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Our strategic pillars (continued)
Simplicity
Responsible
retailing
People
performance
"Arm on rijk moeten bij
mij hun boodschappen
kunnen
Ahold at a glance
Business review
Governance
We are leveraging our capabilities and resources
as an international company and working on more
effective processes and systems across our businesses.
The savings we unlock with Simplicity are continually
reinvested into our offering for customers to drive our
successful business model.
Our ambition
We want to operate in the simplest, most efficient
and cost-competitive way, so that we can invest
more in value for our customers. Our ambition was
to save €350 million in 2015.
Our progress
All our businesses continued their successful "save to
invest" initiatives and surpassed their 2015 targets.
Our Simplicity programs are based on buying for less,
operating for less and building for less. For example,
the "buy for less" program focuses on commercial
improvements, such as optimization of the Fresh supply
chain, while the "operate for less" program focuses on
labor, shrink and overall performance management.
The savings are funding investments in service, price
and quality, such as the rollout of our new produce anc
easier-to-shop bakery departments in the U.S., which
is fully funded by Simplicity savings.
Responsible retailing is at the heart of our business
and we are committed to supporting the health
and well-being of our customers, associates and
communities, sourcing our products responsibly and
caring about the environment. Associates - throughout
our businesses - are engaged in putting responsible
retailing into practice, eveiy day.
Our ambition
Our ambitions fall under five priority areas: healthy
living choices made easy, contribution to community
well-being, responsibly sourced products, care for
the environment, and our people. We measure
our performance with nine targets. Please see our
Responsible Retailing Report 2015 for further detail.
Our progress
We have completed our 2015 Responsible Retailing
strategy and met most of the targets and commitments
we set out in 2011Please see our Responsible
Retailing Report 2015 for further detail on our
ambitions going forward.
Ahold
Annual Report 2015
We continuously invest in and support the development
of our associates and promote from within, filling
three-quarters of open positions with internal
candidates. We continue to build diverse workforces -
in terms of both personal background and professional
experience - to better serve our diverse customer
base and help us successfully cross cultures and
borders. We strive to be a better place to work for
our associates, and provide good working conditions,
development opportunities, managerial support,
recognition for performance, and an atmosphere
of mutual respect.
Our ambition
a We have ambitions in and measure our
performance across five areas: respect for each
other, good working conditions, development
opportunities, support from managers and
recognition for performance.
Our progress
Ou r annual associate engagement survey was
completed by 88% of our associates - up 7% from
last year - and engagement scores were in line with the
already high results from 2014. We are proud that we
had such an enormous response rate, which indicates
that the dialogue with our associates is helping to
motivate and inspire them to serve our customers every
day. Please see our Responsible Retailing Report 2015
for more about our people.
