You lead a company that, among other things, exports part of its production to the USA. How does the current global situation affect your business now and in the long term?
First and foremost, everyone today is affected in one way or another by the war in Ukraine. In addition to the human suffering, the war also creates great uncertainty in the world economy. The price of steel has risen extremely in the past year, partly due to the war, but also sharply increased energy prices play a role. Despite our sharply increased electricity prices in Sweden, many countries have significantly higher prices than Sweden today. The big question is, of course, when will energy and commodity prices stabilize?
Nordic Flanges Group has the advantage of buying a large part of our raw materials (steel) in the Nordic region. This gives us short and reliable lead times for raw materials. The weak Swedish krona, in comparison with the Euro and USD, gives us great advantages in the export business today, especially from our Swedish factory in Örnsköldsvik. However, we primarily target segments in the international market where fast lead times, delivery reliability, technical know-how and very high quality are more important than price.

As CEO, how do you view the need for labor for your operations and what challenges do you see here to be competitive?
Finding competent and good labor has been difficult for a long time, both in Sweden and Finland. In order to retain competent labor, the employer must be a very good employer where the employee thrives and feels proud to be part of the business. In addition to that, we work a lot to streamline and invest in our production. Automation is a very important part of this. Partly, we need less labor as automation in the factories increases, and partly, it is easier to compete against, for example, Asian suppliers when the degree of automation increases in our production.

If you could look into the crystal ball and see how your industry has changed in 10 years - what major changes do you see will happen?
A number of important factors will play a role in the next 10 years. Two examples that are talked about are fossil-free steel and that we will, among other things, completely switch to electric cars. All this is really good, but then the energy supply must be solved first. As a short answer to your question, I think that the energy supply to industry and households will be a very important part of how the next 10 years will develop. The continued digitalization and 3D printing are two other important and very interesting parts that will grow enormously in the near future.