers worldwide. Employees: 64,300. Estimated revenue: 24 billion
BAE Systems. BAE Systems, Inc. specializes in the design, development, manufacture, and support of defence and aerospace systems used in the air, on land, at sea, and in space. Employees: 36,080. Estimated revenue: 23.4 billion.
Saab has the fewest employees of all these companies, but has about the same revenue as Northrop Grumman Corporation and BAE Systems.