INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW WITH Pierre Anjolras
PRESIDENT OF VINCI CONSTRUCTION
« WE HAVE A CLEAR ENVIRONMENTAL AMBITION, AND IT IS FULLY INTEGRATED INTO OUR CORPORATE STRATEGY AND VISION: BUILD BETTER TOGETHER.»
What is your view on the events around the world in 2022?
_ Who could have imagined that the economic shockwaves from the war in Ukraine would be so sweeping and so fierce? All around the world, but particularly throughout Europe, we had to deal with raw-material and energy-resource shortages, rampant and random price increase – especially for energy and materials – and collapsing transport and supply chains.
Our countries in central Europe, the closest to Ukraine, also felt the war very close to home.
How did your companies react?
_ Our 1,300 business units managed to find workarounds at each worksite, on each project, to continue to meet our customers’ needs. Beyond our teams’ agility, what puts VINCI Construction in a class by itself and bolsters its resilience is its model, which allows for extensive market coverage.
Tell us about your performance in 2022?
_ Notwithstanding the headwinds, thanks to that agility, we managed to increase our revenue by 11% to €29.3 billion while growing our operating margin to 3.8% of that revenue. Business outside France now accounts for 55% of our total revenue. Our order book also grew despite a stricter selection policy – we are now aiming for contracts with price-revision clauses to contain increases in materials prices and energy and labour costs.
How did you step up that agility in 2022?
_ We finished rolling out our new, clear organization based on three pillars: Major Projects, Specialty Networks and Proximity Networks. These organization in distinct business lines are now up and running in our various countries. That is the case in the United Kingdom, Czech Republic and France, which in turn includes four divisions: Building France, Civil Engineering France, Road France and Networks France. This organisation is focused on leveraging operational excellence for the benefit of our customers and allows each trade to focus on its own performance while fostering synergy in expertise and innovation, in order to effectively support the transformation of construction markets and the renewal of construction methods.