Peter Söderman took over as CEO of LKAB Wassara a year ago. Here you can read his thoughts about his work and the company.
Peter Söderman took over as CEO of LKAB Wassara in September, 2016. Below you can read a summary of the interview I did with Peter, where I asked him some mixed questions about how he looks at his work and on the future and potential of LKAB Wassara.
// Veronica Bäcker
Marketing and Communication assistant
Interview with Peter Söderman, CEO at LKAB Wassara
Time goes by quickly and I have now been CEO of LKAB Wassara for little over a year.
Over the years I have followed LKAB Wassara as a company but only now I understand the potential and complexity of our business. The company has a wide product range and, in principle, the whole world as its market area. I am impressed by the technical know-how, progress and innovations I see here.
LKAB Wassara's strength is that we have a very knowledgeable market organization, strong support from our drilling technology center (DTC), our own in-house R & D department and our own manufacturing. When considering our global market area, we are dependent on knowledgeable and committed partners, i.e. our distributors and suppliers. Without their knowledge of the local market and a well-developed network, we will not be able to grow within sales and service as we would like to.
As a company LKAB Wassara has several challenges ahead so as to take advantage of the potential of the market for our products. We are a small company that work on a global market. The fact that we have chosen to focus on the markets in the Nordic region and Europe, I think, has contributed to the positive development we have seen in the last six months. Increased market presence combined with technical support is important for reaching new customers. We must live up to what is expected of us as leading suppliers of water-powered drilling. Increased market presence is also necessary to meet a growing competition.
LKAB Wassara has the objective and potential to grow as a company both short-term and long-term. We have technical front edge products that contribute to sustainability in terms of environmental and energy efficiency. At the same time, our deliveries to major projects on the European scene have broadened the market for Wassara technology.
When I look a few years ahead I think, among other things, that our project ' The Future Drilling System' will be of importance to our growth as a company. The project develop controlled Coil-drilling, which will provide major opportunities for streamlining the mining process in the parent company mines. Another area we hope to be successful in the future is geo-energy drilling where we see that Wassara's technology has advantages. This, together with other business development projects, gives us more opportunities to develop and broaden our business.
To sum it up; what makes my work as CEO of LKAB Wassara interesting and fun are all the committed employees. To see the market grow and our finances get stronger faster than we could expect is of course also stimulating. Then we also have several new products on the way to market, which will be very interesting to follow.
I look with confidence to the future; together we will build a stronger Wassara!