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2011 Sustainability Report
LETTER FROM
THE GENERAL MANAGER
The year 2011 has been the first exercice of the Abacus 2011-2012 Strategic Plan,
a year in which we have set ourselves the goal to improve the service we offer to
our customer members with the implication of our people, as well as to combine
our sustainable growth and the fact of being ready to achieve future challenges.
A consumer goods distribution company specialized in education and culture
also suffers for the effects of the reduction in consumption and the general
decrease of the families and educational institutions average income. Never-
theless, we have managed to compensate this situation by implementing saving
and expenses reduction measures with the effort and commitment of our
employee members. These actions have made possible the implementation of
a self-controlled expenses policy and the reaching of a turnover of 94.58 million
euros at the closing of the fiscal year.
At the end of 2011, Abacus cooperative had more than 727,000 consumer mem-
bers and 477 employee members. Besides, the cooperative investments were
focused on the implementation of a new management system and the opening
of two new establishments - one in Sant Ildefons Market in Cornellà de Llobre-
gat, and another in Perú street, in the 22@ district in Barcelona, where the new
outlet shop is located-.
Throughout the year 2011, we have also worked to find new cooperation lines with
other companies and organizations, specially those sharing our values, style and
business principles. An example of this is the innovative comercial exchange
programme which we started with La Fageda cooperative. On the one hand, La
Fageda launched the “racó Abacus” (Abacus corner) in their shop in the Visitors
Information Desk in Santa Pau, in La Garrotxa region. On the other hand, we offer
yoghurts and other La Fageda dairy products in a new space in our shop at Còrse-
ga street, in Barcelona.
Our horizon is to encourage the creativity and to strive to anticipate the chan-
ging world we are living through. This can only be done by assuming risks but
without exposing the Abacus project to risks, either in its economical or social
dimension, and being always close to the members. This is the approach under
which now we can see the initial fruits of the launching of the Docus Platform
-already used in 40 schools-, and the sale of more than 10,000 ebooks in the
Abacus virtual store.
All these data allow us to maintain our leadership in Catalonia regarding book
distribution, particularly in children’s literature and textbooks. Besides, they
enable us to be a company of reference in the sector of educational products
and goods, which is actually one of our main goals.
Finally, for yet another year, I have to thank the consumer members for their
participation in the project, as every day they show renewed confidence in our
establishments, goods and services. I would also like to dedicate special thanks
to the employee members for always taking into account the collective benefit
when facing the challenges and sacrifices that led us to achieve such positive
results.
Many thanks to all.
Miquel Àngel Oliva
,
General Manager