PDF (3.6 MB) - Valora

36
ANNUAL REPORT VALORA 2009
interVieW
ConfIdenCe In The fuTure
how has Valora started the new
year?
Rolando Benedick: Satisfactorily at Retail
and well at Media. It has been a
tougher start for Trade. The exchange
rate turbulence in the Nordic countries
has given us some headwind to contend
with, but we have already found solutions
to these problems.
Thomas Vollmoeller: Of course, we are
talking about just three months and
you can’t always extrapolate from
spring to summer, but we have had
some very pleasing successes. For me,
the best was the opening of the new
«P&B» press and books shop at Zurich’s
main railway station. Since we opened
we have managed to increase our sales
there by some 20 percent. Everyone is
pleased – our customers, the railways
and ourselves.
apart from the exchange rate turbulence
in Scandinavia, how else have
you experienced the effects of the
economic crisis in 2009 and 2010?
Rolando Benedick: Switzerland has
weathered the downturn well over
the last 18 months. Indeed, Swiss retail
sales have actually increased, and
things are now progressing well in Austria
and Germany, too. We operate in
countries which have not experienced
really major crises. Our business is
also in a part of the economy which has
not been affected all that much by the
downturn. However, that also means
we know where we
want to go. we have
the right team for
the job anD we have
new systems available
to us. now we
have to shoot the
ball into the goal.
i am very confiDent
that we will succeeD.
Interview with Rolando Benedick (Chairman) and
Thomas Vollmoeller (CEO)
that we wouldn’t benefit enormously
from an upturn.
Thomas Vollmoeller: The downturn
has certainly affected our magazine
sales. Interestingly, newspapers have
done fairly well. Newspapers are in
demand during a crisis, because people
want to stay informed. The negative
performance we saw with magazines
in the first six months was due to
publishers saving money by withdrawing
a number of key titles from circulation
because of falling advertising revenues.
We certainly felt that. Fortunately,
things evened out in the second half
of the year.
if the downturn isn’t a major issue
for Valora, what is the main challenge
you are facing now?
Thomas Vollmoeller: In the Retail division,
we certainly have to make further
improvements to the kiosks’ profitability.
That has always been a major
challenge for Valora. We are addressing
it with new product ranges, new
systems and optimised pricing. The
100 avec. units we are planning are another
challenge. We have some 60 now
and they are working very well. That
is why we are confident we will reach
the 100 mark. At the Media / Services division,
we will have to work with our
publishers to ensure that we return to
a growth trajectory and stop the downtrend
in newspaper and magazine sales.
At Trade we are constantly working to
demonstrate the quality of our services,
and these efforts include potential new
principals, too.
Can you be specific? what new systems
do you intend to introduce at
the kiosks?
Thomas Vollmoeller: We have over 1 000
k kiosk outlets and we operate them
ourselves. Franchise and agency models
would be a further possible approach.
This is something we will be
testing. It is too early to be more precise
at this stage, because we only started
in March 2010. We are investigating
whether these approaches will enable
us to achieve further sales growth and
work more cost-effectively.
Rolando Benedick: What Mr. Vollmoeller
is referring to is important. We have
to grow now. Two years ago we sold our
production operations (Own Brands)
and last year we streamlined and organised
things. By that I mean that we
established new structures and brought