A rallying call to the Movement to reverse years of decline and become the country’s premier retail brand has been issued by Co-operative Group Chief Executive Peter Marks.
Speaking at the recent Group AGM in Manchester, Mr Marks said the time is ripe for the long-awaited
Co-op renaissance.
He declared: “We have a fantastic opportunity to create a dynamic ethical business delivering real benefits to our members, our employees and our customers.
“I’ve seen the decline in our food market share. It’s time to draw a line under that and start moving forward again. There’s never been a time where our values resonate as much with the public as they do now.
“We’ve got a superb brand proposition and we’ve got the confidence of the Board to inject the highest level ever of investment in this business.”
Mr Marks highlighted the importance of the Group’s three-year Strategic Plan which, he said, sets out what sort of business the Group wants to be; where it wants to go; how it is going to get there and why it’s important.
“So what sort of business do we want to be in three years time?” asked Mr Marks. “Well, we want to be obviously and most importantly, financially successful. But we also want to be socially responsible, chosen by our customers, and members for what we do with our profits and how we make them.
“We want our members and our customers and our staff to think we’re a great business and we want our competitors to fear us and respect us because we’re different and we’re better.”
He said that, under the Strategic Plan, the Group’s sales would increase by £1.3 billion to £7.1bn.
“We’re going to almost double our trading profit and what’s going to help us do that is the massive £1.5bn capital expenditure programme that the Board has also approved,” said Mr Marks.
• Full Co-operative Group AGM coverage in Co-operative News, published Tuesday May 27th.
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