What has contributed most to your success as an entrepreneur?
“Almost every single day when I go to work, I enjoy it. As an owner, I have been able to entrust many tasks to very good people who have been with me for a long time – many for twenty to thirty years. We are like a family, and everyone is equal, which is important for our business. Having something you can trust and get advice from is also crucial: when you invest a lot of money in a new building, you cannot predict what the market will be like twelve months later. That is why I personally believe another reason for our success is God’s blessing.”
You always keep going, even at an older age. Why is it so important for businesses to keep moving forward?
“In my view, standing still and not growing means slowly fading away. I want everything to keep growing and I always have plans for how it should grow: with new markets, new products, new employees, and new technology. If we follow the same path as everyone else, we will achieve the same results as everyone else. But if we stay at the forefront and do things in a new way, that will be the future. Whoever has the smartest customer wins, and I would like to win.”
Do the Hammar Group and Valk Welding share a similar mindset?
“Yes, we both value delivering what we promise without promising too much, and we both specialise in a certain field. When we were looking for a sorting robot for steel plates, Valk Welding recognised that this was not their area of expertise, and that was the correct answer. Just like in the Olympics, by competing in ten different disciplines, you will not be the best in any of them. If you specialise, you can reach much better results. So instead of having many products and a small market, we both have a global market and are very specialised.”
