Our stakeholders
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Ourstakeholders
As an international retailing group operating businesses that are deeply
rooted in their local communities, we have a wide range of stakeholders
who impact or are impacted by our businesses in various ways.
Ourstakeholders include our customers, associates, suppliers, communities
(including governments, NGOs, academic research institutes, and
industry bodies), and shareholders. We engage and cooperate with our
stakeholders in order both to gain insight into their expectations, and to
share our progress with them. This enables us to better meet their needs
overtime. As an organization, we have identified five main stakeholder
groups:
Customers
Associates
Suppliers
Communities
Shareholders
Ahold at a glance
Our strategy
Our performance
Governan
Finan
Investors
Ahold Annual Report 2013
Our customers are central to our business.
We are committed to offering our customers
healthy choices and providing them with products
that are made with respect for people, animals
and the environment. In addition, we aim to
offer competitive prices combined with high
product quality and a great shopping experience.
We regularly ask our customers what they think
of our stores, assortment and service, including
their perception of Ahold's brands as being healthy
retailers. We receive feedback via third-party
surveys, proprietary tracking studies and consumer
panels as well as directly from customers in stores.
Extraordinary associates are at the heart of our
success. Their hard work and dedication to
customers help set us apart. We are committed
to making sure our companies continue to be an
even better place to work, every day. We strive to
create workplaces built on fairness and mutual
respect everywhere we operate. We maintain
strong businesses to drive stable jobs and provide
opportunities for great careers. We respect
and protect the rights of associates, and we are
committed to the principles of equal employment
opportunities, freedom of association, and
respecting the legal rights to collective bargaining
everywhere we do business. We strive to maintain
an open and honest company culture, and carry
out annual associate engagement surveys. In 2013,
we aligned our surveys across Ahold, with over
170,000 associates participating globally.
The opportunity for collaboration with our suppliers
is ever increasing. We engage with our suppliers in
several ways, aiming to strengthen and improve the
relationships we have with them. We hold supplier
events to discuss various important topics, including
company strategy, sustainability, supplier diversity,
and food safety, with them. We work through
the Albert Heijn Foundation in Africa to improve
the livelihoods of Albert Heijn's African fruit and
vegetable suppliers, their families and communities,
as well as to secure our long-term supply chain.
The communities surrounding our stores are very
important to us - they represent a serving area of
more than 70 million people. Our companies are
committed to being active and engaged members
of their communities. We do this through initiatives,
events and charitable contributions that help to
improve the communities and neighborhoods in
which we operate.
Our shareholders are crucial to our business; they
put their trust in us by investing in the business
financially. They monitor our company closely and
challenge us on our strategy and how we manage
the business. We meet with investors on a regular
basis, including socially responsible investment
(SRI) analysts, and work to broaden the investment
community's understanding of our company by
providing accurate and timely information on
Ahold's performance and prospects.
