CEO’s review
During 2021, we managed to take huge strides ahead by finetuning our processes and working relentlessly together as a group, even though COVID-19 continued to cast its shadow over the world. We ensured a stable foundation for our renewed strategy, where we focus on our personnel and the development of increasingly advanced technologies – to help secure a sustainable future for all of us.
I want to begin by saying that I am tremendously proud of the commitment shown by the people of VEO during the last few years. This commitment can be seen especially well when looking back at 2021, a year when we completed a strategy where we successfully ticked off virtually all the boxes.
Cross-border cooperation
By involving everyone on the Group level, including all the countries and business units, we managed to develop and launch new processes which have further increased our efficiency. A key focus area in the previous strategy was health & safety, where our UK-based branch, I.C. Electrical, with its advanced expertise in safety issues, was able to contribute with valuable input. This is an excellent example of the closer cooperation across both country and departmental borders that we have strived for. The same goes for another strategic target, increasing our product profitability, which we achieved last year through extended cooperation between sales and production. The resulting standardisation projects have improved the profitability of, for example, our VEDA low-voltage switchgear.
Improved predictability
Our result is solid with a positive cash flow for the second year running. We even managed to increase our EBIT, which is quite an achievement bearing in mind the noticeable component shortages and price increases incurred by COVID-19. We counteracted the most severe impacts on our result partly with our increasingly automated and streamlined processes, which have allowed us to identify and act upon both risks and economic opportunities at earlier stages than before.
Our people and the climate at our core
In our new 2021-2025 strategy, we will continue to build on what we have achieved so far. Our most important asset is obviously our people, and we want all of them to enjoy working at VEO. After having conducted employee satisfaction surveys for several years, we are very happy to note a positive track record, but our ambition goes beyond that. We have therefore placed employee wellbeing and competence development at the very core of the new strategy, with actions including training, individual career planning and incentive schemes. We will also grow the VEO family by recruiting numerous new experts to join us on our journey, especially in Sweden and Norway.
We see a huge potential for VEO on the Nordic market, and with standardised processes and cross-Nordic resource management, we are ready to grow our market share in this area. To further increase operational efficiency, we have mobilised our automation experts into one functional unit to serve the entire VEO Group. The new functional unit will be vital in the development of carbon-neutral energy solutions, which is at the heart of our strategy alongside our personnel.
Towards an even brighter tomorrow
We can now continue on the growth path, a path we were temporarily forced to deviate from to focus on profitability. With the stamina and motivation that everyone at VEO is showing, I am confident we will speed up the energy transition process even further, together with our clients.
Timo Ala-Heikkilä
CEO
