Barclays 2003 Annual Report Download - page 7

Organisational Fitness
The final strategic priority is organisational fitness which, for us,
encompasses all the key competencies essential to execute our strategy
and deliver top quartile financial performance on a sustained basis.
These include information technology, risk management, human
resources, marketing, brand management, productivity and value-based
management disciplines. We believe that strong execution capabilities
underpin superior performance.
Two examples worthy of note in the human resources area are our
ground breaking new staff pension scheme, afterwork, and the
agreement with our union partner UNIFI to manage the impact on
employees of outsourcing. Both demonstrate our firm commitment
to becoming an employer of choice without compromising our ability
to drive the business forward.
We have adopted value-based decision making in everything that we
do and at all levels in the business – from the development of strategy,
to planning, risk management and reward systems. Overall, we have
benefited not just from more consistency and clarity in our strategic
development, but also from a stronger sense of accountability
throughout Barclays.
Committing to standards and goals has been an important element of
the value-based management process. We believe in the galvanising
effect of stretching goals, and they have served us well. It is no
coincidence that cumulative economic profit for the goal period 2000
to 2003, while short of our original goal, was double the economic
profit delivered over the prior four-year period.
We have embraced another set of stretching goals for 2004 to 2007. Our
primary aim, to achieve top quartile total shareholder return, remains
unchanged. In addition, we will continue to have economic profit and
efficiency goals internally to support the value creation process. We
believe that, given current and expected market conditions, a compound
annual growth rate in economic profit in the range of 10% to 13%,
which would translate into cumulative economic profit generation
of £7.3 billion to £7.8 billion, will be required to deliver top quartile
shareholder return over the 2004 to 2007 goal period. Delivering
strong results on a sustained basis requires world class efficiency
and all businesses will be expected to meet or exceed top quartile
performance relative to comparable peers in their sector. We will
continue to report progress relative to these goals regularly.
In summary, Barclays performed strongly in 2003. Our thanks go to our
employees worldwide who have coped with continuous change, done
more business with existing customers and acquired new customers.
They have delivered improved services across the board to the customers
we are privileged to serve.
Matthew W. Barrett
Group Chief Executive
Barclays PLC Annual Report 2003 5