From recovery to sustainable growth
In June 2021, we presented our .Grow strategy for 2021–2024. It was a successor to the previous strategy called Orange.one, which was successfully concluded in 2020 and which allowed us to reverse multi-year negative trends in sales and profitability and deliver turnaround. We were starting .Grow with products that were demanded by customers, assets that supported these products and a progressively more efficient cost structure.
The .Grow strategy was designed to stimulate and accelerate sales and profit growth. Convergence remains a key growth lever on the consumer market, helping us gain and maintain customer trust and loyalty. The arrival of 5G provides a new growth lever, adding a new dimension of connectivity for consumers and businesses. IT and integration services constitute a key growth driver in our B2B business.
As we manage the decline of our legacy business, we are adding new sources of profitable growth, including wholesale customers for our fibre and mobile networks. As part of .Grow, we are releasing our internal potential resulting from digital transformation. We are heading in the direction our customers expect, while improving our internal efficiency by leveraging more on big data and artificial intelligence.
Last but not least, we are growing in social responsibility. We have set ourselves ambitious ESG goals, and our services put us in the ideal place both to help others reduce their environmental footprint and to ensure that no one is left behind. In financial terms, with .Grow we embarked on a path of faster and more sustainable growth, based on solid foundations. EBITDAaL growth has accelerated, driven by revenue expansion fuelled by commercial activity. It has proven to be a fundamental change from our previous strategy, when the turnaround – after years of decline – was generated by savings on indirect costs, while direct margin continued to fall. Our Capex structure gradually evolves to incorporate a higher share of investments in mobile networks. However, we aim to keep eCapex at a steady annual level of PLN 1.7–1.9 billion on average over the period. Growing EBITDAaL and disciplined investments translate into increasing profits, cash flow generation and growth of return on capital employed. Shareholders’ remuneration is an important part of the .Grow strategy.