Getting to work on the future

Moving into the future with a broad base

Back in 2019, Vetropack initiated a comprehensive strategic transformation process. The aim of this is twofold: to open up additional growth potential in the existing business and develop new business models to position the company as a strong market player for the long term and to make a significant contribution to shaping the glass industry. Vetropack was very keen to involve internal and external stakeholders in this process, which is why over 100 employees, as well as customers and external experts from all manner of industries and fields of experience, participated in the development of the strategic foundations. This gave Vetropack valuable insights and allowed the company to head for the future with a broad-based strategy.

Five strategic directions for success

From the open strategy process, Vetropack derived five strategic directions that will shape the company’s further development in the next ten years.

Expand the core

Vetropack is basing its strategy on further reinforcing its dominant market positions in its home markets by bringing the company closer to its customers and enabling it to become a high-quality partner and full-service provider. It is also targeting expansion in selected markets.

Value growth

Vetropack is extending its areas of activity by entering new business sectors along the glass packaging value chain, focusing on new services that are a logical extension to its existing expertise and enable the company to further strengthen customer relationships.

Drive innovation

Vetropack wants to become a trendsetter in the glass packaging industry and is therefore proactively driving innovation. While this does apply to gradual innovation, the focus is also on product and market innovation and on entirely new business models.

Clearly sustainable

Vetropack is pursuing a holistic approach to sustainability based on two main initiatives:

• continuously reducing the environmental footprint of all business activities and
• improving recycling in the value chain (one-way and multi-trip) and securing access to key resources (primarily used glass).

Leader in quality

Vetropack is aligning all activities so that they support the strategy at Group level to optimum effect. In addition to a holistic approach to operational excellence, this includes coordinated structures and processes in sales and technology/production. The opportunities offered by digitalisation are also to be exploited more effectively across the Group and Vetropack is to be positioned as an “employer of choice”.

These five cornerstones, the rewritten corporate purpose and the more specific corporate values form the basis for implementing the strategy. Vetropack launched the first initiatives in 2020, thus laying important foundations for the next steps.

A clear implementation process and reinforcing the Group mindset

In the reporting year, Vetropack specified a stringent implementation process to guide the company’s transformation in the run-up to 2030. Therefore, for all five directions, specific projects were defined, prioritised according to available resources and recorded with clear responsibilities, schedules and benchmarks for monitoring progress. A project coordinator appointed especially for Strategy 2030 has been entrusted with ensuring that the various projects are implemented in a coordinated, coherent manner.

The projects have also been entered in a digital tool and will be updated by those responsible on an ongoing basis in future. This enables the steering committee to use the balanced scorecard to supervise the implementation of the strategy and ensures that it always has a current overview of progress on the individual directions and can make adjustments where necessary.

Vetropack uses the return on operating capital employed (ROOCE) as the main key figure for reviewing business development under the new strategy. The focus on the sustainable optimisation of all resources used will help to reinforce the “Group first” mindset – meaning operating as a Group and prioritising investments with great potential for synergy between the individual locations.

Expand the core

In November 2020, Vetropack concluded a contract to take over a Moldovan glassworks. This new addition to Vetropack Group, which comprises two separate operational units (Glass Container Company and Glass Container Prim), will enhance Vetropack’s market position in Central and Eastern Europe. The company has been firmly established in this region for almost three decades and is now continuing its long-standing strategy of integrating its acquisitions within the wider Group while preserving their local characteristics and identity. The new Vetropack glassworks in Chișinău produces approximately 100,000 tonnes of glass packaging for the beverage and food industry annually and employs 504 members of staff.

Value growth

Vetropack supports its customers throughout the entire journey – from product idea through to bottling. This also includes customised and optimised packaging solutions and comprehensive technical advice to improve existing processes on site. IT solutions are connected across systems, which also contributes to future value growth, and these are consistently expanded.

Drive innovation

The topic of innovation is also to be given a boost across the Group under the new strategy. That is why, in the year under review, Vetropack established a new innovation centre at its Pöchlarn site in Austria. A new team formed for the centre is to further develop VIP Glass technology and help to open up new areas of business, amongst other projects.

Clearly sustainable

Vetropack wants to be a pioneer and make a key contribution to shaping the green transformation in the glass industry because ecology has a central role to play, especially in an energy-intensive sector such as the glass industry. That is why the topic of recycling was right near the top of the list when prioritising the strategic projects. The company has set itself the target of achieving a proportion of used glass in production of 70% across the whole Group by 2030. Greenhouse gas emissions can also be continuously reduced by modernising the furnaces, like at the Croatian glassworks in Straža in the reporting year. The main key indicator for checking this is CO2 emissions per tonne of glass produced. The company is aiming to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30% from 2019 to 2030. Logistics are also to become climate neutral by 2030. In order to meet this target, investment in optimising the supply chain and in switching vehicles and the forklift fleet to renewable drive systems is required above all.

Leader in quality

Vetropack wants to make greater use of the opportunities offered by digitalisation in all divisions and developed a digitalisation roadmap back in 2019. The migration of the SAP system to the latest technology was completed in 2020. Various processes, such as purchasing and production planning, are being digitalised and centralised on this basis.

In the year under review, Vetropack pressed ahead with its “employer of choice” strategy in particular. For this purpose, it implemented a digital human resources tool through which all staff processes can be standardised. In future, this digital tool will make it easier to search for new talent, foster employee development or plan for succession, amongst other tasks. Vetropack also boosted employee engagement with a Group-wide discussion and obtained the “Great Place to Work” certification at the Bülach site.