Success stories

We believe that Scotland is one of the best places in the world to do business, and its collection of many awards confirms that we’re not the only ones to think so.

Scotland’s exceptional business environment has been consistently recognised in recent years, and its awards help illustrate the benefits the country has to offer to investing companies.

Inward investment success  

Some of our latest success stories hitting the news headlines include: 

• Marine Harvest pursue net gains in Scotland
• Aker Solutions to boost its Aberdeen workforce by 500 employees over next two years
• US biotech firm, Life Technologies expands in Scotland
• Japan and Scotland partner on global energy
• Dutch wind energy firm joins forces with Scottish Enteprise
• Gamesa is to site its new UK plant in Edinburgh creating 800 renewables jobs
• GlaxoSmithKline to invest £100 million in Scotland
• Korean gaint Samsung chooses Scotland to base its first European offshore wind project
• Global IT firm, Atos to create 50 new jobs in Moray
• Swiss financial software firm, Avaloq opens development centre in Edinburgh creating 500 new jobs 
• Oil and gas firm FMC Technologies creates 240 engineering jobs in central Scotland
• Shed Media to expand their Scottish offices at The Hub, creating 230 jobs from script to screen  

Our awards and accolades

Scotland tops Europe for foreign direct investment according to the latest Ernst & Young 2011 UK Attractiveness Survey

In 2009 the World Bank rated Scottish Development International (SDI) sixth in the world for its work in attracting inward investors to Scotland in its most recent Global Investment Promotion Benchmarking report.

In June 2009 the Forbes Europe CEO Conference was held at Gleneagles, and the event was supported by SDI, VisitScotland, EventScotland and Homecoming. The prestigious event attracted over 150 leading CEOs from across Europe.

Over the last decade, Scotland has performed well in the Financial Times fDi (Foreign Direct Investment) magazine’s annual awards. It was named ‘European Region of the Future’, in 2008/09 and ‘Foreign Direct Investment UK Region of the Future’, in 2006/2007.

Edinburgh, Glasgow and Scotland as a whole have been identified as being in the top ten ‘Most Business Friendly’ cities or regions in Europe.

Our work in promoting inward investment and helping Scottish companies to compete in overseas markets hasn’t gone unnoticed either. We’ve been voted the ‘World's most consistently high performing agency’ by GDP Global Development. 

More information about our help to export and support for investment in Scotland