Michael K. Rasmussen, VELUX: Værdien af design i global virksomhed

At some point, you live under a window of opportunity and know how to earn it. But just to make sure you know what we are in terms of size, we are a company with companies in 40 countries. I have about 10,000 colleagues around the world, and we have a total turnover of... We had a total turnover in 2015, but it hasn't come yet. So in 2014, it was 2.2 billion euros. And in a way, you could start by saying that this is in reality a value created by design. Because our company is created on the basis of one man's idea and one man's development of a product. Now it hasn't been 2 billion euros a year in the 75 years we have existed this year, but it has increased over time, and in a way, you could say that it has come out of that. And he was very clear about his idea and what we have dealt with just recently, because already when he started, he talked about creating utility areas under grey roofs, and was very aware of that. What we do is mass-produced building components. It's a strip of window windows that are standing here, before they are completely finished. What we sell is some kind of cardboard boxes. They are placed in a building market all around the world. And if you would like to buy one on the way home, they should be within a radius of 20 kilometers, where you can find a place where you can get one at home in the evening. So you should be welcome. What our customers buy is this. It is light, and it is air, and it is better housing. And it has also been very deep in our business since we started. And it is very important for our customers. We have asked 16,000 European customers, and we have asked about a few other things as well, but almost 90% think that both daylight and fresh air is one of the most important things to create a good indoor climate, and that it is important for their homes. So we are moving towards something that is very fundamental to the business. And that is something we have been aware of since the company started. This is actually a previous market statement. A sand letter that Vilum Karl Rasmussen, our founder, wrote in 1945, where he wrote, we are daylight engineers. And we are called Velux because it is V for ventilation and it is Lux for light. And we are very narrow-minded. We have almost tunnel vision of daylight and fresh air. And when we talk about daylight and fresh air, it is not just glass floors in the building. It is actually only the floors that come in. But it is something that has driven our core always. And when we have defined how we carry it out in the organization, because it might be too far to describe the process when we develop, because it has taken 75 years, but tell us about how we have integrated it in our business. And there is our starting point in reality, that, uh, all our products, all the processes we share, all the people there, and the communication we use to talk about what we do, well, it goes into the equipment we deliver to our customers. And that is part of designing our entire company. And, well, as long as we have a long history, it can well be that it is a bit home-made, what we have. Because there is a lot of history, there is a lot of knowledge that we have gathered up along the way. So it is not for sure that one is out on the yeah, the academy or on design schools all over the place would say, Look, we are just SPOT ON on design. But in fact, we have a really driving mission to do all the work. And I think you just made an important point. I would love it if we could reallyni-, to make it those未 Smells for a very small as well as a degree as well, to Nee. For us, it is to have a conscious orchestration of the value we create for our customers, with the clear goal of doing a good business. And there we have the value and the value creation that is in running a business. And that also makes us, I try to illustrate it at the same time, often when we talk about design, we only talk about the surface, but it is a whole lot of other things. It is actually the smallest surface, because design, it pulls in the way we develop, as Moment just said, being focused on your innovation is important. And all the way through the procurement and marketing and delivery to the customers, before it is out in the open and you open up to get some fresh air, then it is important that we all work in the same direction. And that is the starting point we have. Then we work it into our activities. This little square or diamond or whatever it is, it tries to describe everything we do. It is our products and the innovations we deliver to the customers. It is the way we interact with our customers, broadly speaking, it is both partners and others, all kinds of types of target groups that we have. It is the way we behave as an organization, but it is also the way we behave as partners, as a company in a society. And it all comes from the same core. And when you take that core out and say, what is our design really like? Then we have, to be more specific than that beautiful formula that was before, that is not particularly operational, made this model where the light blue haze or corners, that is, you could call our internal identity, the way we see ourselves, why we are here, who we are, how we look, and where we are on our way, not least. And the two reds, well, that is more or less, well, what is it we deliver to our customers? How do we do that? And how do they look at us? And that is, regardless of whether we are in the front of the chain in marketing or out at the customer, or whether we are all the way back in the innovation layer, we have these thoughts with us. And if I should try to give an example of the four areas, on products, it is quite simple. I think most of us have experienced the effect of closing a lot of light into a room, and air, I saw the door was open before, but it still works. And on the more banal level, well, then it is all of the different products we have. They may not necessarily be aesthetically beautiful, they are not all of the products we have, but they are functional, effective, and that has perhaps been the goal for some of them. And that also applies when you come down to the feature level and look at, well, what are the different components of the product, and why are there some things we put a lot of effort into and spend a lot of money on, and why are there other things that are not at all in our products that are part of that process? If you look at how we look at our interaction with customers, then this is not, and it cannot be seen down here, but it is not a train ticket from London Underground, it is our customer journey, because we have basically four main target groups, when we talk commercial target groups. We have of course both the tenants or the tenant users, but we also have an architect who designs the home, we have a craftsman who has to execute it, and we have a trader who sells our products. And they all act with us, but they do not just act with us, they also interact with each other, even when we are not there. And all the touchpoints that arise out there, well, we have to try to control them, and in any case choose which of them we want to control, and how we want to influence them to have a clear understanding of what we are for a size. How we behave as an organization, I am not HR, but I have even taken a little film to present to some of my colleagues, where you can see a little about how we work as an organization. Do we have any sound? No. Every day we learn something new, every day we grow a little. We get to know each other a little better. And even though we come from very different places, we strive to achieve our goals together. Our work concerns you, it concerns everybody. We provide daylight and fresh air. Our daylight engineers. To achieve our goals and stay ahead, we have to follow our passion. To innovate, to create, to perfect, and to influence our work. That's how