A growing gaming industry and the green transformation of society have increased the pressure on Boden Business Park. Three new staff members have been hired to meet the developments taking place.
– Like the rest of Boden, we are gearing up to meet the positive challenges posed by the social transition,” says CEO Thomas Fägerman.

As a result of the reorganisation of Boden’s administrative structure, the two business strategists Michaela Strömberg and Jörgen Nordqvist moved from the municipal management administration to Boden Business Park in January 2021. It was a strategic gathering of forces where synergies and new opportunities were seen in the continued development work with Boden’s business community. And the development of Boden Business Park and the business community in the municipality of Boden has continued, resulting in three additional employees in the municipal company since then.

Ground Game Camp is Boden Business Park’s ecosystem for the gaming industry. There are currently around 300 students here. As the number of students increased, the need for a community manager became apparent. A person who can create the landing site and help students become part of Boden. It’s about everything from first impressions to the first rounders tournament during the training, to becoming part of the Boden Game Club and becoming good ambassadors for Boden.

Selma Knutsson has previously worked partly as a communicator in the game cluster Arctic Game and in 2021 moved to work full-time with community-building and communication at Boden Game Camp. This coincided with the construction of the Boden Game Club in one of the buildings at Boden Business Park, where students and game studios have moved together in common premises.

– Our mission is to attract and retain young talent in Boden. It’s about creating a ladder of development for the young person who wants to climb, making it interesting enough to want to continue while enjoying the journey. It’s challenging, but great fun. It’s a whole journey we get to follow with 300 different individuals,” says Selma Knutsson.

Boden Business Park as a place has gone from a handful of companies to over 60 tenants. From 50 to 500 people staying in the premises on a daily basis and the development does not stop there.

Therefore, there was a need for coworking and to create meeting places that are easy to get in and out of. The tenant should not be tied into long contracts, but be in a creative environment.

– We will assist in the development of more meeting places like Boden Business Park in the municipality and create more meeting places for talents and companies. In our analysis of the world around us, it’s not a gold watch,” says CEO Thomas Fägerman.

Ida-Marie Ek has been hired as a business developer at Boden Business Park and is one of those working to continue to develop the park into northern Sweden’s largest opportunity location.

– It should be nice to come here and everyone with an idea should feel – there is a place for me here. We’re constantly evolving, trying new things and trying to keep an “ear to the ground” to be responsive to what the business community wants and needs to keep growing.

Skills supply is one of the major challenges we face. This applies to both the existing local business community and the new businesses that are now establishing themselves in Boden. Here it is incredibly important for companies to retain and develop their existing employees, while at the same time attracting and recruiting new employees with the right skills to meet the demands of the future. This is something that the new business developer Magnus Sundling is working on.

Magnus also works with business development in general and the growth area of the hospitality industry. It is not about developing the place, but about working strategically and creating the conditions for a good development of tourism businesses in the municipality.

– In my role as a business developer, my job is to promote and contribute to the best conditions for local business. Everything from supporting those who are thinking of starting a business, to helping already established businesses to maintain, develop and perhaps expand their operations, to being helpful and welcoming to new businesses that want to establish themselves in Boden, says Magnus Sundling and continues:

– Then I personally am a bit passionate about skills supply and skills development and given the transition we are now in, the lack of the right kind of skills and to some extent a demand for a completely “new” kind of skills is perhaps the biggest challenge facing both existing local businesses and start-ups.