Strategy, vision, value
Value
Customer and quality – in everything we do
Vision
Leading growth-driven trading sector company in Northern Europe – aiming for the best customer experience in the sector
Mission
To create welfare responsibly - for all our stakeholders and for all society
We continue our strategy execution
Kesko has a growth strategy that has proven effective: it seeks profitable growth through focus and transformation. The trading sector and our operating environment are changing rapidly. For an agile and constantly evolving operator, this poses opportunities. The results we have achieved so far act as strong proof that we have made the right strategic choices and that our strategy works also in a rapidly changing market.
Grocery trade, building and technical trade, and car trade are all businesses in which Kesko has good market positions and the strongest capabilities, and they offer the best potential for long-term development. We use quality and customer experience to differentiate ourselves from the competition in both our stores and digital services.
Digitalisation and customer experience are two complementary central themes in Kesko’s strategy. Kesko’s key objectives in utilising digitalisation are to enable the best possible customer experience and to increase the efficiency of our operations and consequently our cost-efficiency. Data is central to all our operations, and we seek to create value in various ways for our customers with business processes that utilise data, analytics, AI and automation.
K-Plussa is the most extensive and versatile customer loyalty programme in Finland. The number of Finnish households belonging to the K-Plussa loyalty scheme and using the K-Plussa network totalled 2.5 million at the end of December 2023, with 3.3 million active customers.
‘One unified K’ is how we operate. K Group, which at its core comprises Kesko and independent retailer entrepreneurs in Finland, today operates in eight countries. The retailer entrepreneurs lend Kesko a significant competitive advantage, and we employ the retailer business model whenever it gives us a competitive edge. We want to maintain and strengthen our reliable K brand, and to provide even better service to our customers. In addition to a common strategy, operating as ‘One unified K’ means seamless cooperation with retailers and across business divisions to achieve synergies.
Sustainability is one of the key focus areas for Kesko’s strategy. Our vision is to enable sustainable choices for our customers by promoting changes throughout our value chain. In our sustainability strategy, we commit to ambitious sustainability work with set targets. The four focus areas of the sustainability strategy are climate and nature, value chain, people, and good governance. All three business divisions encourage their customers to make sustainable choices – with food, construction or mobility.
With climate and nature, Kesko focuses on reducing emissions from its own operations and in the whole value chain. We have committed to setting long-term science-based emission reduction targets, and to cut emissions in our whole value chain to net zero by 2050. We also encourage our suppliers to set their own emission reduction targets. We strive to prevent the loss of biodiversity in our own operations and value chain. We support sustainable choices by our customers by offering sustainable products and services. With people, Kesko focuses on employee safety and wellbeing and on fostering diversity, equity and inclusion among its personnel, setting tangible targets for promoting these aspects in 2023.
We have begun preparations for the new EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). As of 2024, we will report on sustainability within the CSRD framework.
To measure our progress in sustainability, we refer to sustainability indices and assessments such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices, MSCI ESG, Sustainalytics and CDP.
Read more:
Strategy review in Kesko's Direction section of the Annual Report
