Strategy & Values
'Playing to win' strategy
Our ‘Playing to Win’ strategy aims to address a broader market and pursue a new vision: KION Group is ‘The Supply Chain Solutions Company’. Our people’s passion is innovating, automating, and orchestrating solutions for our customers’ supply chains. KION brands keep the world moving.
Objectives of the new strategy
The strategy focuses on driving profitable growth for all stakeholders by concentrating on respective markets and expanding the portfolio with additional solutions, technologies, and services. The goals include achieving a double-digit profitability margin, significant revenue growth, increased customer and employee satisfaction, and improved occupational health and safety.
The KION Group is dedicated to helping customers implement automation solutions customized to their technological environments and specific requirements. This strategy meets the increasing need for sophisticated, cost-effective, and adaptable solutions to address global market challenges.
The strategy intends for the Industrial Trucks & Services and Supply Chain Solutions segments to complement each other more effectively, unlocking market potential based on the degree of automation and customer requirements. The KION Group differentiates between
- manual applications,
- start-up automation of individual processes,
- advanced automation of related processes, and
- integrated system solutions for full process automation.
Three core focus themes of our strategy
The KION Group has defined three core focus themes to implement its strategy with clarity of purpose.
Innovation and Growth
The ‘Innovation and Growth’ theme focuses on strengthening the KION Group’s existing business in its two operating segments by targeting specific products and customer segments. This includes positioning the Group in the growing market for automation solutions, supporting sustainability strategies with targeted products and solutions, and expanding the portfolio. A key priority is the implementation and deployment of innovative technologies and solutions.
The Industrial Trucks & Services segment aims to achieve organic growth across all regions by further differentiating KION brands within various customer segments and enhancing the regional production and sales network. In the service business, the focus will be on systematic lifecycle management and expanding service coverage.
For the Supply Chain Solutions segment, efforts will concentrate on improving project execution and expanding customer service in key sectors. Additionally, growth potential in stand-alone automation solutions will be unlocked through a targeted cross-segment sales approach.
Sustainable Performance
The ‘Sustainable Performance’ theme focuses on improving the KION Group’s profitability. The KION Group aims to increase the efficiency of its production network through a holistic risk and capacity management. In addition, cost reductions are to be realised in direct and indirect purchasing. Consistent product cost optimisation is intended to strengthen competitiveness in the various customer segments.
Key contributions will come from the KION Group’s CTO organization, which aims to shorten new innovation time-to-market periods and reduce product costs through improved development processes, increased internal synergies, and a comprehensive ecosystem of suppliers and partners. Cross-brand collaboration in product development, such as connected trucks and AMRs, will be intensified.
The ongoing Business Transformation project, which harmonizes processes, data, and systems across the Group, will further enhance cross-segment cooperation, achieve efficiency gains, and create economies of scale.
Organizational Development
The ‘Organizational Development’ theme focuses on refining and applying groupwide leadership principles and behaviors embedded in business and HR processes to support the ‘Playing to Win’ strategy. The HR strategy will continuously expand training and continuing professional development opportunities, enabling employees to enhance their skills, knowledge, and expertise. This will be complemented by talent development programs, such as the KION Management Trainee Program, helping the Company position itself as an employer of choice and attract top talent.
The KION Group is also introducing ‘winning behaviors’ to strengthen collaboration across the Group and segments. These behaviors will complement the existing KION values of integrity, collaboration, courage, and excellence.
‘Winning behaviors’ will establish exemplary behavior and methods to be implemented across the Group, creating significant added value. These initiatives are designed to keep the KION Group’s workforce at the forefront of industry knowledge and expertise, enabling dynamic operation at all levels and ensuring success in a rapidly changing environment.
Our shared KION Group values
As a pioneer in our sector, it is important to us to be a role model, both internally and externally. Our corporate values – integrity, collaboration, courage, excellence – play a crucial role in this and influence our individual behavior and our interactions with colleagues, superiors, employees, customers, suppliers, and applicants.
Over 1,000 employees were consulted during the development of our shared values. Colleagues at all hierarchical levels and across all business units and regions were involved in the survey. This is how we ensured that our values reflect the entire KION Group. We firmly believe that this is the only way to ensure that our values are and remain an integral part of our everyday work.
Our Values in Detail
Integrity
- We do what is right.
- Our actions are guided by standards of sustainability, compliance, and ethics.
- We keep our promises and practice what we preach.
- We stick to our agreements.
- We are committed to honest, open, and timely communications.
Collaboration
- We believe in one another.
- We approach our tasks with a strong and collaborative team spirit.
- We share ideas openly and strive for full commitment.
- We establish strong long-term relationships.
- We treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves.
Courage
- We shape change and innovation.
- We promote new ideas.
- We appreciate diversity and a wide range of opinions.
- We rely on new solutions and take calculated risks.
- We take an active role in achieving our shared targets.
Excellence
- We create exceptional value for our customers.
- We shape our sector through innovation.
- We understand our customers’ requirements and create superior solutions and services.
- We are continually improving our efficiency and reducing complexity.
- We invest in our employees and in technology to ensure our future success.
See how the corporate value of "excellence" is anchored in the actions of our employees.
