Strategies and objectives

Strategies

Operations will be decentralised

  • under one and the same brand
  • with common processes and systems
  • with shared values and a common corporate culture in order to concert efforts and fully exploit the potential of all the experience that is represented within the ÅF Group.

ONE ÅF is a huge, shared bank of knowledge available to all ÅF co-workers that enables ÅF to improve profitability for its clients by proposing safe, sustainable solutions to a wide variety of challenges.

ONE ÅF is a common workplace where co-workers are encouraged to pursue their career within ÅF, for example in a different country or with new, technical challenges.

ONE ÅF is a joint sales organisation through which clients are offered the entire range of ÅF’s services.

ONE ÅF is the firm base for the corporate culture and shared values of ÅF.

Acquisitions strategy

ÅF’s acquisitions policy is based on the above. Every effort will be made to develop the business when the right opportunities arise, but expansion will not take place at the expense of profitability.

Business support and shared processes

ÅF is continuously developing its consulting business and its capacity to carry out its assignments in the best possible way. The ambition is clear: to safeguard successful, long-term sustainable development for ÅF’s clients and for ÅF itself.

One example of this is ONE, ÅF’s recently developed IT platform. At the same time as it acts as a driving force for collaboration within ÅF and with clients and subcontracted suppliers, ONE also guarantees a modern approach to working with processes, projects and knowledge retrieval at ÅF, freeing up time for development and innovation in client assignments.

ONE is a web-based tool, mostly in English, that is accessible to employees throughout the ÅF Group.

ONE also serves as ÅF’s business support system, a central operational control system that makes ÅF’s business operations considerably more cost-effective while assuring quality and consistency in the company’s approach.

The system includes tools for shared processes, project documentation and a searchable database of engineering and business experience that pinpoints any similarities between the many assignments undertaken by ÅF. When a client commissions ÅF to perform an assignment, the chances are great that ÅF has already successfully completed a similar assignment elsewhere.

ONE enables ÅF management to control and support operations and meet the criteria for certification for environmental and quality management in accordance with ISO 14001:2004 and ISO 9001: 2008.

Long-term objectives

Financial objectives

ÅF shall be the most profitable company among its closest comparable competitors in the industry and achieve an operating margin (EBIT) of at least 10 percent over a business cycle.

ÅF shall have net debt over a period of time, but net indebtedness shall not exceed 40 percent of equity.

Growth objective

Sales of 1 billion euros by 2015.

Human resources objectives

Better balance in the gender ratio. An initial target is for at least 25 percent of the company’s consultants and managers to be women.

Staff turnover, based on resignations, to be 7–13 percent.

All employees to take part in a personal development interview each year.

Sustainability objectives

In 2010 ÅF adopted a plan for the company’s sustainability work for the period up to 2015 and embraced three overarching sustainability objectives:

By the year 2015 ÅF aims to:

  • have halved its direct climate impact (baseline year 2009, calculated per individual).
  • include a proposal in every offer or tender that ÅF submits, to enhance the sustainability aspect of the project.
  • be perceived as the technical consulting firm that, from a sustainability perspective, best solves the technical challenges that its clients are faced with.

In 2010 ÅF began the work of producing a sustainability framework for the entire ÅF Group that comprises a sustainability policy, including revised tools for managing risks. The plan is to launch this sustainability framework in spring 2011.

For further details of ÅF’s work with sustainability issues and the company’s GRI report, please refer to the Sustainability Report.