But unlike the Danish, Dutch respondents were one of only four groups in the survey where a majority expected a fall in complexity over the next two years, the others being respondents from Russia, Ireland and Italy.
For the Irish and Italians, much complexity is caused now by the effects of recession. So as markets recover, they might expect complexity to reduce. Among the Dutch, however, recession was a current cause of complexity for only 11 percent. More important was regulation (chosen as a key cause of complexity by 64 percent), issues over information management (chosen by 58 percent), the difficulties of operating in more than one country (54 percent) and increased speed of innovation (50 percent).
This is a wide spread of causes, and it is interesting to look at how each of them contributes to Dutch expectations of future complexity, to see where the expected reduction will come from.
Looking ahead two years, regulation is expected to increase its influence, with the percentage citing it as a major cause of complexity rising from 64 to 70. But it will no longer be the largest single cause. That place is taken by the increasing speed of innovation, cited now by 50 percent, but as a future cause by 75 percent.
This places the Netherlands firmly alongside China, India, Brazil and Mexico in the expectation that innovation will be the key commercial driving force, and sets it apart from many of the European and North American economies where regulation is expected to lead.
Causes of complexity expected to fall in influence include information management, which drops slightly from 58 percent to 55 percent, and operating in more than one country, which falls from 54 percent to 40 percent. But the major reductions in anticipated complexity come in government oversight, which falls from 42 percent to 20 percent, and tax policy, which is cited as a cause of complexity now by 36 percent, but is expected to be a future cause by only 20 percent.
The idea of government oversight is close to that of regulation, so it is possible that some of the anticipated increase in the effect of regulation is down to some of the more informal methods of oversight used today, becoming formalized as new laws tomorrow.
The reduction in concern over the effect of tax policy is more difficult to explain, but it could be down to confidence in the efforts currently being made by the Dutch tax authorities to adopt a non-confrontational, trust-based approach to tax which is being actively promoted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The most popular action among Dutch respondents to deal with the effects of complexity was working to improve information management. This leads the list of priorities now, chosen by 84 percent, and also for the future, chosen by 69 percent as a focus for the next two years.
Although 70 percent did see opportunities in complexity, particularly in terms of building competitive advantage, improving efficiency and finding new markets, a surprising 28 percent said there were no opportunities to be exploited. This places the Dutch in joint second place with the Swiss in their scepticism about the potential value of complexity. The most skeptical country is Germany, where 40 percent saw no benefits to be had.
The responses from the Netherlands to the survey show a certain optimism about future prospects. The complexity anticipated by an increase in regulation is more than offset by expected changes in tax policy, and increased speed of innovation seems to be viewed more as a source of opportunity rather than a problem. Most interesting of all, operating in more than one country is actually expected to become easier in future. For an internationally-minded, trading nation, that must be very good news indeed.
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