Customers today are making better informed choices, increasingly rewarding companies with genuine corporate responsibility practices. TeliaSonera’s services drive growth, competitiveness and contribute to a more open and inclusive society. We believe that corporate responsibility must be integrated into our day-to-day work to be effective.
Governance of CR is integrated in the governance framework of TeliaSonera. Adhering to global principles and standards, we act locally to address the relevant market risks, challenges and opportunities as part of our daily operations. It is our objective to be a clean company and a good corporate citizen.
In 2009, we took steps to re-emphasize our global commitment to corporate responsibility by introducing a group wide Code of Ethics and Conduct.
We have improved the transparency of our CR work by including all majority-owned operations in group CR reporting and engage in regular stakeholder dialogues.
As a result, TeliaSonera has regained the position in the FTSE4Good responsible investment index, confirmed the position in Swedbank Robur fund and regained inclusion in Banco Ethical fund. Furthermore, the CR requirements for suppliers introduced in 2008, now cover more than 70 percent of the Group Sourcing purchasing volume.
Aligning CR priorities with business goals
A comprehensive stakeholder and materiality analysis performed during the year helped to identify future CR priorities in order to address the most material issues to our business. The areas that were identified as the most material for TeliaSonera to address in our CR work were:
- Long-term sustainable growth
- Customer privacy and network integrity
- Leadership and employee competence
- Fair business practices
- Digital inclusion
- Protecting children online
Adding value to customers
TeliaSonera’s vision is to be a world class service company and contribute to a world with better opportunities for people and businesses. To achieve this, we must deliver high-quality, safe services that offer good value for money.
Our long-term goal is to be among the best rated service companies with highly satisfied customers. If measured by the European Performance Satisfaction Index (EPSI), this equates to reaching a score of 75, but we have set our long-term target even higher, at 77.
Currently the group average result is 67.6. In 2009, we focused on improving monitoring systems to better understand our customers’ needs and to improve the quality of our customer service.
Employees are key to our success
TeliaSonera depends on the skills, knowledge and experience of our employees to ensure continued success, and therefore we put a lot of effort into recruitment, employee training and competence development. In 2009 the Employee Commitment Score (ECS), group average score, exceeded our target of 67 and reached 68, an all time high result and a continuing upward trend.
At the same time, TeliaSonera completed a 2 year cost savings program, with restructuring processes affecting some 2.900 employees in Finland and Sweden. TeliaSonera offered generous conditions to the employees who were made redundant and supported them in finding new jobs outside the company.
Throughout the year we continued implementing the performance management process, which helps to promote and optimize performance and progress. Working with performance management in a structured way will ensure that every employee understands how s/he can contribute to business success. It stimulates motivation and offers opportunities for employees to develop and grow, which in turn help to move the organization forward.
Sustainable services help to tackle climate change
Modern communication technology can offer environmentally sound alternatives in the day-to-day lives of people and companies. TeliaSonera strives to minimize the environmental impact of our own operations while we can help customers by providing solutions to reduce their environmental impact.
Adapting to different conditions in our markets, TeliaSonera promotes environmental awareness and invests in modern technology to have energy-efficient solutions and maintain our networks available for customers 24/7.
In 2009, we took the first steps in expanding the environmental performance reporting to include our majority-owned operations. We also substituted our own business travel significantly by increasing the use of tele conferencing and videoconferencing.
In Finland and Sweden, the number of videoconference meetings tripled, travel costs decreased by 43 percent and as a result of this, the CO2 emissions were reduced by 32 percent. In our wholly-owned operations, we continued to report our environmental performance in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), where TeliaSonera ranked number one in the Nordic region and number two globally among telecom operators.