2.5
'Lead Global. Win Local' progress

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Lead global. win local

  • Group coordinates brand development and e-commerce. IT, supply chain and Innovation & Technology (I&T) report directly to the Group.
  • Regions lead brand development, marketing, sales, e-commerce and give input to brand innovation teams. Regions are responsible for perfect execution of annual plans.
  • The innovation process is governed by the central innovation board.

In 2020 we made further progress on the simplifation of our organisation. Our bike business is organised through four key regions and a dedicated bike cargo business. The four key regions are Central Europe including Northern and Eastern Europe, the Benelux & Denmark, Southern Europe and the UK & Ireland.

Next to this bicycle segment we have a centrally led Parts & Accessories business.

Winning at the point of purchase

  • Focus on a winning portfolio of brands per region.
  • Focus on (omnichannel) e-bike opportunities.
  • Focus on launching of big global and local innovations.
  • Develop global/local consumer insights and exploit local business opportunities (such as leasing and other opportunities).

Product availability, service and excellent sales & operations planning (S&OP) are all key to winning at the point of purchase. Additional improvement points in our S&OP process are: bike data harmonisation across

 

Europe, continued complexity reduction and standardisation of product/component platforms. COVID-19 led to disruptions in the supply chain in 2020 and that will continue in 2021 and probably also in 2022. 

Consumer-centric omnichannel business model

  • Develop and implement digital platform for all Accell Group bike brands.
  • Develop experience centres with dealers.
  • Grow the omnichannel e-bike opportunity.
  • Develop new business models.

In 2020 we rolled out our Service and Sales CRM (Salesforce) system across the organisation. We also continued the roll-out of our Accentry dealer tool across Europe. We made progress on the roll-out of our single brand platform/websites across all regions and brands and we expect to finalise the majority of this roll-out by the end of 2021. We fully relaunched the Raleigh website in the UK, which in combination with strong demand, led to strong growth in 2020 (direct to consumer). 

Innovation

  • Focus on e-bike innovation.
  • Focus on smart technology (IoT) and urban mobility solutions.
  • Three global innovation centres for Sports, Lifestyle and Cargo.

We have professionalised our innovation process over the past few years and introduced a sharpened innovation and S&OP ‘heartbeat’ calendar, and regionally brand innovation teams to make sure we improve the in time and in full delivery of our innovations.

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Innovation: Heartbeat

 

 

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We continue to win awards for our innovative models. We won design and innovation awards for both Lapierre and Haibike. 
We also continued to innovate and experiment to minimise material usage through re-use and end-of-life solutions. We have already reduced the use of plastics in our packaging and we are targetting for even bigger reductions. 

Centralised / integrated P&A business

  • Lead and organise centrally to win locally.
  • Where possible utilise synergies with the bicycle business.
  • Grow the XLC brand.

Bicycle parts & accessories (P&A) is a centrally led separate entity inside Accell Group. The P&A business fulfils a wholesale and distribution function for the bicycle business, with our competitive commercial advantage in the enormous long tail of SKUs and brands in our assortment.

 

Another driver of competitive advantage is our own international private label XLC supplemented with top brands from third parties. Our XLC brand is also used in our bicycles which will boost our aftermarket growth. In 2020 we recorded 42% growth with our XLC brand.

A third driver of competitive advantage is how we drive growth through logistical excellence and added value services. We have implemented various warehouse and logistic improvements such as extended cut-off times. These improvements were enabled by various warehouse management systems implementations. 

A major part of the value creation in P&A in 2020 was driven by our growth through online players which is an important part of our P&A strategy. This was further boosted by the COVID-19 pandemic and consumers shopping online for parts and accessories.

 

Fit to compete

  • Develop an efficient demand-driven and responsive supply chain.
  • Rationalise, standardise, and reduce complexity of product range and supply chain footprint.

In our supply chain we target minimum savings of € 60 million over a period of five years ending in 2022. These savings are driven by three initiatives:

  1. Complexity reduction. We are on target to reduce the number of models and SKUs by around 40% (model year 2022 versus year-end 2017).
  2. Standardisation of product platforms. We introduced the first standard product platform in 2019 and this was followed by more platform introductions in 2020.
  3. Rationalisation of our supply chain footprint and complexity in general. Following the closure and sale of several businesses in 2019 we reduced our footprint by announcing the closure of two more entities in 2020. We will focus on our production locations in the Netherlands, Hungary, Turkey and Germany.

 

Accelerate Cargo

  • Capture the growth in urban mobility through both business-to-consumers (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) opportunities.
  • Drive innovative cargo platforms across brands in all countries.
  • Drive premium cargo offering through Carqon.
  • Improve synergies with bike business (production/assembly).

Our cargo business continues to record strong growth with overall growth of 43% primarily driven by our Babboe brand. This was driven across all European countries by consumers choosing for cargo bikes as a healthy and sustainable means of transport, especially in urban areas. Our recently launched premium Carqon brand has received very positive reactions. Despite supply constraints we expect strong growth in 2021.

Lastly, we are using innovation and partnerships to launch B2B concepts to capture last-mile-delivery opportunities in cities. Our B2B business is now fully integrated in the Babboe organisation and brand called 'Babboe Pro'.

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