Kesko
Encyclopedia
Kesko is a Finnish
retail
ing conglomerate
. It is engaged in the food
trade, the home and specialty goods trade, the building
and home improvement
trade, and the car
and machinery
trade. It also has subsidiaries in Sweden
, Norway
, Estonia
, Latvia
, Lithuania
, Russia
, and Belarus
.
companies
that had been founded by retailers were merged in October
1940.
The new Kesko company
started operating at the beginning of 1941. The need to purchase goods for the shareholder
-retailers and to support their business operations and start cooperation
among them resulted in the forming of the K-retailer group.
By the end of the 1940s
, Kesko's sales amounted to about 15 billion old Finnish markkas (equivalent to EUR 580 million in 2010), which was about 12% of the overall sales of the central companies operating in the Finnish trading sector.
. Kesko Food's main functions include the centralised purchasing
of products
, selection management, logistics
, and the development of chain concepts and the store network.
Kesko Food manages the K-food store chains, which are K-citymarket, K-supermarket, K-market and K-extra. There were 1,007 K-food stores in Finland in 2010. The K-food store network is the most comprehensive in Finland and 51% of Finns live less than a kilometre
away from a K-food store.
Kesko Food's private brands
include Pirkka and Euro Shopper
.
Kesko Food’s subsidiary
Kespro is the leading wholesaler
in the Finnish HoReCa
business.
Finland, Indoor's Asko and Sotka, Musta Pörssi and Kenkäkesko.
Kesko's home and specialty goods trade operates in the clothing
, home, sports
, leisure
, home technology
, entertainment and furniture
product lines.
The most widely recognised chains
are:
service provider
which retails building
, renovation
and home improvement
supplies in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and Belarus.
Rautakesko manages and develops the K-rauta, Rautia, K-maatalous, Byggmakker, Senukai and OMA retail chains and B2B sales
in its operating area.
Rautakesko's main functions include the centralised development of chain selections, centralised purchasing and logistics, and the development of chain concepts and the store network.
All stores in Finland are owned by retailer entrepreneurs. There are also approximately 100 retailer-owned stores in Norway.
Rautakesko's international business model
combines the category management, purchasing, logistics, information system
control and network improvements of the company's chains which operate in different countries.
VV-Auto and Konekesko represent the leading brands
in their market area and are responsible for the sales and after-sales services of these brands either through their own or dealer network
. The dealer network is complemented by a network of contract service centres.
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
retail
Retail
Retail consists of the sale of physical goods or merchandise from a fixed location, such as a department store, boutique or kiosk, or by mail, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser. Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. Purchasers may be...
ing conglomerate
Conglomerate (company)
A conglomerate is a combination of two or more corporations engaged in entirely different businesses that fall under one corporate structure , usually involving a parent company and several subsidiaries. Often, a conglomerate is a multi-industry company...
. It is engaged in the food
Food
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...
trade, the home and specialty goods trade, the building
Construction
In the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of human multitasking...
and home improvement
Home improvement
Home improvement, home renovation or remodeling is the process of renovating or making additions to one's home.-Types of home improvement:...
trade, and the car
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
and machinery
Machine
A machine manages power to accomplish a task, examples include, a mechanical system, a computing system, an electronic system, and a molecular machine. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work...
trade. It also has subsidiaries in Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
, Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
, Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, and Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
.
History
Kesko was formed when four regional wholesalingWholesale
Wholesaling, jobbing, or distributing is defined as the sale of goods or merchandise to retailers, to industrial, commercial, institutional, or other professional business users, or to other wholesalers and related subordinated services...
companies
Company
A company is a form of business organization. It is an association or collection of individual real persons and/or other companies, who each provide some form of capital. This group has a common purpose or focus and an aim of gaining profits. This collection, group or association of persons can be...
that had been founded by retailers were merged in October
October
October is the tenth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of seven months with a length of 31 days. The eighth month in the old Roman calendar, October retained its name after January and February were inserted into the calendar that had originally been created by the...
1940.
The new Kesko company
Company
A company is a form of business organization. It is an association or collection of individual real persons and/or other companies, who each provide some form of capital. This group has a common purpose or focus and an aim of gaining profits. This collection, group or association of persons can be...
started operating at the beginning of 1941. The need to purchase goods for the shareholder
Shareholder
A shareholder or stockholder is an individual or institution that legally owns one or more shares of stock in a public or private corporation. Shareholders own the stock, but not the corporation itself ....
-retailers and to support their business operations and start cooperation
Cooperation
Cooperation or co-operation is the process of working or acting together. In its simplest form it involves things working in harmony, side by side, while in its more complicated forms, it can involve something as complex as the inner workings of a human being or even the social patterns of a...
among them resulted in the forming of the K-retailer group.
By the end of the 1940s
1940s
File:1940s decade montage.png|Above title bar: events which happened during World War II : From left to right: Troops in an LCVP landing craft approaching "Omaha" Beach on "D-Day"; Adolf Hitler visits Paris, soon after the Battle of France; The Holocaust occurred during the war as Nazi Germany...
