SERVING TO GROW
Serving to grow is the strategic purpose that guides our organization
towards growth. Focusing the human efforts in our company
is essential to serving customers and has been the main reason
for Falabella’s growth in the region.
Being united in purpose enables us to direct the allocation of
resources; motivate people, communicating the superior value
of this objective and expand the room for individual and team
collaboration, which increases the pride in belonging to Falabella.
SERVING NEW MARKETS (REGIONAL EXPANSION)
In 2013, Falabella gave its regional growth a new thrust by entering
Brazil, one of the leading markets in Latin America. Our home
improvement subsidiary, Sodimac, acquired the Dicico chain in
July, making it one of the largest store chains in that business
in the State of Sao Paulo, with 56 stores at the end of the year.
This was a logical step within our development strategy that we
analyzed carefully so that it would enable us to continue creating
value with a local partner who shares our culture of customer
orientation and responsible growth strategy.
It is with satisfaction that I can say that in the past year, through
discipline and responsibility, we continued to deepen our regional
leadership. The three pillars that will guide us in this effort in
coming years are growth, profitability and sustainability, with a
strong focus in innovation and on the development of the people
in our organization, who are the basis for our future development.
SERVING TO BUILD A DIFFERENTIATING VALUE
The Falabella Group has been a leader in innovating in the integration
of financial and retail services. By the end of the year, we had a
portfolio of more than 4.3 million CMR accounts held by people
who find in us the best alternative to satisfy their financial needs.
Providing access to credit fulfills a need of our customers and is
an important component in our business strategy.
Maintaining the focus on our customers, we concentrated on
finding new ways to create value that will satisfy consumer needs.
During the year, this led to the launch of Móvil Falabella, a mobile
virtual network operator that ended the year with approximately
60,000 customers in Chile. Our objective is to give consumers
an offer that is transparent, convenient and simple and lets them
make better use of the services already offered by Falabella,
taking advantage of our deep understanding of our customers.
SERVING EVERYWHERE AT ANY TIME
At the beginning of Falabella’s 125th anniversary, we announced
our largest investment plan for US$4,102 million for the period
2014-2017, increasing our regional coverage by adding 157 stores
and 15 new shopping centers and strengthening our logistic and
technology operations. In fact, this plan represents an investment
of around US$1 billion in logistics and technology over the coming
four years that will reinforce our omni-channel strategy and raise
our productivity.
E-commerce is changing individual consumer habits and it will
have a growing impact on our operations. We can be sure that
consumers will use their smart phones in making decisions before,
during and after purchases. Our challenge is, therefore, to be
able to integrate the real and virtual worlds and thus serve our
customers at all times.
SERVING IMPECCABLY
We have the challenge of building a culture truly obsessed about service quality. This is a collective challenge that requires the commitment of more than 105,000 people working in the different business units of our Group, who endeavor every day to offer the best buying experience to our customers. We want our company to be the best place to work for all of them and a place where they can develop their talents and project themselves over time.
SERVING ETHICALLY AND RESPONSIBLY
We are aware that it is not enough to create economic value. We must contribute to the integral and collective growth of our customers, employees, suppliers and communities while simultaneously reducing the impact that our operations have on the environment. Based on that conviction, in 2013 we continued forward in building an across-the-board culture of responsibility that characterizes us as an organization. That will be a priority task over the next few years. And only by building a better company together each day will we be able to project ourselves and endure over time.
SERVING EFFICIENTLY
Growth and expansion to new countries requires more capabilities
and meeting world-class standards. In this fiscal year, we made
progress in building a culture of continuing improvement in each area
of business in the aim of providing greater value to our customers
while simplifying and standardizing processes.
In 2013, we invested in introducing the concept of productivity to all
of our operations. We invited our employees to take care of our most
valuable resource: our time. In 2014, we will focus on consolidating
and expanding these productivity improvements into new areas.
The Falabella Group has developed soundly and responsibly, which has
prepared us to confront a regional economic scenario that is predicted
to gear down in the coming years, with increasing competition and
regulatory changes on some markets. We will continue deploying a
consistent strategy and we will materialize new opportunities that
create value for the company and our shareholders as soon as we
detect them.
Sincerely,
Sandro Solari Donaggio
Corporate CEO
S.A.C.I. Falabella
