AAK Annual Report 2019

16 The AAK Way successfully completed Having guided our business for the past three years, our company program The AAK Way came to a close at the end of 2019. Our key focus with the program has been to enable continued organic growth, to help us improve our oper- ating profit year-over-year by 10 percent on average, and to build a stronger AAK for the short, mid and long term. By establishing a strong foundation at the beginning of the program, followed by a dedicated and continuous execution, we are now able to reap the harvest of our many great efforts within the program’s five priority areas. Go to Market A very important activity within Go to Market has been the global customer survey that was conducted in 2018. Based on both quantitative and qualitative input from close to 1,000 customers, we have put strong actions in place to further enhance our customers’ experiences. We have also taken our go-to-market approach to new levels by developing strong training platforms and knowledge-sharing networks, as well as rolling out a high-level sales program to hundreds of go-to- market colleagues globally, supporting our Customer Co-Development approach. Operational Excellence In this priority area we have strengthened our competitiveness within sourcing and made significant improvements within the responsible sourcing of our raw materials globally. To achieve a cost-efficient and flexible operation, we have also between our production plants ensured benchmarking and best practices for critical operational needs. Special Focus Areas Special Nutrition and Dairy+ (including the plant-based foods industry) were identified as two special focus areas believed to hold significant potential for future growth. Important achievements include expansion into new markets, significant growth within Infant Nutrition, and a successful launch of our AkoPlanet ™ brand has supported us in generating a very strong pipeline of solutions for the fast-growing plant-based foods industry. Innovation Innovation is decisive for being the preferred partner to our customers and for securing that our solutions add significant value to their products. During the course of The AAK Way, we have further developed our innovation processes and several supporting tools and guidelines. We have also launched a global social platform internally to drive proactivity input for our innovation pipeline as well as added new Customer Innovation Centers in several AAK regions. People Aiming to have a great leadership in our organization, we have within priority area People invested significant time and effort in leadership development globally. Workforce planning has also been an important priority in order to secure the future of AAK. To summarize, The AAK Way has given us many achievements to be proud of. As we set out to do, we have continued to deliver organic growth, we have improved our operating profit in accordance with our ambition, and we have made AAK a stronger company. Innovation Go to Market Operational Excellence Special Focus Areas AAK Way of Selling Customer Co-Development Sourcing Excellence Cost Effective & Flexible World Class Delivery Special Nutrition Dairy+ INNOBO - Products