President and CEO, HMS Networks
Staffan Dahlström på Guldmorgon i Halmstad!
Staffan Dahlström, VD för HMS Networks, pratade denna Guldmorgon kring att man som företagare tar tillfället i akt och samarbetar med t ex utbildningar på Högskolan så att man tidigt kan illustrera för studenterna vad deras utbildning kan komma att gå ut på när de kommer ut på arbetsmarknaden, att de tidigt förstår passionen för det de utbildar sig till och sedan kan jobba med!
Därför uppmanar han också att man inte ser detta som en kortsiktig satsning som företagare utan att man jobbar långsiktigt med dessa frågor så att man en dag kan få studenter med rätt kompetens som söker sig till f...
About Staffan Dahlström
Staffan Dahlström, President and CEO of HMS Networks, discussed the company's Q2 2026 results during an earnings call on July 14, 2026. He reported net sales of 991 million SEK, with an organic growth of 12% and total growth of 18% including M&A and currency effects. Dahlström noted that while net sales approached 1 billion SEK, the company expects to reach that level in coming quarters. He also mentioned an increase in R&D investments and organizational strengthening, and stated that the Q2 run rate for operating expenses is likely representative for the second half of the year. Additionally, he highlighted a positive EBITDA impact of 6 million SEK from the divestment of Peak France’s sales entity. Dahlström said that the company is seeing growth driven by data center expansion, as customers are involved in "power, cooling, automation, and all other things" related to these facilities. He also addressed supply chain challenges, stating that while some price increases and longer lead times for components like memories have been offset by inventories so far, the company expects a potential margin pressure in the second half of the year due to dependence on new deliveries and incoming price increases.
Transcript (11 segments)
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Interviewer0:00
Eh, and then you might wonder, what challenges do they have? And that is Staffan Dahlström from HMS Networks. A round of applause! HMS is easy to throw around this expression, but but what is it you actually do for those who don't know?
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Staffan Dahlström0:16
We make industrial electronics, industrial communication that connects robots and similar on the factory floor and makes the production process work efficiently. So roughly like data communication but in a factory environment.
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Interviewer0:30
I see. Eh, no, what... no, but it it is really high-tech and it is quite unique today that we have such companies that are so new as well. That's fantastic. And then you might think, how in the world do you work to find the right staff? Eh, how many employees do you have?
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Staffan Dahlström0:48
Today we have 252, I think. And where are they? Yes, we have 180 here in Halmstad, then we have 10 subsidiaries around the world, from China, Japan, the USA, so we have about 75 in other countries. Quite an international environment and maybe 25 different nationalities work with us today, so a very mixed culture in the company. A challenge? I feel? No, no, opportunity. Yes, it is, it is an opportunity to have a challenge, I think.
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Interviewer1:18
But why do you engage in these issues with the school? How do you think about that?
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Staffan Dahlström1:27
It's a long history. Almost everyone who works with us has a university education, and from the beginning, I and many of us others felt when we were in our education, it was very far from the business world, and we like electronics and software. But what should we work with? What does it really look like? So over many years, we have always invited new students from the university. Look, what do we do? We are looking for people who are system architects, a Java programmer, global key account manager. What the heck does that mean? So we go to these students, show what we work with, so that they feel: Wow, this is exciting, how fun! I will work for three years with my education because I want to work with these things later. So I think we can illustrate the work tasks and get some passion in this very early in the education so that they feel this will be fun. And then of course we want these students to get to know us and our ambition, to be able to hire them three, four, or maybe 15 years later when they have worked elsewhere. But we work quite long-term, driving the passion for electronics and technology. And we have seen that this has been very successful over many years. We hired 47 people last year, almost all of them in...
Engineering company jobs, that eh, the excitement of technology and the passion for being able to invent new things, so there is quite a lot to do there, and there I see that many of us in the business world are quite short-sighted. We want to get ten candidates to choose from, we don't engage as much to get these ten candidates. What is the job we do? Three years earlier or five years earlier. And therefore I think today it's important that we understand that we must engage long-term in helping with education and bridging these different gaps that exist in education and business. We have a common ambition with this going forward. This is something we must do together.
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Interviewer3:42
We have from both of you, and you have also invested in very young ages in a very exciting project that you call HMS Junior Academy, is that right?
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Staffan Dahlström3:52
Yes, eh and what is that? What I try to do is that we work a lot with the university but think that there is too little application pressure on the technology lines. Today it is quite low, and we realized that we must work long-term. So today we do yearly, eh, training or inspiration training can be said for children. Earlier we had five-six years, six-seven years of age and now we go up to 10 years of age where we invite eh young people or children who get to work with technology electronics over a number of weekends at our place in our environment to inspire. A little here was exciting: building a little wind turbine or electric car or something like that, so that they get at an early age an inspiration to continue working with mathematics, technology, it is actually quite exciting.
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Interviewer4:48
Then I think, now you are very technology-focused and also Komtek is technology-focused because you want to lift this, but there are many other industries that are large and growing like crazy. How should they then approach the school? And are there any concrete tips and advice that you think you could give to other companies that don't really know how to go about it?
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Staffan Dahlström5:13
I think that what we have worked a lot with is primarily the university, the university students. I think there are a lot of companies here that maybe are small companies, but if you can take in a thesis project that can study something in your company and work more closely with the university, it is incredibly inspiring, many new ideas but also many new methods you can bring into your companies. Sometimes it feels like, yes, this with university students, you yourself may not have that background, but do not be afraid to invite the university and contact them and work closely with them in, for example, a thesis project. That can we... exciting what can...