we make each other better. That's how we develop our talents, so that those who have the ability also get the opportunity. It's how we build a career and perform. Still knowing there's more to life than work. What we bring to you, you will not notice. But it makes all the difference. It puts a smile on your face. It connects you to the world. And brings forgotten places back to life. For more than 70 years, we have delivered daylight and fresh air to our customers. Because daylight and fresh air are crucial to our health, happiness, and well-being. To grow up, to find our way, and to wake up every day. We strive to make a difference. Now and in the long term. Because we are passionate about what we do. This is how we stay ahead. This is how we bring light to life. I don't think that's enough for today. I don't know if you've ever heard this. Good. This is a picture of how we, across organizations, and I almost claim I can wake one of my Chinese colleagues who is in bed now, and ask them what our core is and how we work with it. And maybe also ask them, how do you contribute to that? Or where do you go in that process? If there is a clear focus, then it also creates a huge energy that the whole organization can actually be part of, to develop in the small and in the large a clear value for our customers. If we then take the last field with how to act as a company in a society, if we are driven to have a certain design, then we have to take a starting point in our business model, which is a goal of being a pattern company. Our founders wrote something about being an example for others, and trying to work with products that are useful for society. And an example that you could take from that is a program, a daily routine, which we in good Danish have called Sustainable Living, which came from the global warming, the subsequent discussion we have had, and it actually started maybe in the 15th cup in the United States, in Copenhagen in 2009, for us, or in the uptake of it, the discussion we have had about energy, the discussion we have had about what makes a good home, where you would say, we just make windows for the roof, so we don't have to mix so much in, but we had some thoughts, and have some thoughts, about how to create a good indoor climate, and try to take a greater responsibility for that. So we were so lucky that things are connected. What we can do is to reduce the CO2 emissions in the building, and that means, as you can see, both something for the building industry, but it also means something for the consumer in the individual home. So there was a run-in on a lot of paths. And therefore, it has been the starting point for what we have been doing since 2015, where we, among other things, have made six different demonstration houses, to show that instead of us, we have a better future. that we should live in passive houses, where the house was isolated until the coldest day of the year, and then we simply kept it on that heat, so that we could heat it up with a sterile light. That is also good enough, but it is not really nice in the summer, if you can't get rid of the heat again, or not to an extent can get rid of the heat. And it was actually not necessarily a CO2-neutral starting point, as houses have always had. So we have been able to set up six different places in Europe, and make some houses that were CO2-neutral, following what is called the active house principles, and have worked with partners in our industry, and have worked with partners at universities and researchers, who have researched how a good home is, and how a good indoor climate is, and how energy design is, and how the energy supply to a house is. And all the partners, all the knowledge that we have gathered in the projects, they ended up in the houses, and we share that with the different partners we have. And all six houses have been CO2-neutral. We have rented them out for between 12 and 24 months, all together, to ordinary families who have lived in them, and tried, were they also so rare to live in, and measured on cross-country maps, that it can actually be done. And it may well be that it doesn't necessarily mean that we sell more windows, either today or tomorrow, but in the long run, it could well be that we were more relevant to the market, and in any case, we have contributed to the creation of better homes. And if you try to pull the circle all the way around, then beyond the six houses we have made in this programme, we have actually made a strip of other houses around the world, following the same principles over the last ten years, or something in that direction, where we have been involved in setting a daily schedule for some of these things. And all of this is going back to our products, in the way that all the knowledge we have gathered, and all the relationships we have had, we can use to invite people in to develop new products. And it is actually the case that our latest urban and industrial generation has a positive footprint, a positive CO2 footprint. So in principle, if you just buy enough urban windows, then we can solve a global problem. It is probably not how it works, and therefore it is not my main goal today, but in fact, per product, it is good enough, if you place it in a comprehensive place in Europe, in a comprehensive placement of East and West, and a house that is in a certain way, and so on. So, the value also returns to the business. So if you pull that around, then it can easily be done. And that value, it reflects itself as far as we can see, in the value of the business, and what comes out of it. Christian has already shown, not this, but a response, that strong brands are better prepared than average. This is the development since the financial crisis, in Global 500, in the POS standard. And it shows that it is a more robust business, But if you take it down to, how should I say, the individual business level, what is it that makes us create value? It could be great to come to the next board meeting, and tell in the last months, how much value our design effort has created. It may be difficult to calculate, but at a slightly more macro level, then we might have an ambition, to come out and calculate, what gives design as extra value. There is no doubt about it, I am a businessman, so I have learned something about, either you have to differentiate yourself, and be better than the others, or different from the others, or you just have to make sure, to be faster and cheaper than the others. And a rare time in between, and I think that is one of the value sources, that we have, then it is actually successful, our business, both to be different from the others, over many years, but also because of the long time, to be bigger than the others, with a starting point in it, so that we actually today, not necessarily are cheaper, or more expensive than our competitors. So there is some value to be gained, both in the strength of, that we can get a stronger preference, from our customers, they agree with us, than the others. There is also the possibility, to have some higher prices, than a commodity, to get a bigger market share, to win a bigger market share, and to get more loyalty, when the customers return, there are a number of sources, and it gives a greater stability in the business, and it gives a possibility, to earn more money than the average. I can not say, that it is as it is, but I can at least see consistently, that if you look at the average, profit level, in companies, in the construction material industry, then even when it has gone, less well, then we consistently, lay a good piece over, and I think that has something to do with, that we are focused, and that we are based on an idea, and that we try to continue, to further develop that idea, not in as short a sprint, as a week, but all the time, try to do what we do, better and better, because in general, we do the same, as we did in 1912, as we did in 1941. Thank you.