Business strategy

Reputation

Our ability to develop our business will be influenced by our reputation. A good reputation is often the starting point for good stakeholder relationships on which business growth can be achieved.

By staying focused, motivated and innovative we are confident we will be able to continue to supply our customers with an excellent service at the right price and, by satisfying our customers, we provide a platform on which we will build, expand and develop our business.

NWL’s corporate objectives are:

• to deliver industry leading customer service;
• to be the most efficient water company;
• to be recognised as a great company to work for;
• to be the company of choice for investors; and
• to protect and enhance the natural environment.

Looking to the future

NWL consulted key stakeholders before publishing ‘Looking to the future’, our long term operational strategy for the next 25 years. We published different versions for each of our operational areas and they have been well received by a range of stakeholders. They are available on our websites at www.nwl.co.uk and www.eswater.co.uk.

In our strategy, we set out our long term aims for NWL alongside intermediate targets for the period 2010 to 2015 for the key areas of:

• customer satisfaction;
• water quality;
• availability of water;
• waste water services;
• sustainability, the environment and climate change;
• finance; and
• employees.

Our long term operational strategy was produced to help inform our plans for the period 2010-15. The strategy builds on our achievements of the past 20 years and re-affirms our commitment to long term planning and investment to deliver value to all our stakeholders.

We identified three key challenges for the future:

• sustaining and, where appropriate, improving services while keeping bills affordable;
• maintaining healthy and stable finances to ensure we can continue to borrow money to meet the investment needed in the business; and
• responding to climate change by further reducing greenhouse gas emissions and future-proofing our operations.

Last year, we developed our plans for the period 2010-15 in support of our long term strategy and submitted initially a Draft and then, in April this year, our Final Business Plan to Ofwat. Part A of the Final Business Plan is available on our websites.