-Consid has come out of the pandemic strong. In 2020, we had a growth rate of 20.3 percent, while most other IT companies made a loss, or only saw minimal growth. Now we aim to become the biggest in Norway as well, says Peter Hellgren, CEO and founder of Consid.

Like many other areas, the IT industry was hit hard by the pandemic. Several large Nordic players showed negative figures, while others were bought out. Only a few grew organically in 2020. Consid's growth was over 20 percent and the company continues to expand. The first quarter of 2021 was the strongest so far, with a turnover of over SEK 380 million, an increase of just over 24 percent compared to the previous year. At the same time, roughly 130 new employees were hired, and Consid thus has 1,300 employees.

The relatively newly opened office in Karlstad has gone particularly well. Recently, it won a 70-million-euro agreement with the Swedish Tax Agency. The agreement provides approximately 15 new consulting positions in Karlstad.

The office in Karlstad opened in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic. At the time, the forecast was that the establishment would mean around 40 new jobs in Karlstad in the coming years. Now it is rather about a hundred employees that they expect to have within the next two years.

Among the Karlstad office's customers are several authorities and municipalities in the immediate area, including the municipalities of Grum and Kristinehamn. Some time ago they landed an agreement with Karlstad municipality worth SEK 10 million.

The Karlstad office's biggest challenge right now is to recruit the people with the right skills.

- In Sweden, we have a good mix of customers in both the public sector and the private business world. It's about half each. We are aiming for something similar in Norway. We have Sweden's most satisfied employees and an extremely low staff turnover. Our employees want to stay because we create a workplace with the right culture and philosophy, where every employee thrives and is encouraged to get involved and entrepreneurship. We want to repeat that in Norway, says Peter Hellgren, CEO of Consid.

The Norwegian expansion will be supported from the office in Karlstad. It is above all about being able to offer delivery capacity to Norway. It will generate an additional 10 jobs locally in Karlstad.

- Today we have developed partnerships with Compare and Scaaler IoT regarding the establishment issue, where we actively work together in several areas to strengthen ourselves between borders, which benefits Värmland in many ways, says Christoffer Nilsson, office manager in Karlstad.

The goal with the expansion in Norway is to have around a hundred employees within a year. The company already has over 50 customers in Norway. It mainly concerns larger companies in banking and finance, but also in IT and the food industry.

www.consid.no