Lannebo Fonder, Mawer Investment Management and Swedbank Robur Fonder have accepted Trisall AB’s (”Trisall”) public bid on HiQ International AB (”HiQ”) and are thereby no longer owners in HiQ. As a result of that they have together with the Chairman of the Board Gunnel Duveblad all decided to resign from the Nomination Committee of HiQ.

By request of Trisall, HiQ’s Board of Directors has also invited to an Extraordinary General Meeting to be held on 30 October 2020. Trisall has informed HiQ that Trisall will present a proposal of new Board members in HiQ on 20 October 2020, the latest.

HiQ wins framework agreement with the Municipalities of Skurup, Trelleborg and Ystad for innovation and organisational development services. HiQ was chosen as a supplier after a new approach to procurement that involved a week-long live-streamed innovation sprint. “We are very happy and proud about the agreement and at least as happy and proud about the journey that took us there. We have a lot of experience in building platforms for tangible innovation and having the opportunity to also do it in the procurement phase is really great,” says Magnus Gudéhn, interim Managing Director of HiQ Skåne.

All three municipalities wanted to increase their innovation capacity while streamlining and reducing costs for their efforts.

“We have long felt that we set the parameters entirely too early when selecting suppliers and systems, which hampers our ambition to create new digital solutions for our residents. So, we wanted to challenge both ourselves and the suppliers and try something new,” said Ulf Wedberg, Digitalisation Strategist at Ystad Municipality, one of the initiators of the collective procurement.

They chose to invite the suppliers to an innovation sprint instead of a traditional procurement process. They were invited, independent of each other, to hold an innovation sprint over the course of a week that was simultaneously live-streamed to the procurement team. The three sprints were run in parallel on a rotating schedule that helped the team get an overall picture so they could make a qualified assessment.

“We’ve never been involved in such an effective way of both managing a procurement and clearly being able to see that we prioritised correctly going forward,” says Wedberg.

The agreement was signed with three suppliers after the process was completed for three + two years and the procurement was also nominated as Innovative Procurement of the Year.

“Both the process and the result of the innovation sprint usually make for an aha moment, leading to faster, better and more precise solutions. This is one of HiQ’s core competencies and we are very glad that the municipalities have realised how powerful it is and taken the chance to challenge existing ways of doing things,” says Johannes Arnkvist, design manager at HiQ Skåne.

OR Technologies, part of the Fagerhult Group, chooses HiQ as its strategic partner for establishing a new centre of excellence and development in Linköping. The centre will continue to develop Organic Response, the company’s platform for smart lighting. “It’s very exciting to help Fagerhult Group and OR Technologies get established in Linköping and we look forward to helping develop smart solutions for the intelligent offices and buildings of the future,” says Patrik Holm, Managing Director at HiQ in Linköping.

The centre of excellence in Linköping is an important part of Fagerhult Group’s long-term ambition to offer world-class solutions for smart and sustainable lighting. The focus of the centre of excellence and the collaboration with HiQ is to further develop OR Technologies’ Organic Response platform – an integrated system for controlling and monitoring the smart lighting solutions of the future. The system uses distributed intelligence to control lighting in a climate-smart manner based on physical presence.

HiQ will support the company during the establishment phase to ensure a fast and successful start. That means delivering both strategic guidance and expertise in areas like project management, system and software development, IoT and systems integration.

“Fast-paced development is crucial to taking advantage of the opportunities presented by smart lighting control solutions. With HiQ as a partner, we’ll get a head start and quickly gear up our operations in Linköping. With their previous start-up record and experience with IoT, I’m convinced that it will be a success”, says Dean Campbell-Smith at OR Technologies.

“Fagerhult Group is a leader in smart lighting and with us as a partner, I’m sure we’ll consolidate their position. I’m really looking forward to this collaboration, which will also expand our experience in PropTech and smart buildings,” says Patrik Holm, MD of HiQ in Linköping.

Fagerhult Group is one of Europe’s leading lighting businesses with 4,700 employees in 28 countries. The company has 13 strong brands that all provide high-quality, professional lighting solutions for a variety of uses.

OR Technologies is a company in the Fagerhult Group. Since 2011, it has focussed on creating lighting control systems based on user friendliness and ease of installation. The company’s products and Organic Response platform come with lighting solutions from the Group’s various brands.

HiQ is chosen to support St1’s mobile applications in all Nordic countries. St1 offers its customers comprehensive mobile services through mobile applications, incl. mobile payment, mobile refueling, country-specific loyalty benefits and credit card services including ApplePay. “St1 is an important partner for us and I’m really proud that we can expand our collaboration further", says Lars Stugemo, CEO and President of HiQ.

St1 invests in digitalization and mobile services. Reliable operation of production applications enables high-quality customer experience. It allows St1 to focus their resources to development of new services.

In addition to daily operations, HiQ’s mobile support provides extensive proactive support. HiQ proactively keeps track of the changes in operating system versions. When updates are released, tests are run, and possible problems fixed. Mobile support also provides tailored view into mobile market with applications review tracking and comparison. The mobile application market moves fast with almost 20 new operating system versions released yearly.

“We want to provide our customers stable and evolving applications. HiQ’s services takes care of production operations and keeps track of the mobile platforms for us. This allows our own personnel to focus on the design and development of new services”, says Linda Pihl, Head of Digital, St1 Nordic.

Evolving support services
HiQ support services takes care of more than a hundred customers’ digital investments. The improved support packages combine control over production with continuous development of services. Tailored support with solution specific features provides holistic view over the service lifecycle.

“Maintenance and continuous improvement are an integral part of value we provide. We are proud that our partnership with St1 will deepen into mobile support”, comments Timo Vesa, Director, Lifecycle Services at HiQ Finland.

St1 – Energy Company that Challenges the Conventional
St1 operates in Finland, Sweden and Norway. The focus of our operations is on fuels marketing activities and renewable energy solutions as well as developing and refining liquid fuels. St1’s distribution network for transport fuels comprises over 1,300 St1 and Shell petrol stations in Finland, Sweden and Norway. The Shell brand is in use under a license agreement. The two brands complement each other: with their different offerings and strong service concepts we can reach a wider customer base. All in all, there are over 600,000 customers that visits St1’s sites every day.