, Kesko's sales amounted to about 15 billion old Finnish markkas (equivalent to EUR 580 million in 2010), which was about 12% of the overall sales of the central companies operating in the Finnish trading sector.
Food trade
Kesko Food is the leading operator in the Finnish grocery tradeGrocery trading
Grocery trading is an industry, historically not well known by the general public, in which grocery "traders" or grocery trading companies buy and sell blue chip grocery store items such as Cheerios and Alpo amongst the nation's largest supermarket chains based on price discrepancies from chain to...
. Kesko Food's main functions include the centralised purchasing
Purchasing
Purchasing refers to a business or organization attempting for acquiring goods or services to accomplish the goals of the enterprise. Though there are several organizations that attempt to set standards in the purchasing process, processes can vary greatly between organizations...
of products
Product
- Business :*Product , an item that ideally satisfies a market's want or need**Product , a deliverable or set of deliverables that contribute to a business solution**Nanoproduct, a product that has been enhanced with nanotechnology...
, selection management, logistics
Logistics
Logistics is the management of the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of destination in order to meet the requirements of customers or corporations. Logistics involves the integration of information, transportation, inventory, warehousing, material handling, and packaging, and...
, and the development of chain concepts and the store network.
Kesko Food manages the K-food store chains, which are K-citymarket, K-supermarket, K-market and K-extra. There were 1,007 K-food stores in Finland in 2010. The K-food store network is the most comprehensive in Finland and 51% of Finns live less than a kilometre
Kilometre
The kilometre is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one thousand metres and is therefore exactly equal to the distance travelled by light in free space in of a second...
away from a K-food store.
Kesko Food's private brands
Private brand
Private branding is when a large distribution channel member , buys from a manufacturer in bulk and puts its own name on the product. This strategy is, with some exceptions, generally only practical when the retailer does very high levels of volume...
include Pirkka and Euro Shopper
Euro Shopper
Euro Shopper is a discount brand of everyday commodities developed and marketed by AMS Sourcing B.V.. It was introduced to the market in 1996 and Euro Shopper branded products have been sold by some of the AMS members in different countries in Europe ever since.Euro Shopper products mostly include...
.
Kesko Food’s subsidiary
Subsidiary
A subsidiary company, subsidiary, or daughter company is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock. The subsidiary can be a company, corporation, or limited liability company. In some cases it is a...
Kespro is the leading wholesaler
Wholesale
Wholesaling, jobbing, or distributing is defined as the sale of goods or merchandise to retailers, to industrial, commercial, institutional, or other professional business users, or to other wholesalers and related subordinated services...
in the Finnish HoReCa
Horeca
Horeca is a business term which refers to a sector of the food service industry, to establishments which prepare and serve food and beverages. The term is a syllabic abbreviation of the words Hotel/Restaurant/Café....
business.
Home and specialty good trade
The home and specialty goods trade comprises Anttila and Kodin Ykkönen, K-citymarket's home and speciality goods, IntersportIntersport
The Intersport Group is an international sporting goods retailer. IIC-Intersport International Corporation is its purchasing division.The headquarters are located in the capital of Switzerland, Bern....
Finland, Indoor's Asko and Sotka, Musta Pörssi and Kenkäkesko.
Kesko's home and specialty goods trade operates in the clothing
Clothing
Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...
, home, sports
Sportswear
Sportswear or activewear is clothing, including footwear, worn for sport or physical exercise. Sport-specific clothing is worn for most sports and physical exercise, for practical, comfort or safety reasons....
, leisure
Leisure
Leisure, or free time, is time spent away from business, work, and domestic chores. It is also the periods of time before or after necessary activities such as eating, sleeping and, where it is compulsory, education....
, home technology
Domestic technology
Domestic technology is the incorporation of applied science into the home. There are many aspects of domestic technology. On one level, there are home appliances, home automation and other devices commonly used in the home, such as clothes dryers and washing machines. These things are itemized...
, entertainment and furniture
Furniture
Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
product lines.
The most widely recognised chains
Chain store
Chain stores are retail outlets that share a brand and central management, and usually have standardized business methods and practices. These characteristics also apply to chain restaurants and some service-oriented chain businesses. In retail, dining and many service categories, chain businesses...
are:
- Anttila, which sells general consumer durablesDurable goodIn economics, a durable good or a hard good is a good that does not quickly wear out, or more specifically, one that yields utility over time rather than being completely consumed in one use. Items like bricks or jewellery could be considered perfectly durable goods, because they should...
. - Kodin Ykkönen, a subsidiary of Anttila, specialises in interior designInterior designInterior design describes a group of various yet related projects that involve turning an interior space into an effective setting for the range of human activities are to take place there. An interior designer is someone who conducts such projects...
. - Intersport, the Finnish market leaderDominance (economics)Market dominance is a measure of the strength of a brand, product, service, or firm, relative to competitive offerings. There is often a geographic element to the competitive landscape...
in sports equipment. - Musta Pörssi and Konebox, which sell electronicsElectronicsElectronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...
and household appliances. - K-Kenkä and Andiamo, which are shoeShoeA shoe is an item of footwear intended to protect and comfort the human foot while doing various activities. Shoes are also used as an item of decoration. The design of shoes has varied enormously through time and from culture to culture, with appearance originally being tied to function...
retailers.
