Update from our CEO: Ready for a new beginning

Dear colleagues,

After more than two years with the coronavirus pandemic creating challenges and uncertainty, we can finally start looking forward to a life more as we knew it before February 2020.

In Denmark, the government has decided that coronavirus should no longer be considered a critical illness for society and that almost all restrictions have been removed.

I know that this is not the case for all countries, but I believe that most countries are moving in that direction, and at least the strategy has changed from closing retail to getting people vaccinated.

Even stronger

Therefore it makes sense to look back at two busy years and evaluate the performance of JYSK.

When doing that, it is clear to me that all of you have done a great job despite the uncertainties, which we have been facing, and I want to thank all of you for that.

I believe that JYSK is an even stronger company now than we were two years ago, and it is a great strength that despite the challenges we have faced, we have been able to keep investing in new store openings, store activities, rebranding in Austria and Germany and building a new distribution centre in Hungary, just to mention some of the highlights.

New normal

And that is important, because even though the challenges from coronavirus are reduced, we are facing other issues.

"I believe that JYSK is an even stronger company now than we were two years ago."
- Jan Bøgh, President & CEO

The global supply chain is still under pressure from the aftermath of coronavirus, inflation and raw material prices are on the rise, the low unemployment makes the competition for great new colleagues much more challenging, and we still need to take a lot of steps to make JYSK more sustainable.

Furthermore, I am sure that some of the changes we have seen during the pandemic will lead to lasting changes in how people live their lives and do their shopping.

I am sure that if you reflect upon your own life, and the changes made by you and your family, it will be easy to find examples on this.

Part of the strategy

I am not worried.

JYSK has been successful through many different circumstances and crisis situations, but it requires that we make the necessary changes and remember our fundamental values Tradesman, Colleague and Corporate Spirit.

This also means that we should use our opportunities to travel again and to meet physically across countries, and become stronger teams through bonding in a way, which is not possible through Teams.

This is also the case for JYSK Management Team, where we have recently begun working on the strategy for FY23.

As preparation, me and my colleagues from Executive Management Team had the opportunity to participate in the world’s biggest retail conference NFR.

This gave a lot of inspiration and also proof that what we are doing in JYSK is very much aligned with the expectations of the future customers.

I especially noticed that while many “experts” a few years ago predicted the end for physical stores, everyone at NRF agreed that the physical stores will become even more important in the future, and that especially smaller stores close to home is preferred by customers, which is of course perfectly in line with our strategy of being closer to our customers.

Your opinion counts

Finally, I want to put a few words on the ESS survey, which I hope that you have all participated in.

In JYSK, we have the right and duty to speak up, and every opinion counts.

Therefore me and all of my management colleagues look forward to seeing your answers and using them to make JYSK an even better place to work.

Best regards,

Jan Bøgh
President & CEO