On 21 August, the Supervisory Board of AS Baltika approved the specified action plan ‘Strategy 2022’ for implementation. The plan comprises 16 projects, of which the most important focus around three areas: internationalization, digitalization and customer centricity; in addition, a new umbrella brand is planned to be launched.
In the context of internationalization, the enterprise will be focusing on the development of e-commerce and the creation of a new cooperation model for its franchise and concession partners with a view to offering them greater support in merchandizing, inventory management, marketing and opening stores. As the result of the new offer, traditional wholesale model will be gradually abandoned to change the process of bringing a product to end customers faster. Besides, existing and potential new export markets will be analyzed, in order to determine target markets for the coming years.
For the purpose of gaining efficiency and ensuring greater customer satisfaction, digitalization projects have been initiated in the domain of product development, sales, customer service and analysis.
Baltika is currently managing a vertical business model from design to sales network. In the future the focus is to shift to those parts of the value chain, which directly influence customer experience. At the same time, the company’s current strength, domestic production, which is a major part of the quality label for Baltika and its customers, is to be maintained. Major opportunities of the coming years are perceived in production specialization, which will allow competitiveness to be increased in the international procurement market. The production volume released from the specialization is planned to be sold out to other companies.
A major part of providing customer experience of superior quality is launching the Vérenni umbrella brand. The new umbrella brand will consolidate the different fashion collections to form an integrated whole, transform the loyalty program and advertising language as well as bring the social responsibility aspect into focus. More focus is at the same time given to linking the traditional retail concept to e-commerce.
The launch of the umbrella brand will optimize the company’s current portfolio consisting of nine fashion and sales channel brands. Multibrand stores and e-store are the first to go under Vérenni name. In the coming years, Vérenni is to become the leading brand in the mainstream segment of Baltika’s fashion brand portfolio, catering for the needs of current loyal customers of Mosaic and Bastion as well as reaching for new customer groups with its products. At the same time, Monton, Ivo Nikkolo and Baltman will continue in the premium and fashion segment.
Changes in store portfolio will be implemented on the basis of the brand portfolio, and new store formats will enter the market, which include the testing of the showroom and the pop-up store formats. The first Vérenni flagship store to introduce the new concept will open this autumn in T1 Mall of Tallinn.
Meelis Milder
Chairman of the Management Board
meelis.milder@baltikagroup.com