Building and home improvement trade
Rautakesko is an internationalInternational
----International mostly means something that involves more than one country. The term international as a word means involvement of, interaction between or encompassing more than one nation, or generally beyond national boundaries...
service provider
Service provider
A service provider is an entity that provides services to other entities. Usually, this refers to a business that provides subscription or web service to other businesses or individuals. Examples of these services include Internet access, Mobile phone operators, and web application hosting...
which retails building
Construction
In the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of human multitasking...
, renovation
Renovation
Renovation is the process of improving a structure. Two prominent types of renovations are commercial and residential.-Process:The process of a renovation, however complex, can usually be broken down into several processes...
and home improvement
Home improvement
Home improvement, home renovation or remodeling is the process of renovating or making additions to one's home.-Types of home improvement:...
supplies in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and Belarus.
Rautakesko manages and develops the K-rauta, Rautia, K-maatalous, Byggmakker, Senukai and OMA retail chains and B2B sales
Business-to-business
Business-to-business describes commerce transactions between businesses, such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler, or between a wholesaler and a retailer...
in its operating area.
Rautakesko's main functions include the centralised development of chain selections, centralised purchasing and logistics, and the development of chain concepts and the store network.
All stores in Finland are owned by retailer entrepreneurs. There are also approximately 100 retailer-owned stores in Norway.
Rautakesko's international business model
Business model
A business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value...
combines the category management, purchasing, logistics, information system
Information system
An information system - or application landscape - is any combination of information technology and people's activities that support operations, management, and decision making. In a very broad sense, the term information system is frequently used to refer to the interaction between people,...
control and network improvements of the company's chains which operate in different countries.
Car and machinery trade
The car and machinery trade segment consists of VV-Auto and Konekesko with their subsidiaries.- VV-Auto imports and markets VolkswagenVolkswagenVolkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer and is the original and biggest-selling marque of the Volkswagen Group, which now also owns the Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT, and Škoda marques and the truck manufacturer Scania.Volkswagen means "people's car" in German, where it is...
, AudiAudiAudi AG is a German automobile manufacturer, from supermini to crossover SUVs in various body styles and price ranges that are marketed under the Audi brand , positioned as the premium brand within the Volkswagen Group....
and SEATSEATSEAT, S.A. is a Spanish automobile manufacturer founded on May 9, 1950 by the Instituto Nacional de Industria , a state-owned industrial holding company....
passenger cars, and Volkswagen commercial vehiclesCommercial vehicleA commercial vehicle is a type of motor vehicle that may be used for transporting goods or passengers. The European Union defines "commercial motor vehicle" as any motorised road vehicle, which by its type of construction and equipment is designed for, and capable of transporting, whether for...
in Finland, and it also importsImportThe term import is derived from the conceptual meaning as to bring in the goods and services into the port of a country. The buyer of such goods and services is referred to an "importer" who is based in the country of import whereas the overseas based seller is referred to as an "exporter". Thus...
and marketsMarketingMarketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
Seat passenger cars in Estonia and Latvia. VV-Auto is also engaged in car retailing and provides after-sales servicesCustomer serviceCustomer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.According to Turban et al. , “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer...
at its own outlets in the Greater HelsinkiGreater HelsinkiGreater Helsinki and the smaller Helsinki Metropolitan Area or Capital Region refer to two regions of different size surrounding Helsinki, the capital of Finland...
area and TurkuTurkuTurku is a city situated on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River. It is located in the region of Finland Proper. It is believed that Turku came into existence during the end of the 13th century which makes it the oldest city in Finland...
. - Konekesko is a service company specialising in the import, marketing and after-sales services of recreational machinery, constructionConstructionIn the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of human multitasking...
and materials handling machineryMaterial handling equipmentMaterial handling equipment is all equipment that relates to the movement, storage, control and protection of materials, goods and products throughout the process of manufacturing, distribution, consumption and disposal...
, agricultural machineryAgricultural machineryAgricultural machinery is machinery used in the operation of an agricultural area or farm.-Hand tools:The first person to turn from the hunting and gathering lifestyle to farming probably did so by using his bare hands, and perhaps some sticks or stones. Tools such as knives, scythes, and wooden...
, and busesBusA bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...
and trucksTruckA truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...
. Konekesko operates in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia. Konekesko arranges the manufacture of and sells Yamarin boats in Finland and exports them to several European countries and Russia.
VV-Auto and Konekesko represent the leading brands
Brand
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...
in their market area and are responsible for the sales and after-sales services of these brands either through their own or dealer network
Franchising
Franchising is the practice of using another firm's successful business model. The word 'franchise' is of anglo-French derivation - from franc- meaning free, and is used both as a noun and as a verb....
. The dealer network is complemented by a network of contract service centres.